Things began happening rapidly. There was no time to despair or grieve the death of the emperor. In fact, there had not even been enough time for many to realize the emperor had died at all, and the news had been curbed down with terrifying swiftness, so for now, only those important enough to be at the castle at the time of his untimely demise, and those perceptive enough to feel the changes in the heavens, knew.

But despite all that… snow fell upon Azure city, the city of eternal spring, the beating heart of the empire. Not a single person in the empire could not have known, even if they were not aware of it consciously. We’d all felt it. Every single person had felt the fall.

And the timer to the end had begun ticking at that very moment.

I tried not to grimace too much as I walked across the palace courtyard, heading towards the carriages. It’d been decided that it was best that I headed back to the seventh peak first. To gather supplies and get anything I might need. There was also the matter of all the money I’d earned in the auction. I’d left a significant chunk of it in the care of the Lord and his manor in the capital.

Zhou Fang, who’d decided he’d be staying in the capital due to the risk of a journey back, had agreed to take care of and manage it all for me. I was grateful. I needed to get back quick, and we were only taking as few people as needed with us. A lot of the lord’s men were injured in the skirmish and attack recently and they’d be staying back in the capital as well. Even my spirits were resting inside my core, including Ash which had never done that before, all to preserve their strengths and to reduce our burden back. They’d both changed in the invasion, but especially Labby, who’d even been able to change forms at will again. It was something I’d not even had the time to address yet.

I’d been of half a mind to run back, and to my surprise, the Lord had almost agreed to it. It had been Elder Tian Feng who’d dissuaded us, and told us to preserve our strengths for now.

I had spent a moment being a little surprised how I just suggested to run the distance of effectively a small country casually, but at this point I knew I could and I’d be faster than carriages and I could fly if necessary as well, so it only made sense. Really, the only reason not to was the threat of being ambushed by demons, and I wouldn’t want to be entirely spent by the time I returned, as the journey to the Cradle was not going to be all that easy from what I was told, and I’d ultimately ended up listening to reason.

Lord Zhou stood nearby, noticing my arrival. The man looked tense as a taut string ready to snap, and exhausted like he hadn’t slept in a week, but despite all that, the lord gave me an ever so slight smile upon my arrival.

“We were about to call for you. Are you prepared? There will be no time to rest in between,” the Lord asked me.

“I’m still of half a mind to sprint back,” I replied, honestly.

The lord’s smile widened ever so slightly, as he put a hand on my shoulder. “Let us not. Tian Feng would not let either of us hear the end of it.”

I nodded at that.

I glanced sideways at the others. Yan Yun was returning with us. In a meeting when making our plans, we’d ended up deciding on a group of three people to head to the Cradle. It was Yan Yun, me and Zhang.

The Lord had obviously offered his own men for my protection and to help us, but I’d refused. The more people there were with us, the more we’d slow down. The cradle was not an easy-to-travel-in place, and we didn’t have the time.

In truth, I felt a little uncomfortable bringing Yan Yun with me, but she’d been the one who’d said it’d make sense to bring her. Despite no longer following a lightning path, she was the most familiar with it, and the most knowledgeable on dragons. Her grandfather had also told her of the existence of the Cradle before, so she had a rough idea on what was in store for us. And with Leiyu, she allowed us to communicate quickly and send letters without needing to set up and use complicated scrying formations. And Zhang was there, because there was no one else I trusted with my life more than him.

I really wished I’d had the time to try to think of or come up with a way to send messages over long distances, but unfortunately that just wasn’t something I’d had the time for, at least not for this journey. Though it was not like I’d just given up. I was well aware that war times were the times where progress had often been made in the largest leaps and bounds. I recalled the meeting I’d had with the five divinities yesterday and the decision we’d come to that’d be unprecedented otherwise.

All four divinities and the royal court had agreed to allow craftsmen to use the divine texts I’d given them collectively, to try and increase our advantages by creating more weapons and rapidly upscaling production of some really important things so that we could arm our mortals and allow them to contribute as well.

