> It is easy to forget sometimes, when you have one oppressor close to home, that the villain of times gone by was not quite the paragon of fairer prospect you recall it to be. As sages of morality and more learned histories should serve to remind us, just because the banners changed and there is a new throne doesn’t mean the old regime was suddenly less horrible, or that the new one is likely to be much better. This is doubly true when they are both still fighting like rats in a sack over who gets to be king of the rats, and who gets to own the sack like these are two different questions.

  -From the personal writings of Shu Tian, 3rd Gen. Headmaster of the Shu Pavilion

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~ LU JI, BLUE WATER CITY ~

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Lu Ji shook his head and turned away from looking at the shifting stars overhead. It was a remarkably select group who were standing around this rather secluded courtyard deep within the Blue Water Pavilion, but most of them were much more ill at ease than he was. Few people got to meet the proper powers behind the Bureaus except through the occasional communication handed down from on high, but now two were arriving at once, and both for somewhat different reasons. Han Ouyeng, the Authority Seat of Eastern Azure’s Hunter Bureau was returning, almost certainly because of the colossal mess with the Hunter Bureau’s jade talisman network being co-opted by the Astrology Bureau. As to their other visitor, Fan Daiyu, ‘Dao Mother Black Jade’ of the Azure Astral Pagoda, while it was officially stated that she was here to coordinate the recapture of the Black Cage escapees, his personal hunch was that her presence really related to the 'gift' to the Azure Astral Emperor and the wave of provincial disorder events were continuing to provoke.

“Clearly, the idea that the Imperial Authority can do as it likes on the Eastern Continent has somebody vexed up there,” the head of the Military Bureau for Blue Water Province, War Marshal Fang Qiu, who stood next to him, muttered.

“There was always going to be some response,” Ling Yusheng, Governor of Blue Water City and current Patriarch of the Ling clan, pointed out with a dark scowl at Fang Qiu.

Behind him, Ling Yusheng’s own wife, Lady Zhenzhen stood silently, along with Ling Fei and Ling Jiang.

Interestingly, Sheng Jiang Mei, the Envoy from Shan Lai was not here though, despite having remained in Blue Water City. He supposed that was because she probably outranked even someone like Fan Daiyu, in a formal sense, with her appointment to that role originating with the Bureau of the Imperial Chancellor of Shan Lai.

“I am surprised that the Duke is not here,” the Head of the Hunter Bureau, Fang Hai noted, looking around at those gathered here.

“He is currently directing the efforts of the three Provincial Generals upriver, towards West Flower Picking Town,” Ling Jiang shrugged a little helplessly.

“I was not informed of that?” Fang Hai muttered.

He glanced sideways at Fang Hai. It was hard to feel sorry for him though, because half this mess was his fault in a bunch of ways. If Fang Hai hadn’t been more interested in politicking around in Yun Shan, buttering up the Ruan, Yuan and Gwan clans for the last few months, he would have been on hand to push back against all the insanity that was going on here. In all likelihood, he expected to be dealing with a new head of the Provincial Hunter Bureau before the night was out and Fang Hai to be handing out missions to trainees on Western Azure for the next few centuries or so.

“Because you were too busy trying to convince the Ruan Clan that we don’t know where their Saintess is,” Fang Qiu scowled.

“We don’t know where their Saintess is,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but they don’t know that,” Fang Hai retorted sourly. “They still think she’s holed up in West Flower Picking Town. They even sent a group there under the cover of this turbulence to throw monkeyshit.”

“…”

-Did they now? he sighed, as another little piece of the aftermath of the inland unrest slipped into place.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Ling Jiang frowning slightly at that 'revelation' as well. Fang Qiu, however, just scowled and said nothing.

-Does that mean that the reports about Misty Jasmine Inn are being kept under wraps by Ling Tao and Ha Shi Xiaolian? he mused.

The reported involvement of Easten affiliated mercenaries with the Five Fans up there took a decidedly different edge if the Ruan clan were also trying to play games in West Flower Picking Town.

“Which you would know, were you not constantly running around letting those around Cao Leyang do your job,” Fang Hai added unnecessarily.

“—Enough!” the final person stood in the courtyard cut in drily, stilling the rest of them into silence.

Cloaked and veiled in a beautiful green and white gown and cloak—Fan Mei, the reclusive Sect Mistress of the Orchid Pavilion made for an alluring and beautiful image of serenity in the starlit courtyard. She was also, after him, probably the strongest person here, being a Quasi-Dao Eternal. The Orchid Pavilion was the other principal power in Blue Water City, ostensibly the foremost power now that the Blue Gate School was to all intents a puppet. Only those in this courtyard also knew she was an inheritance disciple of Hua Xiaomei—the founding sage of the Dewdrop Sage Sect. Probably only he knew though, courtesy of his Fairy Aunt, that the Dewdrop Sage Sect had itself started off life in this part of the world over an aeonspan ago before relocating to the Western Continent for various reasons. As to why she was here, now—that was basically to meet her teacher’s teacher and give her respects as it was Dao Mother Black Jade who had reputedly taken Hua Xiaomei under her wing when she first ascended from a mortal world to alight in this realm.

“We brothers showed something discourteous to Fairy Mei,” Fang Qui murmured bowing slightly in apology in her direction.

Fang Hai shot his half-brother a sideways glance and said nothing.

Fan Mei meanwhile just shook her head and nodded upwards. “You don’t want to be bickering like mothers-in-law when they arrive, do you?”

The sky shifted subtly as they all refocused their attention on it, the stars occluding faintly as the spatial channel finally opened. Grand teleportation was a bit different from normal teleportation, especially teleportation across the vast void of space between here and Shan Lai, where the turbulent currents of the maelstrom around the four Azure Realms made passage in and out difficult at the best of times. It couldn’t be initiated from here for starters, and unlike the lesser method which could bend space to connect two points, it created an actual spatial channel between the two destinations, pacifying the space in between. It was a feat only possible for a Worldly Venerate in this instance.

They all bowed as four figures appeared in the middle of the unassuming design in the centre of the paved courtyard.

“We give respect to Dao Mother Black Jade! … We give respect to Lord Han!”

The other two figures, garbed in deep blue robes with blue masks in the shape of flood dragons covering their faces, just nodded and took up positions behind the woman in a deep blue and gold robe, who walked off the Grand Teleportation Formation and nodded slightly to them.

“I see the Ling Clan still holds this part of the Eastern Continent in its grip,” she remarked dryly, taking in their group.

“We serve the Astral Authority!” all the members of the Ling Clan said saluting appropriately, even if that was... not really the case these days.

“I am sorry I am late… teacher,” another voice murmured as a shifting figure swirled into the courtyard.

“You were late for your own Immortal Ascension; it does not surprise me that you are late now, little Xiaomei,” Dao Mother Black Jade said, drily greeting the newcomer.

All of them turned a touch mechanically and bowed to Lady Hua Xiaomei, who was now standing calm as you like in the courtyard. He surreptitiously glanced sideways at Fan Mei, who he was certain was responsible for this. She, for her part though, just bowed politely to both her own teacher and her teacher’s teacher, giving nothing away.

-Yet another terrifying scion of these lands returns to the roost, he thought drily, because he had seen the last visitor to this supposedly secluded courtyard now, seated on a rock at the edge of the pond nibbling on some grass.

-Ju Shan.

“You are looking as dour as ever, little Daiyu,” Ju Shan murmured.

“You are looking as slutty as ever, little goose,” Fan Daiyu snarked back.

“If you keep dissing my attire I’ll go crying to my Senior Sister,” Ju Shan replied with an affected sniff, wiping away a ‘tear’ from her eyes.

“Your… senior… sister?” Fan Daiyu repeated, raising an eyebrow sceptically.

“Uh-huh,” Ju Shan affirmed in a fake whisper while pretending to look around nervously. “Big Sister Rong’s friend is about somewhere, so you shouldn't make too many jokes about wild geese.”

“…”

He was thankful that allusion went right over everyone else’s heads, except apparently Fan Daiyu who masked her gulp very well he felt. If he hadn’t spent so long around his Fairy Aunt and gotten good at reading those much higher realmed than him, even he would have missed it.

“Does ‘Big Sister Rong’ have some card in this as well?” Fan Daiyu asked rather more politely.

“Some brats with big dreams and small cocks have been mouthing off," Ju Shan shrugged."—saying some things, you know how it is…”

“Oh, this is regarding those Huang brats,” Fan Daiyu said with a deep sigh that was tinged with relief.

“Is that why this whole mess is occurring, Lady Shan?” Han Ouyeng asked her politely.

“Nah, nobody has any idea why,” Ju Shan waved her arms widely, giving all present a remarkably generous view of her cleavage in the process. “Probably you have a better idea. I bet that lightning that arrived looked really wild from up above.”

“It certainly made the old geezers spit blood,” Fan Daiyu replied with a slight smile. “It appears not to have been a tribulation though.”

“An execution,” Ju Shan mused.

“That was their understanding of it, yes,” Fan Daiyu agreed.

