Guan Yo Shen had always had a love-hate relationship with the palace he had been raised in. The Guanbao is a sprawling piece of architectural art. The great builder and visionary Guan Xaihou Shen, the namesake of Yo Shen, had constructed the fortress over his entire life. The maze-like structure was intentional, any would-be assassins could be turned around by the hallways which all looked the same. At the same time, it meant that Shen himself had needed guides to go from his own bedroom to the bathroom.

Which was a hindrance to himself now as he tried to stalk through the quiet halls of dark, sound dampening wood. Already, Shen had bumped into an ancient housekeeper whom he knew only as Pony, two cousins playing a drinking game with some maids and even an ex-girlfriend. Pony, probably as old as his grandmother, had effused about how tall he was and that he should settle down before he could extricate himself from that conversation. His cousins Ji Fin and Ji Reno would be the path to not settling down, those maids did look like they’d be a lot of fun, but seeing Yu Li reminded him that relationships really weren’t his thing at the moment.

Rubbing his face, more for theatrics than in any actual pain, Shen left Yu Li feeling avenged of his treatment and he was finally alone. His thumping heart was not the fluttering of a confused heart, but instead it was his logical brain screaming about his foolishness. Shen ignored his overthinking mind. Action in moments of crisis were important, and his father was busy. His father was always busy. Shen had learned to take matters into his own hands ever since he first missed a meal.

This was not like asking a sleepy chef to make a bowl of stew, though.

Sure that none of the people Shen had seen on his path would understand his destination, he continued inside the non-descript room. It had been a long time since Shen got lost and nearly soiled himself, unsure which door was which. He was a grown man, with a solid square core full of power. He was Guan Yo Shen, heir to the Guan family. He would be the first target when his uncle’s machinations came to fruition. Venturing into the labyrinth was actually a sensible decision.

While many doors in the Guanbao palace opened to all, Shen felt the magic within scan his core. He wretched, as any would. The labyrinth’s tendrils seemed to wrap around his core - his soul - with the icy cold grip of a scorned lover. Over in an instant, his mana was released and Shen could breathe once more. A final quick scan, attempting as much as possible to be casual, Shen was certain no one knew his plan or had their eyes on him. He slipped inside the door which looked just like every other and stepped into the most important room in the country.

This was where the love part of his feelings for home came from. As though cut from pure ruby, jade, sapphire and topaz, the room before Shen glittered like the hoard of a legendary dragon, gifted to a magnificent beast over centuries of worship. He knew that it wasn’t actually far from the truth either. The cavernous storage area of the dragon known as the Guan family. The space had been made this way by Shen’s ancestor, the dimensions of it warped through incredible magic scripts. The first and most important room he had made.

Shen hadn’t come to inspect and fawn over the Guan family vault, though. As Shen made his way through the room, he couldn’t help his eyes from lingering on his favourite piece despite his singular mind. The contours of the slipstream robe had always caught his eyes. When he had first been brought here by his father in a rare bonding moment, Po Dia had pointed it out to Shen and had him hold his soul badge near it.

“They’re the same colours!” Shen could hear himself say when he saw the glass case holding the garment.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“They are, son.” His father’s words echoed as Shen walked right over to the case and smashed it. Before the robe could fly away, Shen flared his mana and instead of flitting around like a chaotic flying eel, the robe instead grappled him in an attempt to be worn. The time for caution was far past gone, and Shen was kidding himself if he pretended that this artefact wasn’t made for him. If fate was true, and Shen saw no reasons not to think so, then it was destiny that he should don the slipstream robe.

The incredible material had been woven by godshine spiders over decades, each strand of its millions costing the life of the arachnid which gifted it. As their webs were drawn from them, artisans sang from dusk to dusk, weaving their own magic into the forming of the robe. The result was a garb worth thousands of times its weight in gold. It finished snuggling onto Shen, clearly as happy to have met him as he was to have finally gotten the robe himself. Since that first visit, Shen had felt the robe call him. Now, on what was sure to be the eve of absolute chaos, was the time to throw caution to the wind.

And Shen would need all the help he could get in the labyrinth.

While now the room is used to house the artefacts and treasures which have been amassed by the Guan family over their centuries of rule, the reason for the large room was not the protection of wealth. It was designed to keep people away from the entrance to the labyrinth. Beneath the entire continent stretched a colossal, serpentine maze and this was one of very few entrances. All places of power around the continent, this one had cemented the Guan as the house of power nearly half a millennia ago.

No one had been “allowed” entry since the rise of the Shin empire one hundred and fifty years ago, but some had ventured within its terrifying and dangerous pathways. Any who returned, returned fierce. Shen needed to be fierce. If his father couldn’t deal with his uncle and his assassination attempts due to propriety, then Shen would simply throw away propriety.

With that thought, it became quite a bit easier to walk the massive room without distraction. His steps felt as light as a feather, the robe already doing its work. While Shen’s mana clearly had a similar feel to the robe, the effect they produced was vastly different. He was desperately excited to use it, now that he had gotten over the slight shock of his own actions.

The slipstream robe was said to make the user fly. Shen could feel it, even now, trying to lift him. Shen hopped and spun as he walked towards the ornate trapdoors. The bounce took him weightlessly across a dozen yards of space, he twisted comfortably in the air, dancing with the robe and learning how it moved. How it let him move. Shen collected the tension in his knees, let his ankles bounce slightly as he landed and then Shen launched himself.

Instantly, he understood why this robe had been locked away. Wearing it was far too fun, and it would be impossible for others not to get jealous. Flying didn’t describe it, Shen was the wind. He pinged from position to position, high in the ceiling, down to the floor, landing on delicate sets of armour without them moving. He stepped on the tip of a spear and soared away from it.

It took him a good few minutes to calm down, the exhilaration combined with a long-standing anticipation and forced Shen into a childlike haze of forgetful, carefree state of wonder. It wasn’t until Shen steeled his core, rippled the mana within and stretched his power that the feeling stopped. The robe itself was influencing Shen’s emotion, and its tantalising mana was enough to make Shen forget his purpose. He landed on the ground and pulsed his mana again. The robe would mean that he could not drop his guard, even with his own equipment.

That was good. The labyrinth would be trying and there was no more time to play around. The Quiet Combat would be happening now, and would certainly not last long. If - when - Guan Ah Dan was defeated, and Shen winced thinking about the poor boy’s fate, then the whole family could implode. Guan Po Shang would not stop at an attempt on his sister’s life alone. The smoke and mirror of it being an attack on his grandmother’s student was just that, an illusion. This was a fight between Shen’s father, the patriarch and his ambitious brother.

A fight that Shen would end before it could begin.

Shen strained his arms against the heavy stone trapdoor, impressed with the weight of it. In all of the Guan family, Shen could be counted amongst the peak in terms of physical strength. Most star stages would be above him, but age had long since stolen the vigour of the few star stage practitioners of the Guan family. Another good barrier to entry, Shen mused.

It did mean that once he was in and the door dropped, something Shen did not consider beforehand, it would be nearly impossible to open from the other side. As light vanished and Shen was left in the darkness of a continent-spanning labyrinth, he thought he might at least have brought a torch with himself.