It was grim, and it wasn’t something I’d actually hoped would happen, but that was the silver lining in all of this. More people than would ever otherwise be possible. Scholars, researchers, craftsmen and blacksmiths from all over the empire were gathering. Learning, and perfecting on my crude ideas and the front of knowledge I’d brought into existence to create things, and make massive leaps in technological expertise. Already they’d improved on the design of the weapons, but more importantly, they were working on how to improve defenses of carriages, how to maintain supply chains, how to build stronger walls and faster. Everything we’d need to fight this war.

Even the old man had ended up staying back. I knew he wanted to help, but given that he’d lost his cultivation almost entirely, and was much more frail now, he had not insisted. I felt a little bad but I also felt glad knowing that he’d be safe in the capital. It was one less person I’d have to worry about.

As I was about to step into my carriage, a presence stirred around me, making me pause. I turned around and, descending down from the skies, I saw Liuxiang. I stared, openly surprised at her arrival.

“Lu Jie, let us… let me come with you,” Liuxiang spoke, looking at me with a determined expression.

“Liuxiang? Don’t you have to stay with your grandmother?” I asked.

“I have already informed her. I’d been listening to her all this time, but… with everything that’s happening… I cannot wait anymore to help the people I had been working so hard to gain the ability to help,” she said, clenching her fist. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen on her.

“So… please, let us come with you,” she asked.

“Well, we do have just enough space to hold one more person,” the Lord said, looking towards me.

Liuxiang looked at the lord happily, and I gathered myself. “Alright, then… I’d be happy to have you with me on this journey, Liuxiang,” I said. “It’d be like old times.”

“I find it a little hard to believe that was just one year ago,” Liuxiang said.

I laughed at that. A frustrated and amused laugh.

“Old times?” Yan Yun asked, looking between the two of us with confusion.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” I said to Yan Yun, remembering our foray into the cave where we’d first found Sheldon and saved the villagers.

So much had happened since then. Despite everything going on, that memory managed to bring a smile to my face.

It’d be good to see Sheldon, and Twilight, and Zhang and Granny Lang, and everybody else. Though not the circumstances I’d hoped for, I found myself longing to be back home.

With that thought, I stepped inside the carriage alongside Liuxiang, Yan Yun and the Lord.

The carriage whirred with power as the driver cracked the reins. Spectral steeds rose out of the carriage, and with a jerk we were off to the Seventh Peak.

***

Xiao Ru cursed his luck, cursed the very heavens and the fates as he ran with all he had. His feet were sore and cuts and scrapes lined his ankles. He’d been a fool. He’d been such a fool to think that just because this winter things had been calmer, it’d be different.

He stumbled, almost falling and his heart leapt into his throat. He could hear it now. Hear the creature chasing him through the foliage. His heart thundered so hard, he felt it’d shatter his chest and kill him just from that. He’d prefer that too.

A rumbling growl came from behind him and Xiao Ru’s body stiffened. He could feel the creature behind him, feel its vile presence, the sickening aura of death that lingered around it. He ran harder than ever.

He’d heard of the seventh peak, heard tales of a new lord and elder at the sect, that he was giving protection to everybody. That the man could do miracles, a five fold Sage? A child who was as strong as Lord Zhou? He did not believe such nonsense.

But now, Xiao Ru’s feet carried him towards that direction, as he cursed himself for not thinking. Even if false, at least in the city he could’ve been safe. Sure, he may have died while starving on the streets, but compared to being torn apart and eaten by that thing… even that seemed better.

He knew how things were. Every winter, the demons came. And every winter, the sect would strengthen its protections, if you paid their stupid amounts to satisfy the cultivators, and even then, sooner or later those would fail and you’d be forced to flee to the city and scrape by ‘til winter passed, and try not to starve in the crowded streets.

He’d lost more people than he could count to winter. So many that, long ago, Xiao Ru had known somewhere in his heart that his own fate would be a similar cold embrace of death somewhere on some street. It was his foolish arrogance and defiance to such a tragic fate that he’d decided to refuse. For the past four or five years, he’d build his defenses to fend off any beasts and survive through winter in his village.