“Um, if I might invite everyone back to the Blue Water Pavilion?” he cut in politely. “We can talk about these matters over a few pots of my Aunt’s truly excellent collection of spiritual teas? Maybe before the rain starts again?”

So far, the night had been remarkably clear, and surprisingly not because anyone had done anything to the weather, for once.

“Where is that squirrel-hating, mad genius anyway?” Fan Daiyu asked him curiously, making everyone else there except Ju Shan wince.

“Off on a field trip,” he supplied with aplomb, which was in truth about all he knew of it, or her plans, anyway.

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~ HUANG JILAO, MYSTERIOUS DEPTHS ~

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“Nothing in this horrid place is ever easy…” Lu Xiao sighed as she worked on opening the sealed door.

Huang JiLao sat on a rock, panting hard.

-That is a terrible, terrible understatement, he thought brokenly.

-This place is the antithesis of easy!

-It is as ‘easy’ as the intangible dream of Dao Ascension is to the mortal man fishing by the river!

“If you have time to complain to the heavens, you have time to focus on the matter in hand,” Mo Xiao said, sounding amused from the other rock.

They were sat in a broad hall, a remarkable place really, carved from the rock—far, far beneath the Inner Valleys of the Yin Eclipse Mountains as far as he could see. Lady Xiao, whose real name appeared to be Mo LuXiao, was stood pondering the sealed doorway in front of them. That was a cunning play on words that only made sense when Mo Xiao explained it to him, presumably secure in the knowledge that he would never dare blab it, for all the good it would do.

“How come they don’t have any cores?” he asked, to distract himself as much as anything.

“The Solifugids?” Mo Xiao asked, looking at the corpses scattered throughout the hall.

“Whatever they are called,” he shuddered.

“You’re so inquisitive, yet you don’t want to know what these critters are even called…” Mo Xiao sniggered.

-I’ve never…

“Ah, you don’t like spiders, makes sense; these things are like spiders turned monstrous to a fault,” Mo Xiao nodded.

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to calm his mind. Even with Ju Shan’s talisman, Mo Xiao was able to read the surface thoughts of his mind, which was…

“You’re impressed, admit it,” the other woman giggled.

“Ju Shan is good, but I’m stronger than her. I was then, I am now.”

“She still nearly beat your ass,” Mo LuXiao pointed out.

“Whose side are you on here sis,” Mo Xiao pouted.

“You should have just let her win, that way you wouldn’t have to wear a mask every time you go anywhere near the Turquoise Pond Starfield,” Mo LuXiao added.

“…”

“Anyway,” Mo Xiao said with a bright smile, changing the topic. “I have to say you’re getting better at running away from things.”

“Uhhhh…”

He wasn’t sure what to make of that. Their trip through the darkness for the last week or so had been a horrible masterclass on the theme of ‘walk softly and smash anything that so much as moves’. That she called what he had been doing up until now ‘getting better at running away’ was probably fair, but also felt a bit like cursing through faint praise. The suppression down here was terrible – his own battle prowess, which he had once thought was pretty creditable for a Golden Immortal of his status, was suppressed all the way down to late Golden Core. That had forced him to confront something he had been marginally aware of, but truthfully never given much real concern for—his foundation, while good for a spiritual cultivator, was at its fundamentals lacking in physical durability. If he compared himself to Mo Xiao, who was suppressed down to Spirit Severing as far as he could work out, the difference was scary. She was certainly cultivating a three-fold law at the very least.

When he considered that at the very least Mo Xiao was a Dao Ascension cultivator—he had seen her manifest ‘Truth’ multiple times now—that meant that whatever was down here was suppressing her three and a half big realms. Shattering space was also impossible, soul sense was totally oppressed, his qi sense got nowhere with the strange divisive and diffusing darkness and probably that was also responsible for whatever was almost entirely preventing qi replenishment. Mo Xiao was also totally prevented from externalising her Truth-Fused Soul or Ascendant’s Flame according to the discussions he had been on the side of as they went deeper and deeper.

That meant that whatever was down here and causing the suppression was at least a thing comparable to a peak Worldly Venerate, maybe even a Celestial Venerate. Just the thought of that made him want to scream and run away, leave this hell, return home and become a scholar of the feng shui of fish ponds or something equally harmless.

“We are done here,” Mo LuXiao said with a sigh.

Turning, he found that the wall that had been blocking their path was gone. Beyond it was a large hall with…

“Well they at least have ways to get around it, it seems…” Mo Xiao said sourly as several of the half-spider, half scorpion things she called Solifugids skittered towards them from inside it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mo Xiao draw something on the rock she had been sitting on and then stamp on the ground, sinking the rock into the floor before waving to him to go through the door.

-A talisman anchor, he was pretty sure, as he made his way through the door. For a ‘Sky Bridge Great Teleportation’ talisman.

He drew his sword, he sent a wave of qi infused with his Principle at one of the nearest ones, grimacing reflexively as it scattered with only a few slight burns. Behind him, the doorway suddenly manifested a field of sparkling dust and Mo Xiao stepped through it smartly, kicking another of the attacking creatures away with a grunt of effort. The door closed behind them, the whole action as silent as its opening.

The one he had attacked gave him no time to wonder about that though, as it surged forward with enough speed to easily mark it as a Soul Foundation creature. It was hard to call them demonic things, and his sensibilities wanted to avoid calling them Qi Beasts either, abominable as they were. Its sting shot at him and he parried it, thrown back against the wall with a thud, his arms shaking from the effort of deflecting it.

It somehow exerted pressure at him and he felt the familiar coldness in his limbs, slowing his reactions even as his own Immortal Soul fought to reject the soul attack—without any qi at all either!

-An attack that was pure Intent! he gulped and redoubled his efforts to defend against it.

-What realm would this thing be outside of here? he thought with a shiver. That with its Intent alone it can nearly shatter my Principle and push my soul strength back like this in my own body!?!

He cut at it with his sword, as the Luan Feather in his dantian shimmered slightly, repelling the worst of the attack. This time he sent his own Martial Intent, formed from his understanding of the ‘Huang Sagacious Art’ that was the basis of his own dual-path cultivation law at it. It skittered off the creature’s legs as they lashed at him, barely deflecting them a second time.

-It’s faster than me as well!

The flicker of Intent that came with it this time made his vision blur and his Immortal Soul waver slightly as it screamed silent defiance in the face of the soul attack. The Luan Feather shimmered again and diffused the much stronger soul attack, leaving him panting and flushed.

He defended twice in rapid succession, aware that Mo Xiao was basically chopping them up like firewood with her twin swords. Mo LuXiao had armour on now and was happily chopping them up with a dull grey stone blade of all things which again made depressingly short work of them where his Dao Immortal grade Sword Treasure was only shaving slivers off its chitin for the most part. Mo Xiao, he could understand—but Mo LuXiao was as far as he could see, genuinely a Nascent Soul cultivator. The riddle there of how she could use ‘Truth’ was not one he was willing to probe. He had a speculative idea, that she was a Dao Ascendant who had somehow ‘reformed’ her spiritual foundation, but how was entirely another matter. Usually if that occurred, a person’s 'Founded Principle' was abandoned in the process, never mind something like a ‘Truth’. Given her apparent background, he didn’t dare ask either and her spirit root was totally opaque to his eyes. Soul sense simply vanished when it moved near her, like a rock slipping into a deep pool.

-Not the time to get distracted! He grimaced and aimed a strike for one of the joints in a leg.

It skipped out of the way easily and swatted him back, forcing him to expend a lot of qi and rely on his artefact armour to weather the worst of the blow. Swallowing down a qi-replenishment pill—he was eating enough of those that he was going to get temporary resistance soon if he wasn’t careful—he sent another wave of Martial Intent at it. The spectral sword blade bit into a leg at last, even as it deflected the worst of it, buying him time to dart forward and land two more blows on the other limb, forcing it to pivot away slightly—

The tail slammed down into the rock floor where he had been an instant before with enough force to leave an imprint. Not for the first time he cursed how selectively obnoxious the suppression here was. He could wield several different interpretations of his Principle, but only one of them was at all useful, the one derived from the Huang Myriad Blaze Principle. The other two, of which he was most proud, had aspects of Space and Yang principles within them and were basically useless down here. As far as he could tell and Mo Xiao had explained to him, any law or principle, heck even Intent, that touched ‘Yin’, ‘Yang’, ‘Space’, ’Time’ or ‘Fate’ had difficulties.

Grimacing, he called upon Huang Myriad Blaze and drew a tiny bit of power from the Luan Feather itself to aid it, infusing it through his treasure. Cutting at the thing again, he was rewarded with a melted score down its leg and a shuddering shriek of annoyance from the thing itself. He cut a second time and managed to stab it in the head even as it scuttled backwards—

The lashing leg made him duck as his combined qi and soul senses barely warned him of the one that skittered across the wall behind him, interrupting his strike just enough to save its compatriot from death. He dashed forward and it danced out of the way easily. At the last minute he diverted his attention and cast the sword directly, sending it punching straight through the creature, which collapsed with a sigh, its legs twitching.

