Year 258 of Taiping, Reign of Empress Cao Ming Yung

It was a typical morning in the land south of the Hong Kingdom. Birds flew overhead as the sun crested the horizon, providing a serene view for any fortunate onlookers.

Then the ground began to tremble. If one looked carefully, one could see the approval of the heavens descending upon a cave hidden deep within the Eastern Mountains. After an incense time, the rumbling stopped, and a young man stepped out of the cave. His skin was tan like a farmer’s, he was dressed in his sect’s iconic blue and white embroidered robes, with jet black hair arranged in a bun atop his head. His toned and profusely sweating body contrasted with his face, which was the picture of serenity. His name was Lei Jianyu, and he had finally cultivated to the peak of his stage.

Jianyu was excited. After 7 long months of solitary cultivation, he was finally returning to the Cloud Runner Sect. He sighed contentedly, admiring the life all around him.

Closing his eyes, he sent his spiritual sense questing through the mountainous forest. Advancement to the peak of his stage offered the ability a newfound clarity that astounded him. He felt, more than saw, a Baron-rank tiger-demon lazing in a tree, oblivious to his presence. Across the valley, a troop of Baron-rank carpenter ants struggle to fend off a single Count-rank mantis demon. None of them were a threat to him.

Father, if you could see me now, he thought.

He was only 17, yet he was at the cusp of greatness. Core Cultivators made the backbone of any truly powerful organization, and his Sect was no exception. If- when he broke through, he’d be the youngest Elder in three centuries.

But he was excited. Returning to the sect meant reuniting with his brother. The persistent feeling of lacking control would disappear.

Several hours passed as he walked the well-worn path back to the Sect. He reminisced about his time with the Sect. He and his brother had joined only half a dozen cycles past; what felt so long ago was but the blink of an eye in the long life of a cultivator. He could almost hear his master’s words.

“All that matters is the present, for the present is the past, and the future is now.” Elder Liu was nothing if not eccentric, and Jianyu’s memories made him chuckle.

He traveled at a speed surpassing the finest mortal horses, but after years of living in a supernatural body, it didn’t faze him. His breakthrough meant his mind could actually process the terrain, once only a blur in his vision. The chirping and buzzing sounds of life were ever present, but now he could identify their sources. Here, a beetle rested on a blade of grass, calling for a mate. There, a bloodied troupe of ants carried the body of a mantis ten times their size. Snakes slithered in the grass, natural camouflage their only protection from flying predators above. Time flowed like a stream, and it felt like a handful of incense times instead of hours before he arrived in his sect’s territory again.

He returned his focus to the present and noticed something amiss. The clanging of metal from sparring and smithing was gone, replaced instead by a morose silence. The harvesters, who should have been gathering herbs and alchemical reagents, were nowhere to be found. . Even though he was several li from the sect, he could usually hear the Sect with the gifts provided to him by his cultivation. He heard not the leaves blowing in the wind, nor the insects scuttling across the ground, nor even his own breath.

His mind was racing, theories and explanations rolled from raw consciousness and-

No, he thought. I’ve trained for this.

He cleared his mind, cycling qi to his head and spine. The soothing sensation of wind qi tickling his brain calmed his nerves enough to think methodically once more.

He arrived to a sect with gates flung open.

The elders are all sticklers for protocol. Something isn’t right.

So he ran.

He saw the first bodies adjacent the dormitories, where disciples should have been meditating or cultivating. He didn’t stop to look at the faces of his juniors, fearful of the dead comrades he’d find. Still, he ran, past the treasure hall, filled with artifacts that mortal practitioners could only dream of, past the residences of the elders, each lavish and unreasonable in their opulence, even as their owners’ fates remained uncertain. His destination: the inner courtyard.

A grisly sight greeted him. All around, disciples lay dead or dying.

1, 2, 3… 5 elders, all slain.

Five cultivators, each possessing unfathomable knowledge and experience, each eccentric and mysterious in their power. Five seemingly immortal figures lay dead before him. Sect Leader Long was nowhere to be found.

Please, let him live.

Searching for his brother didn’t take long. His distinctive pale hair made him stick out. He let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding- shouldn’t have needed to, due to his superhuman body. As long as his brother was well, all was good in the world. He hurried to his brother’s side, rejoicing.

A distant voice in his head said it was more out of concern for himself than for his brother. After all, he could be spiritually crippled by such a traumatic loss so soon after a breakthrough.

