Raika turns a part of herself away from the communion she’s experiencing.

With how vast her Mind is, it’s… well, not difficult, but challenging to stay in one place for long. Especially with her certainty as to just how much needs to happen all at once. She doesn’t have decades or centuries to prepare and work on projects, so multitasking is her greatest strength, even compared, in her opinion, to all her other powers.

Even as she enjoys and learns from the touch of Many-Grasping, listening in on herself, she turns another part of her Mind down, down, down into herself.

Her perspective shifts, as it always does when she dives deep enough, and the Soul blinks awake.

She has two cultivators she captured days ago that she… well, completely forgot about. And this is the only place she can think of where they might be.

In her defense, she suffered a lot of brain damage, facing down the Warrior realm Feng commander. While she maintains her identity and her memories through the regeneration of brain matter, some of the details likely slip away. It’s not like there’s no consequences to crippling brain damage just because there’s less compared to, say, a regular person.

In this case, the damage revolves around the fact that she forgot her passengers.

She tracked the events of the battle back, over and over, and there are only two places they could have gone- they either got left behind with the piles and piles of flesh she discarded to finally kill the Feng woman, or they got dropped into her inner world, her Body and Soul cooperating to secure them even as the Mind didn’t pick up on exactly how they did it.

If they got left behind in the flesh, they’re gone, but… she doubts it. She was surrounded by Divine Beasts- her cursed skin is… fine, when it comes to obscuring her interior, but not so much when it’s torn to shreds and half-rotted open. Hiding two living cultivators inside her? Not likely to work, not when surrounded by beings with senses like those of Divine Beasts.

Opening her eyes inside her Soul confirms it.

The golden band is tighter.

There’s still a teensy bit of a gap between the edge of her world and the golden band, but it’s tighter than it should be, accounting for everything she’s brought in and out that she remembers. Now, to find them.

She sends a pulse of her Intent into the world that is herself, and it responds.

A bit heavy-handed, but there are cultivators who have been set loose here for potentially up to two days. She’s in a hurry.

She feels the forest at the edge of the bamboo perimeter, formed around [SOMETHING BAD…], tremble as the fully-formed Soul within raises its “head”, and gives off the equivalent of a bored huffing sound. She feels the fields of writhing life, very nearly as large as her hand now, turning to each other, the Heart looking through their senses rather than letting them kill and die freely for a moment. She feels the grass, the trees, the air and ground and space of the landscape turn, pointing her in the right direction.

And of course, they’re in the one and only place she didn’t think to look at right away.

She feels two things that are not her moving inside the cabin that is her.

She exists here, and everything of this place is her. All it takes is the will to be at a place, and she is there.

Raika’s Soul looks through the wood and cracks and runes of the cabin, into herself, and sees two people there.

The Mind supplies their names- Ko and Aria, of the Crashing Rainfall sect. The brash, arrogant sword wielder smells of ringing bells and slabs of metal, falling abruptly from the sky, while the vine-wrapped, more mature part of their party smells of broken porcelain, made into beautiful damage. They are both seated, both cycling their cultivations.

And both absorbing the Qi of her inner world.

She opens the door and walks in, and they both leap to their feet, visible fear in their eyes.

Raika’s Soul is not a human soul. Not quite an avatar of cultivation, but far beyond a human being or a true mortal. She stands as tall here as she does in the real world, and the new form that Many-Grasping helped her to embrace is reflected here as well.

Antlers like a halo or crown, growing out of dawn-colored locks of synapse-rich flesh. Skin that is half starlight, half rich earth. Limbs a bit too long, and a powerful tail, helping to balance her size, even in the unreal physics of her inner world.

“Ko. Aria. Of the… Crashing Rainfall sect, was it?”

Neither one of them says a word. Their eyes are wide, and they move as if they’re in a dream.

“It’s polite to ask permission before you cultivate somewhere you don’t belong.”

The vine-wrapped woman falls to her knees, slamming her head onto the ground hard enough that the cabin cracks a bit.

“This lowly one apologizes for disturbing the hidden master!”

Ko, the bulky and stubborn one of the two, doesn’t move immediately, but he follows the example soon enough. He doesn’t slam his head down quite as hard, and his expression is like he bit into something sour, but he does indeed kowtow, his forehead to the ground.

“This lowly one apologizes for disturbing the hidden master.”