Behind him, the other one surged after him, seeking to exploit the perceived opening and he pulled out a spear from his storage ring. It wasn’t refined to him, but that didn’t matter because this was a Dao Lord treasure. The foolish creature almost impaled itself on it, twisting out of the way as he stabbed after it, catching a leg with the blade. With a resigned sigh, he saw that this weapon did just about as much as his sword had done.

Nearby, Mo Xiao was still dismantling oncoming creatures. She had to have killed good dozen—several bigger than both of these ones that were vexing him—in the time it had taken him to kill one. Part of him that wanted to be proud of the might of the Huang Clan, a part he was sure was going to be buried down here eventually, was a bit disheartened. On the other hand, this whole ordeal was impressing on him something that had been said in passing several times over the years in his presence but which he had never really taken to heart: 'Qi arts are good yes—but martial forms are for a lifetime'. This place didn’t suppress experience and martial forms and Martial Intent

-Truly, my pride as an inheriting disciple has been firmly trampled down here hasn’t it, he thought with a sigh as he continued to dance with the much faster creature.

“Heavens, I swear to you that if I get out of this place, I am going to learn every fate-trashed martial form in my father’s library,” he muttered under his breath.

It danced away from him and struck from both sides at once, forcing him to duck and execute a very clumsy block with the spear that sent him rolling backwards.

-And practice them daily!

Those he knew, he had barely practised since he achieved his breakthrough to Immortal, and those he had were mostly sword forms aimed at helping with focusing qi for his Martial Intent.

-How many opportunities once you become an Immortal do you actually have to hit something with your sword up close? he thought sourly as it continued to make a mockery of his spear skills.

He was sure the last time he had to physically stab something with a sword in a vaguely life-threatening situation that didn’t involve using qi arts or Martial Intent was probably at Dao Seeking.

Finally, he cornered the accursed thing against the wall and used his movement art to impale it properly. It cost him a huge chunk of his qi pushing his principle through the spear, but it ensured that the thing died at least. He ate another pill and looked around to see that Mo Xiao had finished up all the other ones.

“Yep, if I get out of here in one piece I am going to learn every fate-thrashed martial form in the family library and become a master of them such as even the nameless fate itself will fear,” he muttered under his breath. “That or just go into seclusion and become a scholar of fishpond designs.”

“Not bad…” Mo Xiao nodded… “You’re getting better with that spear and sword at least. They are no longer just fancy toys to spew sparks around with...”

“…”

He didn’t really know what to say. It was probably a compliment, but with her it was hard to tell sometimes.

“Thank you, Lady… Mo”

“Young Miss Mo,” she sniffed. “What did I tell you? Or at the very least, ‘Fairy Daughter’ Mo. What am I, your mother?”

“…”

He resisted any comment, everyone at her level was… an interesting character worthy of their reputation—he rapidly nixed that thought even as it emerged.

Mo Xiao laughed lightly, not being fooled at all it seemed, and looked around the hall with interest.

“This IS odd,” she remarked after a moment.

“It is… and it’s not what was in the tablet,” Mo LuXiao said with a scowl, looking at the semi-circular hall that was set out before them.

“A mistake in the map?” Mo Xiao frowned… “Or…?”

“I am pretty sure we didn’t go wrong,” Mo LuXiao muttered. “But I must admit there is a lot more stuff like this down here and far fewer sludges and mushrooms than I expected.”

He flinched as behind them, there was the sound of something loud crunching into the door.

[PREY!]

The echo of the words made his skin crawl as they dwindled away. The darkness shivered faintly all around them and the oppression somehow intensified marginally.

“Well, that proves your paranoia there right at least,” Mo Xiao said drily. “What realm do you reckon that is; I barely got a look at it before coming through?”

“To be making the Arborundum lattice shake like that?” Mo LuXiao frowned, “Higher than we want to waste talismans or killing artefacts on unless pressed.”

The door behind them juddered faintly a second time, shaking dust free from the ceiling above them.

“What… was that?” he asked nervously, having not noticed a thing.

“A very obnoxious thing,” Mo Xiao muttered, “That there are those up and about down here doesn’t bode well for those cheerful souls rushing in up above like starry-eyed lunatics in pursuit of wild hopes of legendary treasure either.”

He wanted to say ‘that didn’t really answer the question’, but on some introspection, as the door shook again before finally stopping, he guessed he really didn’t want to know—

“The thing it’s mimicking is called a ‘Flesh-robbing Spider’,” Mo Xiao said with a broad smile.

“As in the things that live in the depths of the Yerrek Pits…?” he asked dully.

“The very same…” Mo LuXiao said, absently staring around at the hall with a pensive expression.

“Wait—‘mimicking’?” His brain caught up with what she had just said and he turned to look at her properly.

Mo Xiao just rolled her eyes and said nothing further on the subject, turning back to Mo LuXiao and asking, “Does it seem like these statues are kinda familiar to you?”

His gaze followed her gesture—on the far side of the hall were a series of twelve figures, six men and six women dressed in various garbs and carrying weapons. Each statue seemed somewhat regal, but had none of the ‘oppression’ he associated with statues of old ancestors that could be found on display in many powers.

The nearest one was a tall man with a powerful physique wearing a loose scholarly looking robe and sporting a very… Confucian beard he had to admit. Below the statue, was a strange series of circles and glyphs that looked a bit like very warped moon runes. Staring at them for more than a few moments gave him a headache and forced him to avert his eyes. Mo Xiao walked over to the one beside him, eyeing the circles and the symbols dubiously.

“These are Skyward Symbol Script,” she mused.

“What is that? Senior Mo?” he asked.

“Something like a holistic Formations Dao,” Mo Xiao replied, running her hand across it then turning to look at the others. “These people… they were all Celestial Venerates.”

“Yeah,” Mo LuXiao agreed, ignoring his shocked look brushing her hand against another statue and finally walking towards the stele that was in the middle of the oval.

He walked over to the four-sided stele with its pointed top, surprised to see the text on its near face re-order itself to become readable. The words settled in his mind, giving him a strange sense of sorrow.

‘For gentle blossom, blooming beneath the autumn light.’

‘For new gift, like a true heart, burning brightly as the season turns.’

‘Illumination, we saw unity upon the mountain and walked forth.’

‘Seeking a new world, here we stand. Immortal.’

~ MMMLXVII—XIV ~

“It is from the ‘Song of the Mountains’,” Mo Xiao said softly. “This place is ancient. An ancestral war memorial?”

“Looks like it; the darkness here has dispersed all the qi from everything,” Mo LuXiao nodded.

“A war memorial?” he asked, wondering how she arrived at that conclusion.

“Look at the wall between the statues,” Mo LuXiao said with a wave of her hand while she pondered the exit in the middle of the room.

Doing as she instructed, he blinked, discovering that what he had taken for a textured motif carving was in fact thousands… tens of thousands of circular symbols just like the ones below the twelve statues. These were much simpler, mostly one or two circles, occasionally three, but all of them gave him a faint sense of pressure if he really stared at them. One rearranged itself abruptly and became ‘Varus Merilin’ in his mind—a name? As soon as he grasped that he had a brief understanding that Varus Merilin had been a… the symbol wavered first showing nine circles then suggesting this was akin to a ‘Dao Sage’. Part of a force that fought against demons from beyond in the depths of this place. He had fallen defending a guard post, buying time for civilians to evacuate from a mine and in doing so had his name recorded upon this wall, being recognised as ‘Immortal’ for his action.

“What… realm is Dao Sage?” he asked, staring at the single circle with its nine minor divisions within it. It was not a realm he had ever heard of.

“Hmmm…” Mo Xiao frowned, “It should be contiguous with a Dao Lord. It is not a notation system for realms that is widely used in the Martial Axial Starfields in this aeonspan.”

Mo Xiao sighed, stopping before another panel. “This place absolutely predates its arrival within this world…”

She trailed off and then sighed. “So, where does the map you have claim this should take us?”

“There does appear to be a room like this…” Mo LuXiao muttered and the pair started to converse in a way he couldn't hear, leaving him to look at the rest of the wall carvings in silence and wonder, not for the first time, at the riddle of this place.

He was still walking down the wall, pondering the different names, getting a grasp for the strength of those who had fallen here. It didn’t seem to be all in one war, but over many years from what he could tell. Not a war memorial to a singular event, but a shrine to all those who had fallen here. Each statue seemed to represent a different faction, influence or clan. Most of the names were alien, even to him who had some understanding of the naming conventions of other starfields. The realms of those who fell were various: the weakest were barely Immortals, but the majority, if he was reading the divisions in the circles right, had been in the Dao Step. But it was the number that had fallen here that was staggering. Even in a low-ranked Supreme World, this kind of drain on the vitality of a power would be unsustainable.

“…”

“Coming?” Mo Xiao called over to him, making him look up.

Both of them were standing by the doorway, having reached whatever conclusion they were after. With one last lingering look around this remarkable memorial to some long lost influences’ sacrifice in these depths, he hurried after them.

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~ LU JI, BLUE WATER PAVILION ~

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They had barely arrived in the eminent meeting room of the Blue Water Pavilion and called one of the servants to serve tea before Fan Daiyu turned to them and asked, “So, what exactly is it that has both the Supreme Sovereignty Alliance and the Huang clan’s wanna-be ‘Youth Sovereigns’ salivating over this small corner of the starfield?”

