The ankle was all Li could reach from her hiding place, pressed down as she was by Jianying’s roar. She and Kaz were joined, but not the same, and while the other dragon couldn’t suppress her completely, she couldn’t leap or fly.
It was enough. Ganring yelped, turning his focus from Kaz to Li, just for a moment. Kaz turned, grabbing the xiyi’s wrist. Ganring was several inches taller than Kaz, and he had momentum on his side, so the knife continued downward, creating an indentation in Kaz’s bare chest. And there it stopped.
Xiyi and kobold stared, and Kaz felt a laugh begin bubbling up inside him. He had just rebuilt this body in some very fundamental way, and apparently that way was good enough to make it impenetrable, at least in this case. The knife looked sharp, and had the subtle sheen of adamantium. He thought it was only an alloy, but it still should have easily pierced his flesh, even if he had reached Iron body cultivation.
With a twist, the keen tip dragged over Kaz’s skin, once again failing to slice him open, and Ganring hissed as his fingers spasmed beneath the pressure of Kaz’s grip on his wrist. The two of them stared at each other over the xiyi’s awkwardly twisted arm, and then Ganring bared his teeth furiously.
“You won’t live long enough to regret thiss,” he said, drawing out the final sound as his body began to swell, bulging beneath his long robe and fine clothing. His back curved upwards, his snout elongated, and his tongue flattened and split as it flickered out, almost touching Kaz’s face.
Rapidly, Ganring’s body distorted. He became something other than a xiyi, but also not a dragon. All of the parts of either species were there, including stunted wings that tore through his shirt, but none of them were right. Not a single piece matched any other, leaving him as much a monstrosity as any of the fulan-created shiyan.
Like Kaz.
Except that Kaz knew what he was. Had known from the moment of his death, into his rebirth. He was a kobold; neither human nor beast but something entirely new. Not, perhaps, what either Qiangde or Dongwu had intended, but Kaz had no desire to be anything else.
Ganring’s right eye was bulbous and mad, yellow with red veins visible around the outside. His left was almost that of a xiyi, but held the same gleam of madness mingled with triumph. He was certain that he had won, and he turned to look at the humans, all but ignoring Kaz.
“You won’t lissten to sssweet words? Sssee what you face! I can crush you with a thought!” His words rang out over the stadium, reaching even the most distant, hidden listeners. The humans paused in their efforts to regain their feet, while the xiyi remained kneeling, long necks bent in supplication.
Turning back to Kaz, Ganring laid his hand on Kaz’s face, beginning to pull at Kaz’s ki. And Kaz pulled back. It was almost too easy. Ganring was right there, and his white, black, and yellow ki was quivering, open, expanding toward Kaz. Kaz didn’t even have to reach out, just hold onto his ki, know that it was his, and as soon as Ganring’s ki touched his, Ganring’s power became his as well.
Ki flooded Kaz. It burned through his channels, sizzling like strips of meat placed on a hot rock. Ganring stiffened, then began to sag, not bursting like the human he’d killed, but emptying out, a water bladder drained of its contents.
Kaz’s eyes blazed. Mana was everywhere, obscuring the world, or perhaps revealing it in all its elemental beauty. Every living thing around him held power, even those he would have sworn were utterly powerless. He turned his gaze, more blind than he had been after his physical eyes were burned by the blood of the creature in the Deep.
Had the world always been so profound? Had he walked through it, believing he was beginning to understand? Only a short while ago, he had thought he must be as strong as it was possible for him to become, but now he was more. His skin felt stretched as Ganring became hollow, and far too late, Kaz realized that the xiyi was connected to an immense network of beings.
Kaz could feel every person, human or xiyi, who contained a duqiu or a fangqiu. They were something like reverse cores, trapping power, ki and mana alike, rather than creating it. Then, instead of allowing that power to strengthen their bearer, some or all of it was sent away. Ganring had known how to control the amount of power he accepted, but Kaz did not.
Streams of bright ki flowed into him from the bowing xiyi, though he wouldn’t have known that was what it was if he didn’t remember from when his eyes still worked. Mana swirled and split as things - people? - moved, but Kaz was blind and turgid and now that he had accepted what was hidden within Ganring, he couldn’t stop it.
His body was unraveling. He had forced it together, forming it out of power, and now there was too much. It hummed, then sang, then screamed, and he could feel his core swelling, becoming all of him.
A voice. Li. Kaz turned ki-filled eyes toward her. Saw her. Brilliant Fire over bones of Earth, with Water in her mind, Metal claws, and Wood for a heart. She was the only shape that remained in a tumult of power, and he was killing her.
Their shared cycle was a conflagration hanging between them. Kaz could stretch, expand, possibly until he simply merged with the power all around him, but Li was both more and less. She wasn’t made of vision, of image and dreams, but flesh, and that flesh couldn’t hold everything. Just…everything.
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Kaz released Ganring. The empty husk dropped to the ground, and Kaz gasped, drawing air into lungs that once again felt like they were more than merely solidified elements. His knees gave out, failing as they hadn’t when a thousand-year-old dragon tried to crush him, and he gathered Li into his arms. She shuddered, skin splitting, peeling off in layer after layer of white as her body desperately tried to keep up with the ki that had poured into her.
“Li?” Kaz whispered, ignoring Snen, who sat, staring at him, horrified and more than a little frightened. His dragon didn’t answer. Her head lolled on her slender neck as she shivered, and for the first time in a very long time, Kaz actually looked at her core.