“And thanks the master for granting us our lives,” Aria says.

“...and thank the master for granting us our lives.”

…Well. This implies better sense than she expected from them.

“And why was it that you thought your lives being spared meant you were free to take from a place you know nothing about?”

“This lowly one apologizes, grand master!” the female cultivator says, her head still pressed firmly to the wood floor. “When this lesser being glimpsed the purity and strength of the Qi within your domain, she was overcome by temptation. I acted in defiance of the heavens and of your will, and throw myself upon your mercy and grace!”

“...does that usually work?”

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Raika can’t help but grin a little bit as Ko, the bulkier cultivator, actually snorts. She also grins a little wider when she feels Aria’s fear spike, the reaction making Ko’s fear spike in turn, like a delayed reaction to how stupid he’s being.

“I-”

“No, don’t answer.”

She crouches down, tilting her head from one side to the other as she examines them. Her neck cracks a bit, tilting supernaturally far on each side, and she feels the two of them take slow, even breaths to control themselves.

“You were out on patrol duty in territory very close to the overgrowth, which means you’re not weak, at least by the standards of your sect. But there’s also nothing there to mark your territory, no base to rest, no arrays, so it’s not exactly a fortified or important position. My guess is, especially considering how uniquely dense your boyfriend there seems to be, that you fucked up, and got put on shit detail patrolling in a trophy area and political mess. How close am I?”

“...this lowly disciple could not hope to guess at the machinations of her betters, and-”

“If it wasn’t obvious by now, you should know I don’t appreciate that sort of language. Short, direct answers. Understand?”

“Yes, master.”

Raika snorts, standing up and cracking her neck. “ I’m not your master. You don’t get to call me that. Why were you in the stone prairie picking fights?”

“...We took on a task offered to us by an elder of the sect, great one. We were… encouraged to take some time in completing the task, but when we believed you a lesser mortal-”

Raika makes a little growling noise in the back of her throat.

“I… when we thought you invaders, we felt it was our responsibility to act in the best interests of the sect.”

“Hmm. I’m sure you did.”

Raika sighs, long and low.

They’re cultivators. They were using her Qi, and attacked her for barely any reason at all… but they didn’t attack her friends. And they didn’t launch an ambush. And being strong and stupid doesn’t demand death.

She did kill a cultivator over in Wayun village. His only crime, besides being a pushy ass, was to be a potential threat to her. These two… they kind of aren’t. Even if they weren’t literally trapped inside a world she controls full of a truly mind-boggling amount of potential weapons and resources, Nascent Soul cultivators at their level just aren’t a threat anymore. There’s only so far she can stretch the idea of killing someone just because it’s more convenient than keeping them alive.

She runs a hand over her head, feeling in that weird dream-way the sensation of her hand running over dense synaptic flesh rather than hair.

Yeah, alright. She can see where this goes.

“Both of you, get up.”

Aria jumps to her feet, Ko almost as fast as her this time, likely just happy to be out of the kowtow.

“Good. Now get out of the cabin. It’s not for you. None of this is for you, but especially not the cabin.”

She steps out, the two of them following after immediately. They do stagger a bit on the porch steps, however, and she turns to look at them, surprised to see such powerful cultivators struggle with a staircase.

They’re both holding their eyes half-shut, breathing shallowly. They have started sweating, as if exposed to an open flame, held too close to their faces.

Raika turns to look around.

To her, it just… feels normal. It just is her. But if she twists the perspective just a bit, uses more of her Mind to simulate “normal” senses in the space-

Ah. Yeah, alright, that can be a bit much.

Exiting the cabin, the glow of her Reactor illuminates an impossible landscape of writhing valleys and red-purple grass. A thousand-thousand crawling, malformed creatures try their best to slaughter and devour each other, save for one patch of peace, a centipedal-crocodile standing as a throne for a bright blue beetle and a small horde of glowing worms. Directly across from where they stand, the pond sits at the lowest point of the world, and behind it, rising to the highest peak of the landscape, a hill of corroded weapons, each of them tall as buildings, with a garden of plants atop it. If plants could literally hurt to look at, like you can feel the inside of your eyes becoming more eyes, or your mind getting sliced apart, or-

Hmm. Yeah.

Raika grabs both of the cultivators by the shoulder and pushes.