Hua Xiaomei and Fan Mei both went over to stand beside Fan Daiyu respectfully. Han Ouyeng had taken a seat opposite Ju Shan, who had sat down on a couch without any concern for the others or any sort of hierarchy. As the host, he was already taking the first round of tea and serving it out to them.

“Probably it’s not the same thing,” Ju Shan said and putting her slippered feet on one of the tables with a frown.

“…”

“The rest of you, sit. Stop hovering like frightened moths!” Fan Daiyu said with a wave of her hand, directing the rest of them to take seats around the room.

“As far as we are aware, there are two different messes here, Lady Black Jade,” he supplied courteously.

“Indeed, Lady Black Jade,” Ling Yusheng agreed with a polite bow. “The first matter seems to relate to the matters of the fallout from 30,000 years ago near enough, being orchestrated on the face of it by Dun Jian.”

“Who is now in the wind, having done a runner,” Ju Shan noted.

“Even to you?”

“My guess is that the Dun Clan has closed ranks and he is being sheltered by the Kong Envoy,” Ju Shan said with a shrug. “He had fostered some connections with the Huang, specifically a guest Elder who has recently become involved in the politics of the matter of those two ‘Youth Sovereigns’…”

He was surprised that she was willing to say that much in fact, given her proximity to Huang Leng. Probably it was because this Elder was just a ‘guest official’ and this ploy was causing trouble for the Huang Wuli branch. On the other hand, what she had just said was also, broadly speaking common knowledge among certain circles and Fan Daiyu’s eye roll suggested that she was already well aware of this.

“So he might actually be dead…” Hua Xiaomei said with a faint hint of amusement.

“Probably not,” he said with a sad sigh, deciding to add his thoughts on the matter.

It was highly unlikely in his own estimation that someone as useful as Dun Jian had actually been killed. The Huang Clan would not want to provoke a problem with the Imperial Court otherwise he might already have been dead at Ju Shan’s hands given the relationship between Huang Leng and Huang JiLao. The young Empress was also a factor there; a daughter of a Senior Elder from the Huang clan. Had it been one of the crown heirs to go missing, like the strutting popjay that was Dun Fanshu, matters might have been different. However, the sad fact of it was that Dun Lian Jing was not worth it to them—assuming she wasn’t deemed disposable in any case for some other reasons…

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“I would also love to know what dragged that old pervert from the Ha Clan out of his hidden realm,” Hua Xiaomei murmured, turning her attention to him properly.

Her gaze settled on him like a faintly oppressive cloak—a reminder that even among Dao Ascendants she was probably in the top ten in the whole great world. Weaker than his own Aunt, or someone like Shu Tian or Meng Tan, but probably in the same ballpark as Lady Teng Kai or the Imperial advisors.

“That is a personal matter between myself and the Ha Clan old ancestor,” he said weathering her oppression gamely.

“Hmmm… it is hard to know what might be useful and what might not…” Fan Daiyu murmured, sipping her tea, as if her intent was not trying to oppress him subtly and lead him into giving something away.

He cursed softly in his head, glad he had a talisman from Bright Dream that kept his thoughts hidden even from someone like her. It made sense that the Azure Astral Authority would start to turn its eyes towards this place, especially since three of their ‘own’ appeared to be top of the Astrology Bureau’s ranking for the trial before everything went to monkeyshit.

“Truly, it is a matter between myself and the Ha Clan old ancestor,” he reiterated. “However, I can speculate with some authority that the means by which the Astrology Bureau subverted the talismans and implicated the Hunter Bureau in this trial to the extent that they have been is likely related to the re-emergence of the notorious criminal Di Ji.”

“Who?” Black Jade said sounding disinterested, as she well might.

“The person who ruined Lady Kai’s adoptive daughter, Teacher,” Hua Xiaomei said, her aura turning frosty. “He also caused a great loss to my Dewdrop Sage Sect.”

“I see… and this person was, is… still alive?” Fan Daiyu asked, her voice making it very clear what she thought of this matter.

“—His relationship with the Astrology Bureau and the Jade Gate Court is... complex,” Hua Xiaomei added, before he could.

“And what does this have to do with that old pervert in any case?” Hua Xiaomei asked, turning to him again.

“Uh… remember that Fairy Kai and Ha Kai were close?” Fan Mei interjected.

“Oh, there was that game-making fool,” Hua Xiaomei muttered. “Is he trying to get his father to intercede?”

“Probably not,” he said, feeling that he should at least say something here. “Di Ji has also offended the old ancestors of the Ha Clan somehow. The exact specifics of this elude me, but I am sure you can get relevant details through Lord Ling in due course.”

“This also involves the Ling Clan?” Hua Xiaomei asked, having apparently taken on the role of spokesperson for Fan Daiyu at this point.

“My niece was also abducted by Di Ji and one of the talisman jade cores from the Bureau was stolen through her,” Ling Yusheng explained with a sideways look at him.

He shrugged, inwardly. While he had a lot of time for Ling Tao, his impression of the wider Ling Clan was fairly neutral. They were certainly not above shifting problems where required and while Ling Luo was doted upon by her aunt, and her father, Ling Jiang, her talent was not such that she was particularly valued within the core echelon of the Ling Clan. It was why she was a junior Bureau official rather than focusing on her cultivation like Ling Yusheng’s own children. It also meant that the Astral Authority would likely be less inclined to come poking around the Blue Pavilion if they suspected, as he did at this point, that the source of the entire talisman network for the Hunter Bureau being subverted as it had been was down to the Ling Clan.

Fang Hai also shot him a nasty look. Even at this point, with the Blue Gate School almost buried, that bit of animosity was not going to pass with it, it seemed. For all that they offered a much freer rein to work with compared to the Imperial Court and the Supreme Sovereignty Alliance, the Azure Astral Authorities’ inner politics made the Imperial Court look like a playhouse for children.

He pondered more on that point as Hua Xiaomei aggressively questioned the Ling Clan Lord on behalf of her Teacher. Han Ouyeng's presence, for all that he was just sitting quietly and listening right now, here made sense, because this was a huge slap to the face of the Hunter Authority; however, the Black Cage mainly held a bunch of political prisoners and had been in the control of the Imperial Court for most of this aeonspan. The more Fan Daiyu pressed for information, the more certain he was that she really wasn't here to help with the capturing of the 'Escapees' from the Black Cage at all, except, maybe if some of them were beneficial to the Azure Astral Authority in some way. Most of its prisoners were rebels, or problematic mortal ascenders and the like. All the properly dangerous 'old evils' that couldn't be easily dealt with tended to go to the Yerrek Pits, where they were left to gnaw at each other by and large.

The fallout from the delivery of the 'gift', despite his aunt having seen personally to the 'pill', and delivered it to Sheng Jiang Mei, was much more likely, but there was little benefit to them being so clandestine about that. That left... Yin Eclipse itself? Had someone in the Azure Astral Court decided that enough was enough, and that their long-term rivals to its riches should not move as easily as they had been to this point?

“—Is there any indication as to where they even went?” Fan Daiyu’s question to him pulled him back to participation.

“The spatial collapse didn’t travel beyond the realm wall boundary; likely, they are sealed in some sub-space within Yin Eclipse?” he suggested.

The presence of 'sub-spatial' regions within the valleys was a fairly uncontentious theory among those powerful enough to have a good idea of how secret realms usually formed, so throwing that out there was fairly harmless. Also very hard to verify, given the nature of Yin Eclipse, unless you wanted to try... insanity, like the elder Ha's recording had shown. He still wasn't sure what to make of that, and what it showed about the 'reality' of the Jasmine Gate.

“Your disciples took child talismans for a Worldly Venerate grade scrying formation in there…” Fan Daiyu mused.

-Ah, here we go, he thought with a mental sigh.

“I’ll be blunt, if I may, Lady Fan,” he replied with as dissembling a salute as he could manage. “None of my school’s disciples went into that mess.”

-Well a few had, he corrected himself. But they had gone in of their own accord mainly, on their ‘families’ urging rather than the school's, and now the school itself isn't even 'mine', so no lie there.

“The person who went in there was someone associated with Shan Lai and Lady Xiao,” he added.

“Nobody affiliated with—?” Fan Daiyu stopped as one of her ‘guards’ stepped forward and whispered something in her ear.

“I see,” she said after a moment. “That said, it changes very little. The Blue Water Pavilion—”

“—is helping my senior sister,” Ju Shan interjected. “I know your lot have big eyes and even bigger appetites, but I don’t think your stomachs are that robust.”

“And which side are you representing here… exactly?” Fan Daiyu asked, eyeing her.

He noted that Hua Xiaomei schooled herself carefully there. He was fairly sure, at this point, that her involvement here was not simply because of the Azure Astral Authority either. If anything this seemed to be more a convenient excuse than anything, and she was notoriously reclusive, as was Fan Mei.

