Djang Ren Sui had felt for a long time that the wait was interminable.

He felt he had good reason to insist on a full meeting of the clan heads, and had been willing to concede that the issue was enough for a full meeting of the Ren Family in total. He had even, at the beginning, thought that the extra time would allow him to study the aritfacts he had gathered.

Naive. They were mostly beyond him, with even the intent foriegn to his way of thinking. He was aware of how powerful the scripts were, and could even recall with some familiarity flickers of that accursed witch's spirit as she directed it. But... no, these bones were beyond his ability to read or use.

It was more than simply a pity. Much was wrong here. There was simply too much script written into nothing but the woman's own bones, scripts that had helped her overcome an army that Sui himself would have hesitated before engaging. He had forced others to look into it, but he was confident, now--this Shiva Alassi was something other than human.

Because she had once been human, and all reason and logic had only recently ceased to apply to her. Bones could not handle the incredible qi that she had displayed. The single small orb of beast core that had been used for some kind of movement artifact showed more signs of strain than the old woman's bones. This... was doubtless at least in part because that orb had taken a great deal of strain in the fight, but even so...

Even far away from the battle in time and space, Sui shivered at the barest thought of channeling enough qi through his bones to strike at or defend against strikes from someone at Titanium Qi. It wasn't that the material positively couldn't handle it--but someone having the surety that they wouldn't shatter their bones, burn away their muscles and tendons, fry their nerves, or boil their marrow... it spoke of either a callous arrogance about the body they inhabited, or a fathomless depth of understanding about channeling qi, and healing the body.

Footsteps in the hall mercifully pulled Sui out of that thought, and he turned, the Chains of his qi nature stirring restlessly in his dantian. But the door opened, and some nameless nephew or something bowed and announced that it was time.

Finally.

Sui followed along with his fists pressed behind his back, the perfect picture of a Master of the family, no longer young. Ruby Qi was not an achievement, not for one of the top three Great Families of the Djang empire, but by any other standard, it was not shameful. Mastering the mysteries of qi had seemed a breeze for a long time, but his own understanding fell behind his peers, and when the time came for families to focus their efforts on the prodigies of his generation... he was passed up.

He still considered himself more than capable of achiving a higher level of qi. Heavenly Gem phase... was not beyond his reach, but those of his family in the same generation, but who had been favored where he was not, were already well into the second tier of it, and one even in the third. Even now, as he walked stiffly towards the meeting chamber, he understood that his peers in the room ahead could crush him, and the elders and family leaders were still beyond them.

Djang Ban Fen, the true prodigy of his generation and their family's enemy, was at Orange Flame Qi, three entire phases ahead of him. Nine tiers ahead. He had never felt oppressed like he had when her brother, one step behind her, had leveled a sword at him. He had no concept of the mysteries of qi that they had only confronted after they passed him. They had passed the tribulation that still stymied him, and two more, and that bitch Fen was knocking at the door of another.

There were many elders and family leaders in the Ren family who could match them... but they were exceptional. The family still had not yet figured out how to teach the secrets to the next generation, not consistently.

Still, when the doors opened before Sui, and the collective spiritual pressure of the entire Ren family focused intently on his entrence, Djang Ren Sui held his head high and kept his back straight. The family could not teach him to reach Flame Qi... but it had taught him poise.

"At last," a dry voice echoed through the chamber, one he identified as a family leader--one of his grandfather's brothers. "We get to the fool responsible for this mess."

The room rippled with unease, and the scrutiny that fell heavy on Sui's chest felt like poison. He could feel it, slick like water, trying to work its way into his spirit, but he gave every appearance of brushing it off.

"Honored elders and family leaders," he said, though he was aware that more than a few lower castes were along, and some even sat in judgement beside the rest. In either case... it was not worth mentioning them, even if they were closer to his peers in strength than the people who mattered. "The news I bring is of far more than simply my own conflict with our family's enemy. I believe that the prophesied end of the Empire is approaching."

That was an approach he'd only chosen after consulting with others on the actual prophecies of the Empire. He'd bluffed about it before Djang Ban Dai, and it had struck a nerve, but now he was certain--or rather, was willing to stake his whole life, and the future of the clans, on that same bluff. He was not, after all, the kind who truly believed in prophecies.

"Prophecies are a matter far beyond your level of cultivation, Sui." The elder who spoke, like many of the clan elders, didn't choose to look as old as she was, but she had the heavy bearing of a person who had seen too much, been through too much, and had too many regrets. "State the facts and if you would be so kind refrain from doing anything more to insult our wisdom."

Sui would have bristled, if it was even possible for him to do so under the oppressive spirit of the room. Instead, it was all he could do not to feel a wave of sticky, poisonous despair spill out and cling to him. He focused once more on his poise, letting it keep him centered. "As you wish, Elder Mai. You may recall that I was given the unusual task of overseeing a blood feud between a small provincial administrative family, the Mofu clan, and an upstart outlander who had offended them."

"These simple facts have been presented before your arrival," Sui's father, Sen, said.