At first he’d been mocked. But when the villagers returned, starved and exhausted and saw him still living… they’d changed their tune quickly. Soon, more and more people had been managing to survive on their own. They’d dug holes, and made simple spears and traps for the mindless beast and stuck to the inside of their homes which they’d also fortified.

It’d worked. It’d worked! Xiao Ru had become a hero for the villagers.

But of course not. When this year had rolled out, he’d thought it was a blessing when he saw no demonic beasts coming. His village was small and they barely had anything for the beasts to come seeking them for, and he assumed they’d just not bothered this year. He felt like a champion.

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And the heavens struck him for his hubris. Now he would die in the maw of this beast.

Xiao Ru’s feet twisted, sticking on a root as he fell and rolled on the ground. His heart pounded, as he tried to pull himself up but found a sharp pain run through his ankle when he tried. He looked at his feet and saw it was twisted badly and starting to turn red already.

He froze, fear filling his heart as his fate was well and truly sealed. Xiao Ru whimpered, tears filling his eyes as he felt the presence close in. The creature slowed down now too, as it closed in, its dark eyes glowing in the dark patch of the forest as it moved closer.

Xiao Ru watched the twisted beast, a bear covered with scars and cuts, with miasma swirling all around it and arrows sticking out of his hide, and he knew he’d seen the end.

The demonic beast growled once more, its terrible aura flowing out and then with a rush it lunged towards Xiao Ru who closed his eyes, accepting his fate.

Bang.

The world shook, a loud explosion echoing through the forest.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Three more shots followed. Xiao Ru opened his eyes, and looked in shock as the bear lay on the ground, alive but injured, blood flowing out of wounds.

Crackle.

An arrow shot towards the creature, bursting out in a swirl of fire that enveloped the beast. It roared, before turning around as it started to run the other way.

Xiao Ru stared in shock. Just what had happened? Had he… had he been saved by some cultivator who happened to be nearby? No matter who, he was beyond grateful. Just who was his savior? He wondered.

He turned, upon hearing footsteps and looked behind. A boy stood there, rather young and his clothes… is that what cultivators wore nowadays? Even Xiao Ru had clothes that were better than that.

No, no that wouldn’t do. This was his savior, and a powerful cultivator. Who knows, maybe they could hear his thoughts and then he’d be losing his head after having just survived.

“O honored cultivator, thank you, thank you for saving this poor foolish mortal’s life. May the heavens bless you,” Xiao Ru said, to the boy.

“Oh, um, sure. Can you stand?” The boy asked, glancing at his ankle.

“No… I have sprained my ankle,” Xiao Ru said, before wondering if a cultivator even knew what a sprained ankle was.

“Yeah I see that. Well, either the Granny or Yin will fix you up pretty quick, I imagine. Hop on,” the boy said, lending a hand as he lifted Xiao Ru up.

“My apologies for inflicting myself on you honored cultivator. You are too kind,” Xiao Ru said, truly in disbelief.

“You can stop that. I’m not a cultivator,” the boy replied.

“But… then how did you take down that demonic beast… and with such ease too. I saw that arrow of flames. Surely that was a cultivation art?” Xiao Ru asked.

“No, that’s my fire arrow. Or exploding arrow. I used it because I didn’t want to waste too many bullets, and also that demonic beast is probably just running from the demons too, and got hungry and decided to make you into its meal to have enough energy to escape. I didn’t want to kill it,” the boy said.

“Exploding… what? Bullets? And… you didn’t want to kill a demonic beast?” Xiao Ru asked, feeling truly confused.

“Yeah. Bullets, it’s small pellets made of metal. The rifle on my back shoots them really fast and it can hurt even a demon beast pretty badly,” the boy said.

Xiao Ru looked at the boy’s back, seeing the wooden and metal pipe thing. He’d just assumed it was some strange mystical instrument. He glanced at the bow hanging from the boy’s shoulders and the quiver at his waist as well.

“So… anyone can use these?” Xiao Ru asked once more, shocked.