“My interests here are Huang Leng and whatever my senior sister wants,” Ju Shan replied with a faint smile. “If you wish to interrogate her, you can find her and ask her in person.”

-Which is the end of that line of discussion, he thought wryly. As amusing as that would be, Fan Daiyu was only a peak Worldly Venerate.

“Rather than that, shouldn’t we be more concerned about where all the participants of the trial have gone, Honoured Dao Mother?” Ling Yusheng asked politely.

“I’m honestly more concerned about why the Dun Clan has decided to poke that place for the fourth time in an aeonspan,” Ju Shan said drily. “And why you aren’t interested in that.”

“They are after a World Venerate’s treasure,” Fan Daiyu said with a shrug.

“I doubt that very much,” Ju Shan said with a half-smile. “The Gan branch of the Huang clan are also involved in this. No doubt because this trial has made such a shift in the geomantic potentia of the land that anyone with a decent scrying formation within ten starfields has seen the 'auspicious' signals at this point.”

“And yet, apparently they are,” Fan Daiyu countered, with a placid smile.

-Well that as good as confirms that she does know, and doesn’t want anyone outside the authority to know, he mused.

“I cannot speak for whatever the Huang Gan are trying to do, but I think I am much clearer than you on this matter,” Fan Daiyu said with another very passive smile.

“…”

“Anyway, regarding the matter of these three, do you have confirmation that they are hunters?” she said, turning to Fang Hai.

“We are… working on that, Lady Black Jade,” Fang Hai said with a bow.

“Surely the records—?”

“—The central records are intact, but all detailed records including most recent status and locations that were linked to those talismans that were associated with the stolen Loci have been subverted. We were working to verify the physical copies but West Flower Picking Hunter Pavilion had been badly damaged in the unrest there. I apologise on behalf of my subordinates, Lady Black Jade,” Fang Hai clarified, bowing more deeply this time. “Until we can be sure that those identities were not cloned—”

“—I am surprised that something like this was even possible?” Ju Shan cut in, with a half-smile.

“It is not. We are still working to understand how this came about, the compromise of one copied jade core tablet and a Golden Core realm bureau official should not be anywhere near the leverage required,” Han Ouyeng remarked. “Unless…”

-Unless this rot goes deeper than the Astrology Bureau, he mused to himself.

“If there are people who are disloyal to the authority we—”

“It will be dealt with appropriately. That is part of my reason for coming here in person,” Fan Daiyu said with a wave of her hand to her two guards. “Fang Hai, you will remain as ‘leader’ of the local bureau, but be assisted in your task by Young Noble Sheng.”

One of the masked figures removed their mask and their robe dissolved away into shadows. Under it, the figure wore the robe of a member of the Sheng Heavenly Clan and carried the markings of a core disciple of the Azure Astral Pagoda, the principal sect controlling much of Shan Lai. The youth’s cultivation was almost equal to his own, which was not that surprising given where he had likely come from. More surprising was his natural, 'bone' age, which was barely 400 years old and marked him as someone valued highly by the Sheng. The implications there were not ones that his Fairy Aunt was going to like when she got back. The Sheng Clan had an even worse relationship with the Mo Clan than the Huang did.

“This is Sheng Dian. He is Ancestor Astral Song’s inheriting disciple,” the youth eyed them and nodded faintly to Ju Shan but that was about it as Fan Daiyu introduced him.

“As to the Astrology Bureau, its local arm is to be abolished, if you would set about doing that,” she said with a wave of her hand to the other masked figure who vanished with a flicker.

“Will that be… okay, Honoured Lady Black Jade?” Ling Yusheng asked with a certain degree of trepidation. “Kong Di is still within the city and there is a lot of—”

“If Kong Di and those other brats wish to make an issue of me abolishing a rebellious local bureacratic office and reconstituting its proper, official status as the Astral Authority Bureau he is welcome to take it up with the Shan Emperor,” Fan Daiyu said with a faintly mocking smile. “In any case, the first order is to solve that problem, then we will decide what to do about whatever designs the Dun Clan has for our Yin Eclipse Mountains.

“Now, I wish to speak to my subordinates about some other matters. Young Master Ji, you may leave us. You will seek me out at a later date so we can discuss what we know of what is going on in that trial in detail.”

He bowed and left the room without comment; there was no point in arguing anything anyway. To his surprise, Ju Shan who had just sat there sipping tea and looking bored mostly got up and left with him. That clearly surprised everyone else as well, including Fan Daiyu, who could likely do nothing to keep her or kick her out of her own accord in any case. Not even the Azure Astral Authorities’ most rampant actors would willingly spit in the face of a behemoth like the Turquoise Pond.

-Always there is a bigger fish, a higher mountain, a denser iron brick, he reflected wryly.

“Oh, and send a servant to bring more tea,” Fan Daiyu called after him as he left.

He waited until he was properly outside in the starlit gardens, next to an ornamental pond, before actually sighing and waving several servants who were waiting unobtrusively in a smaller garden pavilion beside the main one. They bowed to him and scurried inside.

“She is quite domineering, is she not,” Ju Shan remarked, stepping up beside him to stare into the fish pond.

“That is why so many people are happy to bow to the Imperial Seat; somehow it’s easier to kowtow when the domineering aura has a dragon robe, rather than just a big stick and a lot of soldiers,” he remarked with a tired sigh.

“True, if the current dynastic seat wasn’t so fate-thrashed insecure in their strength this great world would be a lot better for it,” Ju Shan agreed.

“That’s a matter of… debate,” he grunted, scuffing out several glittering green daisies that had coalesced around his feet even as he thought that. The sooner Dun Fanshu left the province the better.

“You really want to know what the Dun Clan are after… in there?” Ju Shan asked softly.

“No, actually… I do not,” he said, really meaning it.

He had read all of his grand uncle’s accounts of that place, and been party to the aftermath of Cao Hongjun’s return. He was pretty sure that what his Aunt was after in that place was not what anyone else was either.

“That is a remarkably smart attitude to have,” Ju Shan agreed, sounding more amused than anything else. “Let us walk, the gardens are nice in the moonlight.”

They walked in silence across the lawns, leaves rustling gently in the darkness, the moonlight giving everything a silvery sheen. Soon they had passed into the gardens proper, around the Blue Water Pagoda, with its little miniature ecosystems and strange feng shui that was focused on the pagoda itself, eventually arriving at one of the miniature pagodas… which he realised with some surprise he had never really been into.

“This…?” he frowned, trying and failing to recall its presence here before.

“Truthfully, I didn’t know about it until Senior Sister pointed it out. We can enter, but you must be respectful,” Ju Shan murmured in a tone that made it unclear whether or not she was being serious. Probably she was he guessed.

Looking up at it in the moonlight, it was strangely ethereal. The shine on its roof tiles, when combined with the dancing animals that adorned its pillars and the swirling motifs of wind, water, cloud and lightning that covered every other surface, gave it an otherworldly appearance. Over its eaves, in silvery lettering were the words ‘Dreaming of Earth and Sky, Truth Reflected’.

Following Ju Shan inside, he stopped and looked around because it was empty beyond everything being beautifully carved from dark blue marble and inlaid with what looked like white and grey arborundum.

“Not what you were expecting?” she remarked, giving him an amused look as he took it in.

“Uh…” he shook his head mutely.

“It is not that there is nothing here; it is simply that neither of us is able to gain its acknowledgement.” Ju Shan said softly, sounding a bit more... wistful, all of a sudden. “This is not a thing that you can choose to refine either. It is more like a… key, i suppose. Whether the lock that it fits appears is down to forces beyond simple fate and destiny in a world like this.

“This is the Inheritance my Great Uncle left behind?” he realised, his skin suddenly clammy, and his mouth a bit dry.

“According to my senior sister, yes, although that statement is not quite correct," Ju Shan replied. "Your Great Uncle attained its acknowledgement and it journeyed with him for a while before deciding to remain here.”

-So that is why Bright Dream stayed here? To keep an eye on this as much as to help Aunt Xiao? he suddenly wondered. “Would the Kong Clan or the…”

Ju Shan laughed, her musical voice echoing through the empty hall. “Even if the old sages who stand above, the Divine Elders who hold the mantle of the Heavens of Kong, were to come in person and kowtow nine times before the doors of this thing, it would probably not be moved.

“I have some inkling of what this is, courtesy of my background with the Turquoise Pond. That it is in such an unassuming world as this is perhaps fitting. This world itself could fall to ruin, the space here collapse and the Star Ocean well up through the rift, overcoming the Azure Maelstrom, and still this pagoda would sit here unharmed.”

She shook her head and turned away from him. “I simply brought you here so we can talk without prying ears.

“Firstly, one of your clan’s distant ancestors has a slight connection with my own matter here, so I feel that I can talk a little. Your early instinct that Hua Xiaomei was here in spite of her ‘teacher’ is quite correct incidentally.”

“Oh—” He was surprised that she had caught that.

“It is not that you are easy to read. You have had a lot of experience around people who can read others like books; it is just an easy deduction to make given how she rushed here,” Ju Shan sounded amused. “She is here for a different matter that has little if anything to do with this trial—other than the ‘opportunity’ it affords to move without notice.