After confirming that Elder Liu, his master, was not among the fallen, Jianyu ran to his brother’s side and embraced him, praying his thanks to the Gods that his brother was safe.

“Brother! You’re alive”, Zhaohui exclaimed as the brothers embraced each other. “It is good that you are here. Congratulations on your advancement.”

His face turned dark. “But there is no time for that now. We will need it to fight against these traitorous bastards. As much as I would like to welcome you back, our time is short.”

“Traitorous? Who attacked you?” Jianyu asked. He could not think of any of the neighboring sects that would dare. The punishment that would result from the Crimson Empress would be too severe to risk their involvement.

“It was Elder Shao. He opened the gates to a force of Void Assassins a hundred strong.”

Jianyu skipped a step, so surprised was he by his brother’s words. “Void Assassins? As in-”

“As in the story used to tell children. Yes. It was a slaughter. Elder Shao’s entire faction defected with him. He poisoned Patriarch Long in his treachery. The Patriarch fell in battle three days ago.” Zhaohui grimaced. “There are fewer than 50 of us left.”

Jianyu could have told that something was wrong by his brother’s impatience alone. Zhaohui was the calmer of the two brothers, always patient, always polite. Jianyu couldn’t remember a time his little brother had interrupted him.

Zhaohui didn’t wait for Jianyu to catch up. “They have been biding their time, regrouping, and waiting for us to die off, whether from untreated wounds, disease, or starvation. They’ve been sending token forces to fatigue us twice daily.”

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Jianyu opened his dimensional pouch, filled with nutritional pills from his time in isolation. “Brother, you said starvation was a problem? I have at least two hundred nutritional pills. We must restore our strength before they attack again.”

He waved his right hand to unlock his spatial artifact, an unassuming golden ring. Then, touching his own artifact to his brother’s own jeweled silver ring, he transferred the pills directly into his brother’s spatial storage.

Zhaohui’s eyes went blank for a moment, before opening wide in surprise. “Brother, this could give us a fighting chance.” He gathered three outer disciples and directed them to distribute the pills, and to pass along the message to cultivate and restore qi for the next confrontation.

Jianyu brought the entirety of his spiritual strength to bear- which was a considerable amount, following his breakthrough to peak Foundation. Jianyu focused his spiritual sense on his brother’s body. He’d long ago learned to interpret the confusing sensory input, translating the deluge of information conveyed by the technique into something useful.

1,2… 4 pillars by my count; he must have advanced mid-battle. Conflict was an excellent catalyst for development. There was a reason the cultivators of legend had risen to power in times of conflict. Last they’d met, Zhaohui had just broken through to the early Foundation stage. He didn’t stop there, though.

Foundation Establishment was the least abstract tier of qi cultivation. Directly after transforming gaseous qi in the Condensation stage, cultivators shaped their energy into pillars.

His focus delved lower, just below his brother’s navel, and focused on his dantian, the spiritual organ that held a cultivator’s qi. Reserves at one quarter capacity; signs of soul fatigue. He shook his head slightly as he mentally discarded defensive strategies. He’s the most efficient defensive practitioner the Sect has. If even his reserves are almost empty, it’s no wonder casualties are so high.

Jianyu didn’t bother examining his brother further; he knew his brother like the back of his hand. He had ever since they were street urchins fighting for scraps; it paid, often literally, to keep tabs on even your closest allies. As an older brother, his actions born of his protective instincts justified themselves, and it was situations like these, however rare, that made him stay vigilant. The time he saved now let him focus on logistics, which were just as important for their survival.

“What about defensive artifacts? Are any still functional?”

Zhaohui’s stony visage remained unchanged. “The cannons are all functional, but lack ammunition. The walls and Sect Guardian were sabotaged before the first attack, and the armory doors have been sealed shut. No elders survived the first attack to open it.”

“That… I may be able to help.”

Jianyu didn’t wait for Zhaohui’s reply; they both knew there was no time to spare. Zhaohui’s defeated eyes regained a twinkle of hope. “We may survive this after all,” he whispered to himself.

Jianyu appeared as a blur in his short journey to the armory. His Organ-Tempering body had cost tens of thousands of contribution points- the internal currency used by sect members- to develop, on top of agonizing medicinal baths that stripped away his skin, infusing his heart, liver, and kidneys with strength. But the result was worth the cost. Nails, arrowheads, and debris punctured his simple sandals, only to break upon the soles of his feet. Mortal metal posed no more a threat to him than a fly did a tiger.