They both land in a room, wide enough to fit the cabin they last saw entirely, lit with sconces of True Flame. Raika watches through eyes in the walls, watching how they stagger, adjusting to a new set of physics, tracking how their bodies move and shift, gravity asserting itself… differently on them.

They look around, their Qi senses extending-

She blocks them, shifting cursed flesh into the way.

From out of the wall, she forms a body, stepping forward. No reason to waste her proper shape on them now- she reforms mostly as human, the mask back in place. A toga-robe of skin covers her, but she remains nearly seven feet tall, barefoot, rich dark skin matched to bright red hair and glowing, iridescent eyes.

“So!” she yells, her voice startling the disoriented cultivators. Ko is ready to fight, whipping the remains of his sword out of a spatial ring- but Aria stops him. Good. She’d beat them, but it would be expensive, fighting them from inside out.

“You didn’t harm my people, and despite how much it might please me, I am not in the business of killing people for being arrogant. But I don’t know this place, and I don’t know you. So you will remain here, as my guests, and if you don’t cause problems, maybe I let you go. Do you understand?”

Aria bows low. “We understand, honored one, and thank you for your generosity. We owe you our lives, and-”

She holds up a hand. “Yes, you do, now shut up and listen. I do not have time or resources to waste on prisoners. If you try to escape, I kill you. Hurt anyone else under my protection, I kill you. Try and harvest Qi or materials from me again, and I kill you.”

“We will offer no trouble, great one. We lowly cultivators would fetch a handsome ransom for our safe return to our sect, which would gladly honor you with gifts worthy of your generosity and grace.”

“Maybe. It’s one option amongst many, and I can’t say I’ll be headed in that direction for some time. However, rather than leave you unconscious for storage, I offer you a deal.”

Aria bows again.

“Whatever you wish that we may offer is yours, great one.”

Raika takes a long, deep sigh. She resists the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“...Good. My cultivation is… unique. I have disciples who have more traditional means. You will train them, and protect them in my absence. In return… I will offer you pure Qi, to strengthen your cultivation, and I won’t kill you. Deal?”

Aria’s eyes widen. “Honored one, I-”

“What about that place?” Ko interrupts.

She turns to face him, and for a moment, the room heats up. Blood and Qi flows behind cursed flesh, and her Intent rises for a moment, sharp-edged and angry.

“Whatever do you mean, person who I beat unconscious very recently?”

He pauses, seeming to actually take a moment to think- and then he bows.

“Apologies, great one. Long has it been my flaw to think in terms of action, rather than proper obesiance. My tongue skips ahead of my mind at times, save when well-practiced and prepared.”

In her mind, Raika notes just how verbose this apology (and his dramatic proclamations back in the stone prairies) is in comparison to how he’s been speaking.

“They say the first step to fixing a problem is knowing what it is. I suppose second step is a little rougher. What is it that you want, that your tongue skipped so far ahead to try and make a demand of me?”

He takes in a breath, seeming to focus himself. She sees his eyes and Qi senses flicker over to the sconces of True Flame igniting the space in pure white-gold light, at the living matter she is even now connected with.

“This lowly cultivator begs the grand master for their patience. The purity of the Qi within your construct-beast is beyond compare, and is a princely bounty, more than fair for that which you ask. But for another glimpse at the sights of your dream-domain, this one would gladly lay down his life for the master and her protected.”

She blinks. Aria, on the other hand, turns, hard, staring at him with undisguised shock and fury.

“You absolute-”

“Further! This lowly one would gladly sacrifice the treasures he carries, the lesser manuals he has access to, and guide your followers as high as this lowly one can achieve for the sake of bearing witness to that place once more! The richness of Dao is beyond compare, the Qi as pure and smooth as silk, and the mere presence of the natural treasures and formations within the space awe this lesser cultivator!”

He stands there, posed, his fists outstretched into a respectful pose and his head bent at almost ninety degrees.

For a moment, the female cultivator just stares at him, mouth wide. Then, she seems to remember herself, turning back to Raika- but she stops. Stumbles, like she’s not ready to agree with her ally, but struck by the possibility of his request being answered. She chokes down a breath and also bows, choosing to say nothing in the end.

Raika takes a deep breath.

In. Out.

Heavens keep her from bold idiots. She can’t help but like them.

“...If you prove yourself as useful as you claim to be, then I may consider such a proposal. In the meantime, sit. Meditate. When I am ready, I will return to you, and we’ll see if you’re worth the investment.”