“As to what the Huang Clan is after, you understand I will not say; we are not at all close after all and the Mo Clan and the Huang Clan do not have the best relationship,” she mused.

“Of course, Lady Shan” he nodded politely. It was already surprising that she was willing to take him aside to talk this much based on what he knew of her.

“I am sure you are a smart young man though, behind the dandy appearance and the slight reputation for high living when you think others are not looking,” she added with an amused tone.

“Ahhah, Lady Shan, please do not joke,” he said with a bit of nervousness. Having your personal life judged by someone like her was…

“You have enough pieces to know who has been watching this place and not taking any action on it since almost the day it fell, one way or another…” she said pensively.

-Who has been… watching this place? He frowned, turning her words over in his mind, wondering if this was some subtle test.

“My Aunt, Old Freak Ha, those old geezers who hide in the darkness in the mountains to the north that nobody has ever been able to smoke out… the Seven Sovereigns… and Bright Dream…”

As he counted those out, he looked for the common point between… Mo Clan, Meng Clan…the Ha Clan was an outlier, or maybe it was just Old Freak Ha. Behind the Seven Sovereigns stood Vast Obscurity Grove while Bright Dream was associated with the Turquoise Pond…

“The Four Queen Mothers…” he whispered, hardly daring to even give voice to such a thought. “God Slaughtering Hall, Turquoise Pond, Vast Obscurity Grove… only North Star Grotto doesn’t have someone watching those mountains…

"How has nobody made that connection?” he asked dully.

“You think the movements of the four mothers of heaven can be divined by lesser people? Only those worthy to know their designs may chance upon the threads of their grand weaving,” Ju Shan said reverently. “You can only say that 'thought' because we are here. Outside you would never be allowed to even connect those thoughts. Do you understand the nature of that power?”

He did.

“So what is the Dun Clan after?”

“It is not the Dun Clan. It is their old ancestor who set them up with the Blue Morality.” Ju Shan said. “Your knowledge of the realms above… is unclear, this is to be expected. Even I know only what is said among my peers and what is passed down within my family.”

“As to why I am telling you this… here… in this place? Call it… insurance,” Ju Shan said with a half-smile. “I cannot say for certain what it is, but two others have been into that place: one is now at the heart of the Azure Astral Authority, and for all the past assurances you have with him, his first loyalty is to the Authority and always has been. The other…”

“You want me to reach out to my Grand Uncle,” he said. “You want me to call him back to this world.”

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~ HA LENG, WEST FLOWER PICKING TOWN ~

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Seated in the secluded courtyard of the Cherry Wine Pagoda, Ha Leng focused on his cultivation, because that helped distract him from all the other insanity that was occurring. He had become a Nascent Soul Cultivator, courtesy of being saved by Grand Elder Kai and Elder Lan. That was a bit shocking in its own right—that Sir Huang was a wandering elder of the Ha family’s previous generations with a cultivation at the peak of Dao Sovereign, and that he was working with some of the Ha clan's most ancient and mysterious figures.

“It is really hard to think that they are who they are, the way they behave…” he muttered out loud.

It was also somewhat terrifying to think that the Old Freak Ha, the second Ancestral Elder, had a passageway directly to the Cherry Wine Pagoda from that strange realm he possessed. Certainly, almost nobody else in the Ha Family knew, otherwise things would have gone a lot differently over the last two or so weeks, he was sure.

Eventually, he got up and left the secluded courtyard to walk about. The estate itself was largely deserted though, due to it only being mid morning, so after a while, he decided to go for a wander through the nearby streets. His Nascent Soul was still stabilising anyway, absorbing the medicine and soul force that Ancestor Kai had given him. Any progress he was going to make with it was very incremental in any case, unless he went back into that remarkable hidden space with its preposterously sympathetic yet paradoxically high qi purity and density.

Nobody so much as looked in his direction as he made his way through the streets, still wet with rain, towards the Ha clan estates. With a Nascent Soul cultivation and his current beard, he was weirdly invisible to most people it seemed. Just another expert going about their allotted task. Even when he got back into the estate everything was quiet, a sullen sense of depression seeming to cloak everything that was only partly due to the rain. In his rooms, he changed clothes, making sure to pick ones that didn't have a clan emblem or associated designs on them. Only an idiot went outside now wearing clothes that identified their faction right now. The aftermath of the events on that ridgeline had spawned a series of calamities that made his stomach twist just thinking about any of them, although the foremost one right now was that anyone seen wearing Ha Clan robes in the streets outside was likely to get dog shit or worse thrown at them.

Saluting to the guards on the main gate, who barely even glanced at him as he left, he stepped out on the street and turned back towards the Yu district and the river. The weather was muggy and overcast, threatening rain later, which was unseasonable to say the least, but somewhat fitting if truth be told. There was no point going near the market plaza, it was…

Stepping off the sidewalk into the street he bowed deferentially to two disciples wearing Jade Gate Court robes passed by him—who ignored him, because he had bowed—before hurrying on, taking the first right off that street that he came too.

There is no point going the same direction as that lot; he reflected, gloomily. They invariably bring trouble wherever they go, and right now I just want to walk and be alone with my thoughts.

"Aiiii..." he sighed, taking in what would, a mere week ago have been a bustling side-street with teahouses and curiosity shops, now drab and largely closed.

"—HEY! Open UP!"

"—WE wanna drink!"

Up ahead, a group of youths who had come to a stop outside a shuttered teahouse started to raise their voices, one even going so far as to kick the door, before hurridly stepping back when the wards ghosted eerily into focus for a few seconds.

"Stupid old geezer..." one of the youths sneered as they made their way past him, barely glancing at him as he stood quietly to the side once more to let them pass.

"—And I heard his daughter was pretty, too!" another of the group remarked rather ominously, the others laughing as he gestured with his arms.

There were a surprising number of disciples building up in the town again, from a wide array of sects. Jade Gate Court, Argent Hall, Blue Moon Society, Shimmering Dragon Cult, Pill Sovereign Sept, Mount Qinglai… the list went on and on—all of them powerful entities on the central and southern continents. In another time it would have been an amazing thing for the town, but now they were just a menace, and they largely paid for nothing as he understood it.

He had to assume that they were the latecomers or reinforcements sent to participate in the fate-thrashed trial that was the catalyst for much of this. The rumours of how everyone who went into the mountain has either vanished or their talismans had stopped working were rife. It was largely undeniable that their talismans had stopped working from what he could tell, despite the organisers stating that they still were and it was just a ‘visual’ glitch. He wasn’t one to think ill of the powers that were, but nobody really believed half of what was being said now.

“—Did you hear?”

“Oh, about that Lightning Strike? That was wild!”

“Yeah, wasn’t it normal lightning… and it just got deflected like that?”

“No… not that! The local Astrology Pavilion…”

He paused at the intersection to the next street for a moment as the conversation of another group of disciples, from some out of province sect, who were loitering around the notice board of a shuttered herb brokerage caught his ears.

“Scandalous. This is why the Imperial Court is the rightful ruler, to think those Azure dogs executed everyone.”

“Umm?” he bowed to them, “Who was executed, honoured disciples?”

“Oh…” one of them, a sallow youth with a scholar's hairstyle, looked him over. “The Astrology Bureau. The Azure Astral Authority moved in this morning. Across the whole province apparently! Here alone they killed nineteen astrologers and their immediate families and announced that the Bureau was a criminal against heaven and had rebelled against the Azure Astral Authority.”

“The Kun Clan is furious,” another added, in a tone that suggested they were also quite happy that the Kun Clan had suffered this loss.

“Their bodies are being displayed with their families in the main square; that’s what the summons was…” another said with an eye roll.

“So barbaric, at least the Imperial Court would have tried them first.”

-Summons? Oh, the bell earlier that hour, he belatedly recalled.

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” a voice echoed down the street ahead of him. “All citizens are called by the Authority to come to the grand square!”

It was tempting to just go straight back to the Ha estate, he thought with a sigh as he turned and followed the others back in the direction of the square. He had never been fond of these kinds of things even before all this mess kicked off. In truth, for all that they had had a bad reputation as a gang of hoodlums who backed up Yun, their conduct had never really been truly bad. There had been some incidents with young women and some youthful indiscretions and a bit of brawling, but that was mostly it.

Arriving in the square, he saw the nineteen corpses strung up in the middle of the square, several he recognised, from the Leng, Jeong and the Kun clans. Looking around though, the mood was not good. There were maybe three thousand people gathering in the plaza currently, presumably those who had been out and about their daily business and unable to avoid being dragged over here. The ones doing the coralling, he found, were enforcers wearing heavy military body armour emblazoned in the dark blue and silver of the Azure Astral Authorities’ own forces, quite distinct from the more functional attire of the Military Authority, who stood around nearby with the expressions of people seeing all their good work being undone in a single day.

“Ah, here you are,” Elder Lan's voice murmured from beside him, making him flinch.

"E-Elder," he murmured, ducking his head respectfully.

“Well, this is a sorry mess. What do they hope to achieve here,” Elder Lan muttered, shading his eyes to look over the crowd.