The boy glanced towards the man and then smiled. “Yeah, Elder Jie made them. Everyone in the militia gets one. The senior soldiers get even better ones, those can shoot down beasts like that in one shot.”

“And they’re all mortals?” Xiao Ru asked, his head spinning.

“Yup. All mortals. Though some of them have started to sense a little bit of Chi. But the ones who do get transferred to a different unit. So all the ones who remain are mortals,” the boy said, and then paused as they began to exit the forest.

“Ah, Yao Tei, you found him?” A man said, waving at the boy.

Other boys, of roughly similar age and clothing walked closer. All of them had that strange pipe thing on their back. The rifle. And a bow with a quiver that had weird glowing things on it, clearly something mystical only a cultivator should have.

“Demonic bear, scared it away,” the boy said, glancing back.

Another man inspected Xiao Ru’s injuries, while one more kept an eye on the forest. “Hope this is the last of them. Would like to fortify Taizhou’s borders a bit more.”

“Taizhou? We’re not going to the seventh peak?!” Xiao Ru asked in shock. Did these men have a death wish?

“No, not right now. We’re keeping an extended border around the seventh peak, and Taizhou is one of the fortified villages. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe there. There’s a lot of people who had to escape and rush through. A bunch of them are staying in Taizhou,” the boy said.

“Now head on, get healed. You seem like you only have a slight injury, so when it’s done, we’ll bring you to the captain and he’ll enlist you in one of the militia units. All of us have to do our part to protect those who can’t fend for themselves, right?” One of the other boys said.

“Against… against demonic beasts?” Xiao Ru asked. He wanted to call them insane. How could a mortal stand against demonic beasts? And yet… that was exactly what had happened.

“Would I also get that pipe?” Xiao Ru asked.

“Pipe? Oh, the rifle. Not immediately, you’ll have to go through the firearm safety training first.”

The other boys shuddered at the word. What was that, Xiao Ru wondered. Some kind of ritual?

The boy holding him continued. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it for now, let’s get you in,” the boy said, pulling Xiao Ru. They continued to walk a little further, till Xiao Ru noted the walls spanning around the area. A large gate made of stone stood there, with wires and spikes stuck into them to prevent anyone from climbing. Guard stood watch as people moved in and out. Almost all of them had the ‘rifle’ on their back.

“Is… is this Taizhou?” Xiao Ru asked in shock.

“Yup,” the boy replied. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Xiao Ru highly doubted the boy’s words. This… this looked like a small city. How was this a village?

And as they continued deeper inside, his shock only continued to grow.

“Who… who did all this?” Xiao Ru asked. He’d not been here often, but Taizhou had been a small village… how had it become this in the blink of an eye?

“Elder Jie, of course. But also Elder Zhang and the others. They’ve helped build all this and secure the villages nearby. So many people would’ve died to the sudden demonic beast onslaught otherwise,” the boy said.

Xiao Ru looked on in shock.

This… this was what they’d been doing. Him and his village. But on such a large scale. With so much more strength and power. And… all of this was done by one boy?

Despite himself, Xiao Ru found himself wondering. Had the rumors truly not been exaggerated?

He looked at the boy and gulped, before he asked. “How can I get one of those rifles you have?”

The boy smiled in response.

***

Zhang flew over the seventh peak, watching over the city. Purple Chi flared around him, gravity itself bending to his will as his eyes scanned his surroundings. His senses spread all around the area, focused like a sharp blade.

Something stirred near one of the walls perimeters, the sound of gunshots and explosions rising.

Zhang gathered his power, spear shivering as he raised it. Eyes glowing purple, he focused on his target, before finding the demonic creature slamming against the wall, his spear thrummed as he shot it forward.

The weapon’s weight grew as it flew rapidly, before slamming into the creature, piercing through it like a ballista’s shot, piercing and raising dirt into the air from the aftershock.

The demonic creature roared, still not entirely dead and Zhang rushed in closer rapidly afterwards, slamming like a meteor shooting down as he crushed the beast into, leaving only a vague hint of toxic Gu and blood splattered around the crater next to him.