The armory itself was an island above a sea of destruction. The octagonal pagoda stood atop the stone foundation of the sect itself. Rubble and debris from walls and buildings had collapsed around it, but it stubbornly refused to yield. The double doors were painted in dozens of shades of blue, overlaid by white swirls. Like the rest of the building, lacked any visible signs of damage.

It’s like they didn’t bother trying to destroy it, he thought. If what Zhaohui told me of Elder Shao is true, he likely sabotaged the armory before his deception became known.

That reality was far more comforting than the thought of traitors remaining amongst the sect.

Lei Jianyu was an anomaly. In a sect that emphasized a close adherence to its Dao, he had carved his own path. The wind was quick and fleeting, and the cultivators who danced upon it even more so.

At its heart, the Cloud Runners were a sect of Daoists- meaning they adhered strictly to qi cultivation, seeking enlightenment through the orthodox stages; Condensation, Foundation Establishment, and Core Formation.

There were only a handful of body cultivators in the sect. Of them, Jianyu was the strongest. He was different, and his techniques reflected this. The treasured manuscripts passed down through generations of Cloud Runners weren’t enough. And so he’d altered them into something that he could use.

He didn’t float on the wind, running on streams of flowing air like his brethren; instead, he molded it with his will. The wind bucked this way and that, seeking to escape that which wished to control it. It wasn’t meant to be controlled, and yet Jianyu did it anyway. A vein in his forehead rose to prominence as he exerted himself. A hint of qi exited his dantian with each second that passed, a tool to enact his will upon the world. Gaseous qi swirled into a sphere the diameter of a man’s height. Rather than expanding as Jianyu added more qi from his reserve, it began to condense; a process with little visual distinction, due to its component wind qi.

Minutes passed before he was ready, and a handful of sect disciples began to congregate. The Void Sect posed an imminent threat, but in spite of- or rather, because of that, they sought this final opportunity to hone their skills by watching the delicate qi control of a superior.

An illusory battering ram formed in front of Jianyu, currents of wispish white wind swirling within it. With a thought, he directed it forward. In an instant, all of the pent up energy, only held in place by Jianyu’s will, erupted forward. The doors breached with a colossal CRAAAACK as the door bar fractured. Jianyu didn’t wait for the dust to settle before entering the armory.

Qi constructs, he thought. So simple, yet so versatile.

The armory interior was untouched, save for the splinters of wood that now decorated the floor. Wards and other protective techniques should have shielded the myriad of artifacts and weapons from his searching hands. Or at least, they would have, if the sect’s defensive emplacements hadn’t drained the reserve.

Jianyu knew he had no time for care and wasted no time reading the flowery text that described each notable weapon or artifact. After all, the Guandao of Eternally Unwavering Flame was a needlessly poetic moniker for a simplistic, if powerful, flame enchantment. Instead, he sent invasive probes formed from the energy of his soul to scour whatever lay in his hand. The sensation was unlike anything a mortal would ever experience; after assessing an object with what could only be called tentacles somehow attached to his mind, he simply knew whatever he was holding. The intimacy of the act was why use on other practitioners, and even mortals, was heavily discouraged, if not outright taboo.

But there was nothing intimate about what he was doing now.

Grab. Scan. Discard. Repeat.

There was a monotony to it that fit with everything else he’d experienced since becoming a cultivator, but for Jianyu, never before had repetition been so rushed. Weapons that had once frequented his dreams now barely worth a thought. Incompatibility was the cause of the majority of his disregard; he was devoted to the path of the Sword, and thus had little use for the various polearms, bows, and innumerable exotic weapons.

Besides, it’s not like the assassins would give me a chance to learn a new style of combat.

Weapons weren’t the only thing Jianyu ignored. Alchemical Concoctions that could make a cultivator’s strength soar to the peak of Core Formation, in exchange for their potential. Dark Rituals offering blood, or body, or soul to one demon or another. This and more, he ignored.

Whether he realized it or not, victory alone wouldn’t satisfy him.

At first, the gathered disciples hesitated, but Jianyu’s urgency and lack of care broke the spell they’d been under. One by one, they filtered through the doors, most still tiptoeing reverently around the artifacts they’d dreamed of possessing, now strewn about the floor in haphazard fashion.

Jianyu’s urgency couldn’t have been more apt, because within the time it took for an incense stick to burn down, the sect was once more under siege.