“Order,” Ancient Ancestor Kai, who had also appeared on his other side, murmured, shaking his head. “It’s easy to forget that for all that they oppose the excesses of the Imperial Court, their own shadow is rather uncompromising.”

“What do they even gain from killing the people in the local Astrology Bureau?” he asked softly, seeing no tangible benefit in it at all beyond…

“Cowing people into submission?” Ha Kai replied blandly.

He stared back at the old man—now actually looking somewhat 'younger' than when he had last seen him, but still in his later middle years—wondering if he was joking, because that was the kind of logic bandits stooped to.

“This is politics by fire clearance,” Elder Lan agreed darkly. “A bad business.”

“It is,” Ha Kai agreed, pursing his lips as they took in the murmuring, sullen crowd. “People have this idea sometimes that things are better when the Azure Astral Authority puts down ‘Law’, but the reality of it is just this.”

He watched the crowd shifting back, uneasily as the names and ‘crimes’ of those who had been executed was called out. None of them seemed to be anyone particularly important; three from the Kun Clan, two from the Leng Clan, one from the Jeong and one from the Fa Clan, while the rest were just commoners.

“They even killed their families?” he muttered, feeling unclean somehow as the herald moved on to listing their executed family members.

“Of course," Elder Lan shrugged, sadly. "You can't have some scion crawling away and getting lucky, only to return twenty years later with a grudge.”

“Doesn’t the Military Authority…?”

“You think they have any choice in this?” Ancestor Kai murmured, pointing him towards the clustered group of Military Authority officers who were stood around with arms folded and sour expressions on the far side of the plaza.

-No… they do not look like people who agree with this, he had to concede.

Looking at this, it made him realise how little he understood about the actual politics of the Azure Astral Authority itself, beyond this bunch clearly living up to all the rumours that were spread and the tales from yesteryear. It was like they had walked straight out of the pages of an Imperial Proclamation.

“The Kun Clan has no affiliation with any power outside the Military Authority and is a strength of this world, the Cao Clan is also deeply in that camp.” Ancestor Kai went on.

“—Then this group are…?” he asked, eyeing the heavily armoured guards surreptitiously.

“The Fan and the Sheng.” Ancestor Kai replied with a deeper sigh. “The guards here are from the Sheng and Fan clans, not that that means much. The youth wittering away up there is also from the Fan Clan. As to why they are abolishing Blue Water province’s Astrology Bureau in this manner? As I said, it’s for control and cowing people into submission. All the important ones have already retreated to safety, so those who remain are just... folks doing a job. Most of those in it are affiliated with clans that don’t align with the Sheng or the Fan clans. The Bureau was basically a breakaway influence in any case, so those who are still pissed about that are taking the opportunity to... extract some revenge, by treating it as a rogue element, and branding these poor souls as having committed rebellion against the Seat of the Shan Emperor.”

“Oh…” he stared back out over the crowd, trying not to shudder... and failing. “Sheng, Fan?” he added, mostly to change the topic, as those names only vaguely rang a bell with him.

“The Sheng are from Southern Azure," Ha Kai replied. "They are about as influential as the Din clan are here..."

"They... are?" he couldn't help but turn to Elder Kai in shock at that.

"Uh-huh," Ha Kai nodded. "They basically run Southern Azure's Hunter and Astral Authority Bureaus and the current Empress of Southern Azure is from their clan. The Fan... they are from Shan Lai itself, and are high in the council of the Shan Emperor, holding several ministerial offices."

“—The Fan do have some small branches here," Elder Lan added. "In Blue Water City and another in Northern Torrent City, But they are... very far from the seat of power within that clan."

“Indeed," Ha Kai agreed. "This lot though, all come from Shan Lai, even the soldiers. They have no interest in the local politics and are here for one reason only.”

“—The Yin Eclipse Mountains?” he guessed, having heard enough rants from various people in the Ha Clan at this point about how much wealth was just vanishing away through the Hunter Pavilions.

“Exactly,” Elder Lan sighed. “Over ninety percent of all the resources that the Hunter Pavilions gather go to Shan Lai or Southern Azure I would guess at this point.”

He did some quick sums in his head and whistled quietly. That was a lot of resources.

“With Dun Jiang’s reign, and the chaos left over from the Huang Mo War's the Imperial Court has finally been stymieing that slightly, which is what led to the whole mess here kicking off actually,” Ancestor Kai added.

“We tried to pull the Pavilion control away from the Azure Authority and subsume it into the Ha Clan,” he muttered uneasily.

“Your elders did, rather foolishly. Aided both by greedy and opportunistic eyes over the water and by the insanity that was—and maybe still is—unfolding in Blue Water City,” Ancestor Kai chuckled bleakly. “To say that the Ha clan caused all this mess is a bit disingenuous, but really my unfilial descendants in name have shit the bed—badly.”

He winced, but it was hard to disagree there, having been around much of the edge of that ‘politicking’ since he was old enough to know what the word ‘politicking’ represented.

“Do you have some especial interest in staying here to watch a young noble from the Fan Clan shoot his mouth off?” Ancestor Kai added, looking at him with amusement.

“No, Honoured… Elder,” he caught himself and just bowed slightly.

They walked through the crowd, leaving the pronunciation behind. Two guards in blue and silver moved briefly towards them before Ancestor Kai waved a hand and they went blank-eyed and drooling as they walked past, into the now largely empty street and headed towards the river.

Here the ruination of the battle that had wracked West Flower Picking was very evident. Everywhere there were new houses and estates, many fairly crackling with latent energy as their formations charged anew. West Flower Picking was a large enough town that it had had a decent population of Immortal Realm cultivators, maybe four thousand all told, if he recalled the figures; however, he had never seen this many out and about, guarding estates.

-Probably every old elder and recluse in these small families was now out of seclusion and looking into the damage that had been done.

He had heard some details, albeit rather conflicting, about what happened at Grandmaster Li’s estate. From what he understood of the aftermath, Grandmaster Li had apparently offered to pay reparations for the innocents killed or injured, during the clashes between various experts, but more than that was not common knowledge—to him at least.

Eventually, they turned off the main street and down a winding alley to reach the river, which was still being reconstituted and its banks rebuilt. The all-encompassing damage courtesy of that aforementioned incident and then a few others besides. New trees were being planted here and there as they walked on. The park by the river bend where he had played with Yun when they were children was a charred scar, its pagoda toppled still and its surroundings melted in a way that suggested acid rather than fire.

They paused eventually by an unassuming house and Ancestor Kai knocked on the door a few times. They stood there for almost a minute before a young woman opened it a fraction and eyed them for a moment.

“No visitors,” the young woman said with a sour look, making to close the door again.

“—Ah, young lady, wait, I wish to see Yuan Leng. Tell her Tailang Kai is here to see her.” Ancestor Kai asked, respectfully.

The hooded woman closed the door in their faces and they were left in silence in the street.

“Who are we going to see?” Elder Lan asked.

“Yuan Leng Shuang,” the old ancestor said drily.

‘But who is that?’ Elder Lan presumably never got to ask, because the door opened again and the woman glanced out both ways before jerking her head to tell them to come in.

The garden behind was surprisingly well appointed, not to mention a lot bigger than it had seemed from the outside.

“I see the food business is profitable,” Ancestor Kai remarked, nodding at the various beds of spirit herbs and several outbuildings that he had all but ignored due to their unassuming nature.

“It turns a profit,” the woman replied with a sniff. “Or did until your horrid lot got their groove back.”

They entered the rear of the house and followed the woman through two very nice courtyards and into a meeting hall where an elderly woman dressed in a smock was sat reading a book. She looked up at them and he felt his blood freeze for a split second. Mrs Leng was no longer the nice, kindly shopkeeper she had appeared to be every time he had ever seen her. Her gaze travelled through him like a sword, seeing through his memories in the blink of an eye. Beside him, Elder Lan also stiffened slightly before recovering.

“You have lost none of your edge, ‘Grieving Slaughter’,” Ancestor Kai said with a polite bow.

“I do not go by that name anymore. Madame Leng or Mrs Leng is a sufficient title,” Mrs Leng said simply. “Sit, and tell me why the son of the second old ancestor of Ha Village has come to bother me on this already quite inauspicious day.

“Mai, please bring our guests some soup and side dishes,” she added as an afterthought.

“Yes Madame,” Mai bowed and left shooting them a further glance that was not at all welcoming.

“Um… I am sorry for the mess my unfilial descendants have caused,” Ancestor Kai murmured, sounding genuinely apologetic it had to be said.

“Descendants are born to be a trial we must overcome,” Mrs Leng replied with a sniff, putting her book aside. “So, what is it you need me for that you or your recluse of an old man cannot do?”

“We wish to find someone that the heavens of this world have likely hidden very well,” Ancestor Kai said respectfully.

Mrs Leng said nothing, just stared at the old man impassively, until at last Ancestor Kai sighed and took out a jade talisman holding a copy of everything he had experienced on the ridge, and of which he still, occasionally got disturbing flashbacks to if he shut his eyes. Mrs Leng took the jade and, activating it, watched those familiar, haunting scenes as they played out before them... and then kept watching, especially once the scenes from the assault on the Jasmine Gate began to play out, the atmosphere around them slowly turning leaden, until at last, with a slightly tired sigh, she paused it.