Raising his spear, and making sure there were no other main threats, Zhang turned to look at the soldiers on the wall who all saluted upon seeing him.

“Call me if you’re struggling,” he said.

“Yes, general!” They responded as one.

Zhang let his gravity Chi flare as he took back to the skies once more, returning to his observation post in the skies.

The people of the city, the sect and all the bordering areas were depending on them. Lu Jie was depending on him to keep this place.

He’d felt what had happened. The heavens had changed. There was no way to not feel it. And though he did not know what exactly had happened, he’d almost shot towards the capital in that moment to make sure Lu Jie was alright. It was only his duty and responsibility that kept him.

And his faith in Lu Jie.

Despite his connection to Lu Jie almost fading out at one point, he sensed the boy’s presence out there. That massive presence that only kept growing in Zhang’s mind. So no matter what, at least he was fine.

But there were worse things that could happen. And it was precisely why Zhang needed to continue to grow and continue to keep getting stronger.

He’d managed to push himself to the edge of the second circle. If he’d still been a normal cultivator then he’d be at the peak of the sixth stage, but that was not enough. Not nearly enough.

This kind of growth was unprecedented for a normal cultivator, and Zhang knew even this would make him a massive prodigy across the empire in normal circumstances, but things were anything but, and he cared not for the status of the achievements, if it meant he was ultimately just not powerful enough to protect the people he needed to protect.

He tensed his spear one more time, sensing another presence behind him. This one was flying and it raised Zhang’s hackles as he turned and shot his spear forward rapidly.

Lightning crackled and flashed and Zhang watched the creature dodge his strike. He stared in surprise for a moment, before a smile came upon his face as he realized who was heading towards him.

Zhang recalled his spear, which arrived the moment the creature came, resting upon his shoulder and crackling with puffed feathers.

“You’re lucky that Leiyu is forgiving.”

“It is good to see you, Leiyu. Apologies for attacking you, I thought you were a flying demon. We’ve had some… encounters with those,” Zhang said.

“Clearly. Anyway, Leiyu is here to give you a letter from Lu Jie. Now Leiyu will go, there are other messages for others to be handed out,” the bird said, before disappearing into a crackle of lightning.

Zhang looked at the letter in his hand, and then gently pulled it open. As he read, his expression continued to darken.

“I hope you’re alright, Zhang. And Sheldon and Twilight and everyone else. I’m really sorry that I had to leave everything to you and put so much responsibility on you now. So much has happened here, I know Qiao Ying probably told you a little, but there’s a lot to include in a letter. The demons attacked, Yang Shen is back and he struck a blow to the empire. The emperor is dead. The Divinities almost died. And the Azure Dragon is missing. If the Old Man had not been there… I try not to think about it.

But not all is lost. We’re all okay. And I am returning quickly, alongside Yan Yun, Lord Zhou and Liuxiang. We’ll be heading to the Cradle of Dragons to find the Azure Dragon, who’s most likely to be hiding or resting there. And I’ll need you for that journey.

I am really sorry that I’m coming back with yet another request, but if there’s anyone I can rely on for this, it’s you, Zhang.

See you in three days.

P.S: Tell Yin it’s time to take that out. She’ll know what I mean.”

Zhang looked at the letter in his hand and despite all the bad news, he found himself smiling and taking a breath of relief. Closing the letter, Zhang looked down at the city below him, and the people in it, holding on against the onslaught of demonic beasts. He did not know what would come next, but he knew that they’d be fine.

And he didn’t wish to be the only one to feel that sense of security and relief. So, taking a deep breath, Zhang gathered all his voice and screamed to the world.

“THE LORDS ARE RETURNING!”

His voice echoed throughout the city, through the sect and beyond. For a moment there was a long silence.

Then, he heard it, a rumbling, the sounds of gunshots, the screams and shouts, slowly and scattered at first and then collectively as one, enough to shake the heavens.

“The Lords are returning!” The city shouted in celebration, and Zhang looked down, before returning his focus to his task with renewed focus and vigor.

He would not let them down.