The last time he did this was on the rocky shore of an underground lake, where he had broken his own core. Kaz’s instincts, either as a kobold or as a shiyan, had almost overtaken him, urging him to devour her core in spite of the fact that she had just saved his life. Since then, he had made an effort not to see it, to pretend that it didn’t exist, so that no similar temptation could overcome him. This time, he felt no such urge.
Her core heaved, looking like it was a pulsing heart as the ki within swirled wildly. It was muddy and unstable, but not broken. Not yet. Reaching out, he gently, gently stroked it, gathering one color after the other, setting them into swirling patterns rather than churning surges.
Water was first. Her favorite, no matter how much she liked the idea of breathing fire. He soothed black waves into soft ripples. Metal was easiest. It had resisted chaos from the very beginning, and as Water became smooth, Metal willingly joined it. Wood wanted to grow, to become more, but it also longed for stability; a steady, smooth growth rather than an abrupt and violent one. Earth nourished the others, willing to go along so long as the whole continued to become more.
Fire was the most difficult. It was transformation and energy. It would willingly burn away all the rest so long as it could change and expand. But it required fuel or it burned itself away, and once the other four elements were settled, it had no choice. It resisted, prideful and eager, until even it was forced to admit that it had done all it could.
Kaz pulled back, watching the smooth turning of Li’s cycle, her channels strong, dantians full, core filled with richer, deeper colors than ever before. His vision flickered between what he was used to and that blurred, overwhelming awareness of everything, but he could see that she lay still now, breathing easily, though black sludge coated her, forced out of her body by her abrupt advancement. She wouldn’t like that, so he tried to clean it, wiping away layers of sloughed skin as he did so.
“You killed him,” Snen whispered, and Kaz paused, looking over at what remained of Ganring. If Li had grown, Ganring was a husk. A thin layer of scales stuck to dry bones, as twisted and misshapen as the xiyi had been when he died.
The sun went out. Kaz, Snen, and Snen’s dragon looked up. At first it was difficult to understand what they were seeing, but then it clicked. It was a head. Jianying had come to see what had happened to his son.
For a moment, Kaz was thrown back to the moment he entered the mid-levels in the mountain. There, someone had carved a colossal head into the cavern wall, and in order to descend, you had to enter through its gaping maw. Even after a thousand years, it was still daunting, serving as a warning that anyone who entered took their life into their own hands. It was also worn and dirty, difficult to define as any particular beast, though Kaz had come to believe it could well be a dragon.
Now, he was certain. Not this particular dragon, though it was strange to think that Jianying had been around when the image was carved. Had it been Qiangde? That certainly seemed reasonable, given that dragon’s extreme self-centeredness. Kaz had been inside Qiangde’s head, however, so he didn’t actually know what the long-dead emperor looked like in his natural form.
Smoke streamed from Jianying’s mouth, creating a dark cloud that concealed the black tendrils that floated around his face. His maw opened wide, and a light swelled beyond the white teeth, each of which was longer than Kaz was tall.
Fire ki bloomed, and though Kaz was now certain his ki was stronger than the dragon’s, and his body might be all but indestructible, that wouldn’t stop those gargantuan teeth from crushing his companions, including Li. Could he hold a shield and shatter Jianying’s core at the same time? He didn’t think he could steal the dragon’s ki, not unless Jianying left himself open to that. It wouldn’t be good for Li, anyway.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to find out. Something shifted at his waist, and Heishe slipped down to the ground, growing as she moved, until she was nearly as large as Jianying’s head. Kaz was well aware she could have become much larger, but if she had, she would probably have squashed Kaz, Li, Snen, and even the brown dragon.
Then enormous, burning claws closed around Jianying’s neck, pulling him up. A crow of triumph echoed out over the stadium, threatening to deafen its bewildered and terrified occupants. Huge, flaming wings flapped, lifting the ancient dragon into the air, where he writhed and tried to bring his long claws to bear. A few of Fengji’s blazing feathers fell, turning to glittering ash as they drifted toward the ground.
As Fengji finally began to wreak his vengeance upon one of the dragons who had enabled his imprisonment, Heishe spread her hood protectively over Kaz and the others. Snen was on the ground again, his arms wrapped around his terrified dragon’s neck, as if ensuring that if they died, they would die together. Li was still unconscious, but Kaz pulled as much of her body into his arms as he could, ignoring the stinking sludge that covered all of him except the parts protected by his fuulong silk loincloth.
Heishe said with surprising gentleness.
Bargain? So much had happened in so short a time that Kaz had to strain his memory to find the one to which she referred. If Li was awake, she would have known. But then he had it. Promise that you will take me where I must go, and I will aid you.
“Yes,” he told her, “I’m ready.”
She released a long, hissing laugh.
With that, she coiled around him twice more, each time growing larger and larger. Only when she was a hundred feet long or more did she pause, her bottomless black eyes staring at the few humans who hadn’t fallen or fled. She didn’t speak to them, but there was a sense of implacability to her stare that no one could misunderstand.
Then she lifted up and the earth slid aside for her, water engulfing her body as she vanished beneath the surface of the world. For the first time, Kaz could see her moving away, her black ki glittering like the night sky, with flickers of blue, red, gold, and white stars made of pure ki. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen them before, burning in the depths of her impossibly dense black ki.