“I see, you wish to find this one,” she stated pointing at Din Ouyeng.

“And the others if it is possible,” Ancestor Kai remarked, gesturing to Ha Mangfan, Ji Tantai and Di Yao.

“Really? I thought your eyes would be better than that; certainly, those old freak’s eyes should be better than that,” Mrs Leng said drolly.

“What do you mean?” Elder Lan asked, frowning.

“—That one,” she pointed at the person he had known as Ji Tantai, and who was apparently Di Ji. “That one doesn’t exist.”

“You mean he is dead?” Ancestor Kai frowned. “Certainly they faked his—”

“No, you’re not listening,” Mrs Leng said with a sigh. “He literally isn’t a thing. That’s a... i guess you could call it a 'body clone'.”

“How can you be sure?” Ancestor Kai asked, narrowing his eyes. “He looks... looked real enough, and he has Fate with the world…”

The way Ancestor Kai stressed Fate, somehow made him feel like someone was peering at the back of his neck for some reason.

“You came here looking for Grieving Slaughter and now you doubt me?” Mrs Leng said softly, her tone making his skin prickle like he was standing in a draft all of a sudden. “Let me phrase this a different way—these two are the same person.”

All three of them stared at the recording; he was still totally confused on this point. Part of his brain was still playing catch-up to the kindly Mrs Leng who ran a profitable spirit food business being someone not only familiar with the old ancestor but also totally unfazed by him.

“The same… person,” Ancestor Kai murmured, looking between Ji Tantai and Di Yao and then Din Ouyeng. "The same..."

“You cannot see it?” Mrs Leng mused, frowning now.

“How do you know?” Elder Lan asked after a long moment.

“The thread of their fate is tied at the heart; they share a single spiritual root behind everything else,” Mrs Leng replied after a long pause.

Ancestor Kai continued to stare at the recording for several long minutes after she had spoken, saying nothing. In the intervening time, Mrs Leng’s daughter, Mai, returned accompanied by two other young girls carrying several bowls of soup and some other plates of food between them.

“How can you see it, when I cannot?” Ancestor Kai asked eventually.

“Because I am Grieving Slaughter? Despite how I have toiled to leave that name behind, and you are just a boy who likes to make interesting games?” Mrs Leng observed drily. “Seriously though, I can only guess that it relates to the control of the eyes of fate in some way; the Din Clan are hiding their vital core from others.”

“But not from you?” Ancestor Kai said pensively.

“Not from me,” Mrs Leng agreed blandly.

“So… can you find him?” Elder Huang pressed.

“First I must ask why,” Mrs Leng said looking at the paused recording again.

“Because he committed a crime, and deserves his fate,” Ancestor Kai said simply.

“That boy has committed almost no crimes; they are all borne by this clone,” Mrs Leng said, pointing at Din Ouyeng while Mai poured out cups of tea for them. “It’s a good trick, an excellent way to cultivate that path with all the benefits and none of the pitfalls. I am surprised that your father did not see through it though; your bad eyesight is somewhat excusable, but his should be better than that,” she added, rather archly he thought.

Rather than reply, Ancestor Kai just sighed, almost as if that reply... was expected?

“By the by, you two should eat. Mrs Leng added glancing at him and Elder Lan and gesturing for them to take a seat. "It’s a crime to let good food go cold.”

"Of course," Elder Lan murmured, taking a seat where she pointed.

“Why are you volunteering even this much without question of payment?” Ancestor Kai asked, slowly, his eyes still locked on the image between them.

“Because of those two whom he kicked over the cliff,” Mrs Leng said simply, waving her hand and sending the scene backwards in a blur until it showed Arai and Sana and Elder Lan plunging into the abyss. “You may consider them as... my granddaughters.”

-Arai and Sana had such a close relationship with this scary old woman? He nearly spat out his soup at that.

"Mmmmm... It seems matters are converging in curious ways,” Ancestor Kai mused softly, before taking a sip of his soup and sighing. “This is excellent soup by the way.”

“Thank you. The more you twist things, the twistier they become—this is basically 'rule one' of messing with things that make other things go twisty,” Mrs Leng said with a half-smile. “Eventually, you twist things so much the whole world is one big twisted mess and then everything is converged in interesting ways whether you want it to be or not. Sometimes that is beneficial, sometimes it is… very much not.”

After that, they ate largely in silence, while Ancestor Kai asked a few more questions of Mrs Leng. He was more than happy to just sit there, eating the food and drinking the tea that came after, both were delicious in any case. It was only after they had left, by the same door they entered, and were well down the street that he finally plucked up the courage to speak.

“Um… Ancestor Kai?”

“Yes lad?” the old ancestor replied, glancing at him.

“What… was all that about?”

“If you want to find someone who can't be found, there are two people you can go to if you’re not willing to bother those three old eyes in their tower across the sea. The old Turtle in the Moon Tomb Valley or the Grieving Eye of Solitary Slaughter,” Ancestor Kai mused.

“She was… that person?” Elder Lan stopped dead in the street.

“Yes, she is that person.”

“Why is an old ghost like that living here?”

“Remember when my father warned you both that anyone who had taken ‘Physical Cultivation' beyond the Dao threshold was weird and dangerous far beyond their apparent means?” Ancestor Kai said softly.

“But why here?” Elder Lan muttered.

“Truthfully, she has not lived in this province for very long—some centuries at most, moving around from town to town,” Ancestor Kai shrugged. “I was surprised to learn she was still here frankly.”

“What is her realm? Honoured ancestor?” he asked, struggling to match the 'kindly Mrs Leng' who did all sorts of good works around the town with the image of a powerful cultivator, never mind that she should be mentioned by Ancestor Kai in the same breath as a legendary being like the founder of the Moon Tomb.

“As a Physical cultivator?" Ancestor Kai replied. "Hmmmm..." the old man looked pensive for a moment. "At least Dao Cloak."

"Dao Cloak?" he echoed blankly.

"Mmmm," Ancestor Kai nodded. "Its what Spiritual Cultivators would term Dao Sovereign."

"..."

He could only stare at Ancestor Kai blankly, wondering if he had misheard.

“I could get nothing from her…” Elder Lan sighed, shaking his head pensively.

“Unsurprising, her foundation is tyrannical for her realm, even among those who have been oppressed as she has, for so long.” Ancestor Kai said drily, “Better than yours, now, and mine at that realm, It might even be better than my old man's as well.”

“Better… than?” he repeated, looking from one to the other in surprise.

“We get along well son, but you haven’t kowtowed three times to me,” Ancestor Kai murmured, pinching his ear, with an amused twinkle in his eye.

-Oh, Monkeyshiet—! he back-pedalled in his head, realising how improper the question he had just blurted out actually was.

“My apologies… eld—” Ancestor Kai stopped him bowing by putting qi into his body for a second, giving him a look that was part amusement, part exasperation.

The Old Ancestor clapped a hand on his shoulder and just chuckled, pulling them both on. “Some things are worth worrying about, and some are not. Right now we need to go back and tell my father the wonderful news.”

“Wonderful news?” Elder Lan asked dubiously also catching the odd intonation on that.

"That he was right, and that the Din clan has indeed managed to subvert everyone’s eyes from this Di Ji entirely it seems,” Ancestor Kai mused with a searching tone. “When you think about it, it makes sense, but it is such an oddball idea and they obfuscated it so many times over that I am sure nobody would believe it even worth the effort for them to do just for one…”

They walked on in silence, heading back through the dreary, misty streets to the Cherry Wine Pagoda, avoiding the main Market boulevard, Yu district plaza and the canal-side streets. It was a bit of a circuitous route, through ruined streets, past dozens of funerary arrangements and new shrines in the forecourts of houses and on the walls of newly build shops. Pendants, jades and charms hung everywhere, the smell of incense cloying in smaller streets, even accompanied by the occasional chanting—as if the whole town was in mourning.

“This your first time really seeing what consequences look like?” Elder Lan murmured, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“It’s… I…” he suddenly found he didn’t really have words that could match what he felt.

He could still see the deaths of Mao, Mun, Ding, Jiao and Fang if he closed his eyes. He had grown up around here. Knew most of these households. Two doors back had been Ha Mao’s house, now almost completely rebuilt, the names of most of his family on the shrine outside. Ha Mao’s name was not on it either, which meant they likely held out some hope he was still alive to carry on the family…

“This... This is war, between cultivators,” Elder Lan said simply, waving his hand around the street. “A town of over two hundred thousand people reduced to just shy of ninety when all is totalled up. Set off by a bunch of Golden Immortal Punks from the other side of the ocean for personal gain, who, sheltered by power and influence, would likely never see any retribution for what they have wrought, through mendacious means... except for happenstance—”

“Oh for fates’ sakes,” the Old Ancestor Kai, who had been walking in pensive silence, stopped dead in the street in front of them, interrupting Elder Lan’s monologue on the horrors of war. “The old man’s seeking scroll was busted!”