Occasionally, I feel the sensation of a strange qi passing over me. Thankfully, The Movements of The Silent Monster seems to keep the qi from noticing my presence.

Men speaking in brisk tones occasionally pass by my hiding spot and I can’t help the anxiety that runs through me every time they pass by.

Each minute stretches for an eternity as I wait for Shia. I focus on my breath to calm myself, counting the seconds as I breathe in, then out.

In, then out.

The spirit of the camp flows through me. The spirit is harsher than usual, ready, as if for a battle.

Eventually, Shia returns, her form almost invisible in the darkness of the night. She travels up my offered arm and into my robes easily. I shiver at the sensation of her against my body.

“What did you find?” I ask, standing from my meditative position.

“Your master has dodged the arrow of death, it seems. They keep her in the mine.”

My body collapses against the wall as relief fills me. She’s still alive.

I close my eyes, crying a little before wiping the tears away. I hadn’t seen them kill her, but I didn’t want to hope….

With a deep breath, I push myself away from the wall and stand up tall.

“You know, little one, that they would not leave one such as her unguarded.”

“I know.” I answer as I start walking through the camp.

“You only put yourself in danger, with little chance of success, by continuing”

“I know.” I repeat, my feet leading me to the entrance of the mineshaft.

“Good. Then try not to die, little one. I’m starting to enjoy your company.”

I unsheathe my sword in preparation, my breath even.

Two men guard the entrance to the mineshaft, their qi lesser than mine.

I have to kill them, or get past them without letting them warn the true monsters that exist in this camp.

They are too visible for me to kill them without alerting the whole camp, so I hum softly to hide my presence further as I calmly walk between the both of them.

“Do you hear that?” One of them asks, waking up the other.

“Hear what?”

“A humming.”

I ignore their conversation, hoping that they just assume that they imagined it as I travel further into the mines.

I completely lose my vision as we travel into the completely dark mines. Shia guides me, telling me when to turn. I memorize the steps in hopes of finding my way back out even without her guidance.

A sconce on the wall lights up a doorway at the end of the tunnel I’m walking.

I hold my sword at the ready as I walk up the door.

As soon as I open the door, whoever is on the other side will know that I’m here and I’ll have to kill whoever they are, in order to free my Master.

Shia slides out of my robes, and some small part of me wonders if she is abandoning me now, leaving me alone to face whatever powerful cultivator is in the room through the door.

I close my eyes one last time, preparing myself.

Then I open them, and throw the door open.

Two men turn to me, but I’m in motion, my feet carrying me to them in an instant. My sword slices through the first man’s neck as he reaches for his sword.

The second pulls his sword out, and I recognize him from the attack on the caravan. He was one of the men that fought Tai Qiu, and his cultivation is much much stronger than mine.

A wave of force hits me, throwing me against the wall.

The man is in Middle Foundation Establishment,

I roll back onto my feet, catching my breath as I start singing in familiar, haunting tones.

The First Requiem: The Field of Blood.

The world changes around us, as the enemy cultivator takes a step back.

Blood flows over the rock under our feet.

Metal screeches against metal as men fight each other on the ancient battlefield.

Screams echo out as men lose limbs, or are stabbed through.

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The warrior of the first requiem appears beside me, his sword drawn and covered in blood.

The enemy cultivator looks at the battlefield, uneasy.

To my surprise, the enemy cultivator pulls the blood of my illusion around him, solidifying it into arrows.

And I know I’ve won.

He’s fallen for the illusion and accepts it for reality.

He shoots the arrows of blood at me, and the First Requiem Warrior steps in front of me. The Warrior slices through the arrows, returning them to blood.

I focus on the illusion, calling on my qi. Then I change it.

The warriors around us stop their battle, turning to the enemy cultivator. As one, they move in.

The enemy cultivator fights valiantly, calling on the blood that lies across the battlefield to kill those around him.

But these warriors were cultivators from a time filled with bloodshed.

They overwhelm him, and since he accepts the Requiem as reality, it becomes reality for him.

He dies as the requiem ends, the illusionary swords through his chest disappearing as I stop singing.

I collapse to the floor, gasping for breath. My qi reserves are nearly empty, but I managed it.

I killed him.

And a third man walks into the room from the door opposite of the one I just came through. His cultivation is as strong as the man I just killed.

I laugh, smiling up at him from the floor I kneel on. “I’m not going to die just yet.” I say, my confidence unwavering.

I stand up slowly as he calmly draws his sword. My ribs ache from the previous cultivator’s opening strike.

The man raises his sword, then pauses in shock. He falls to the ground, familiar purple lines traveling up his ankles.

Shia slithers over him, towards me. “No, it appears you aren’t, little one.” She says, grabbing a ring of keys off of the poisoned man’s belt with her tail. I grab the keys from her as she slithers back into my robes.

I walk to the door the last man walked through, placing my hand on the handle.

At the last moment, I turn back around, and bow to the room full of the dead. “I’m sorry.”

My heartfelt apology is met by the gurgling of the poisoned man’s final moments.

My eyes close as a weight enters my stomach, before reopening with my conviction.

I open the door into the next room.

Cages line the walls. Men and women of all ages sit shackled in these cages, their eyes focusing on me as I walk into the room.

I stare at the cages, unsure how to proceed.

“Your master is at the end.” Shia says.

I walk forward, my eyes catching the eyes of every prisoner that I pass.

Eventually I reach the end.

Tai Qiu lies in her cage, her body battered with scrapes and cuts. Her shackles glow blue, absorbing the qi around and I assume, in her. Her eyes open slowly as I approach, obviously weakened.

I sheathe my sword.

I hold back my sobs as I kneel next to the cage and unlock it.

She really is alive. I- I couldn’t believe it. Fate is never that kind.

Tears fall as I shakily move to the strange shackles around her wrists.

They fall to the floor and my body rocks with sobs.

Arms reach around me and I let her pull me into her chest as I cry.

Her body is thinner than I remember, her presence itself is strangely weakened, but her spirit- her spirit is the same. It’s almost as if she’d fallen in her cultivation all the way to a mere third level Qi Awakened

“Junior Sister. Jia.” Tai Qiu says softly and I pull back, wiping my face on my sleeve. “I’m sure you don’t have much time. We should hurry.”

I nod, then stand up.

Tai Qiu leans on me heavily as I help her off the floor. My gaze catches on all of those still in cages.

Freeing all of them would take so much of our limited time.

I lean Tai Qiu against a cage as I unlock a cage with another cultivator trapped by those strange qi absorbing shackles, then I toss the keys to him. He has more energy than Tai Qiu and gets to work on his own shackles.

I only pass the choice on to the strange cultivator, but it’s the best I can do. I have no desire to let Tai Qiu get recaptured and to fall into Doma’s hands myself.

I move back to Tai Qiu. Already, her complexion looks better, but she still leans on me as we leave the caged room and enter the room with the dead guards.

Tai Qiu looks around at the dead men, smiling slightly. She spits on one of them as we pass them.

I ignore the action, focusing on leaving. I retrace my steps through the mines, not relying on Shia, since she obviously prefers to keep her presence hidden. Already, Tai Qiu’s presence feels stronger than moments ago, up to the strength of a eighth level qi awakened disciple.

The two guards still sit at the entrance to the mine, talking to each other quietly. I pause, not sure how I want to get past them.

Tai Qiu spits something into her hand. It’s the ring that she wore all the time, her spatial ring. She calmly puts it on her hand and stops leaning on me.

Her sword of paper is silently pulled from her storage. She then walks up behind one of the soldiers. She stabs him through the back, then pulls her sword out and slices through the neck of the second soldier before he can react.

They both fall to the floor dead.

She looks down on them with pure hatred, before turning back to me and stumbling into my arms.

I hold her up as we walk past the bodies.

Now that we are out in the open, any cultivator who happens to be searching with their qi will likely discover us. My qi is still drained from that requiem, which means that I won’t be able to produce too many illusions.

Horses. If we’re going to escape, then we need horses to ride. We’ll ride to the portal and try to find a way through there.

I lead Tai Qiu to the stable; it isn’t too hard to find with the sounds and smells it produces. I leave her against the wall as I kill the poor man watching the horses.

I grab two mares, already saddled, then look back over the line of horses.

“Shia, can you poison them enough so that they can’t follow us without killing them?”

“I kill what I bite.” The snake says, slipping from my robes.

“Then do what you have to.”

A few moments later, I’m helping Tai Qiu mount one of the mares.

Once she’s on the horse, I walk both horses towards the gate.

That’s when the alarms go off.

A shout, a ringing of a bell. The whole camp wakes up.

I hop onto my horse with haste. I kick the horse into a gallop towards the gate, Tai Qiu’s mare following mine.

How do we get through?

I remember something that I’d bought at the market of the sect, but never had the chance to use. I reach into a hidden, waterproof pocket of my robe, pulling out the talisman I’d bought all that time ago.

A flame reaching to the sky is drawn on the talisman.

As we gallop towards the gate, I channel qi into it, hoping that whatever it does matches the picture.

A bird made of fire flies out of the talisman, expanding until it is larger than the gate it is flying towards.

It screeches, the sound sending every soldier and cultivator from this strange land stumbling to the ground. Then it crashes into the gate, burning it to a crisp as it flies through.

Our horses follow it a moment later, strangely fearless.

Then we are out, galloping down the open road.

Now all we have to do is reach the portal home.

And sneak through an enemy camp to get there.