"Then I'm sure you've already discussed how she slaughtered them." Sui stepped forward, brazenly, although no one had asked him to do anything of the sort. He moved forward until he stood in the open space in the middle of the room, knowing that he would need to paint a vivid picture for them all to see. "This woman, alone--with qi unveiled, I swear on my cultivation itself, no greater than Bismuth--and with tools and implements I feel certain were her own design, slaughtered no less than two Mithril, one Damascus, thirty Bismuth, and one hundred Titanium warriors, with sufficient qi to spare that she treated killing their golds as a side task as unworthy of her time as it was unworthy of my time to count them."

"This was no ambush. This was no trick. This was a warrior." Sui found himself losing his cool, his voice shifting as he spoke, but he dared not take a moment to center himself. "With methods unknown to the empire, and methods that are definitely not from the foreigner's homeland. This is a woman who until months ago seemed to be nothing more than a cripple. A cripple at iron qi. A single, insignificant life."

"Watch your tongue," said a voice, sounding surprisingly concerned. Sui didn't know exactly who said it, but he turned to face the voice anyway.

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"Exactly," he said. "Elders, family members, there is a prophecy of one insignificant life to conquer all that the Empire has created. This being one of the sealed prophecies, because the Lord himself did not wish for us to speak of threats from other worlds. But if one insignificant life can be plucked up from the dust to slaughter entire armies above her qi stage, where--I ask you all--would she be if I had not clipped her wings early?"

"[Silence.]" The oppresive weight of the word physically flattened Sui, and he felt his back muscles twinge at the way it had forced him down. Still, almost automatically, he shifted his posture so that he was kneeling, and turned to face the Elder who had spoken, not rising from the servile position.

But there was no further declaration from above, only chattering around the room, as the others had not been silenced as he had been. The word, and its pressure, had been for him alone.

"[You will not attempt to sway our family with loaded words, Sui.]" The elder's voice, when it returned, resonated, and Sui felt band of qi pierce through his spirit. Far thinner than his Quenching Chains, they were a binding technique with more than a century's more experience than he had, and there was nothing that resisting it would have done. "[Speak as you are ordered to, and do not attempt to redeem your poor choices. The facts, Sui.]"

Djang Ren Sui swallowed, and when the pressure eased, he felt compelled to speak. Though... he noted, with muted relief, he had not been bound in such a way that he could not omit things. That helped. "As you will, Elder Ginjo. At the time I struck down the... this foreigner, I was not aware that the Royal Family would come to her defense. Indeed, I had every reason to suspect she would bring great harm to the Empire." By supporting the Ban over us, Ren internalized, but to his mind, the two ideas really were one.

"I did what I could to both ensure the woman's death, and also, to pry free the secrets of her techniques. My qi nature, [Quenching Chains], is ideal for removing and sealing bound techniques. As evidence that my fears are not unfounded, Elders and family leaders, I present the following."

Sui produced them from his space ring, still stained the color of blood, though the surfaces were clean. "Two scapula bones, etched with arcane glyphs that match nothing in our family's registry. Two humerous and a radius, all etched. One starbeast core, with etching in the same unknown language." Again... he was not bid to say everything, and he kept one back for himself. "I did not recover the weapons this foreigner used, many of which were breaking from the stress of using them, but I can swear on my honor that their foreign intent matched the intent on these scripts, and not any intent known to the Empire."

His presentation was having the desired effect. Experts of all sorts were no longer sitting back, but jockeying in the seats and walkways for a clear look at the bones. The Elders and family leaders--save the two he had already consulted with--leaned forward and peered with the kind of intensity that would have flayed a layer or two off Sui's spirit, if it had been directed at him.

Elder Ginjo, the right hand of the clan Patriarch, stood, the intent of that action alone sending enough of a qi wave to alert others to make way for him. He stepped down, the other Elders watching with some mixture of wariness and respect, and with a gesture, the bones floated into the air so that he, the Elders, and the Patriarch could see them clearly.

Sui knew that now was a time for silence, and he gratefully rested.

"[I find it plausible that these scripts are from the Heavens,]" Ginjo said, heavily, and although in the silence that followed, there was room for any Elder or expert to disagree, none did. "[We are also aware that the circumstances of Shiva Alassi are unusual. However, the circumstances do not match the intent of the prophecy. In that, we find that we cannot accept the conclusions of (the former Djang Ren) Sui.]"

The former. The intent behind the words was all the proclaimation that might have been needed. In the eyes of the Djang Ren family, Sui was outcast. But he looked up at them, knowing that there would be a moment to speak. It was not this moment.

"[It seems true that the methods of this foreign being are profound,]" Ginjo continued. "[They will be studied. Their intent copied, distributed. The actions of (the former Djang Ren) Sui have threatened war with the Ban. In this, he was right to call a meeting. But we see no redemption in his reasoning, and the prizes he was won us are not nearly worth the cost. It is the intent and decision of the Patriarch that he should be turned over to the Ban for execution.]"

Sui's eyes travelled to the face of the Patriarch himself. The ancestor that sat in the highest chair of the Elder's section spoke nothing and moved little, but his sunken eyes took in everything, and when Sui met those eyes even for a moment, the Patriarch's gaze turned to him, meeting him.

In that moment, all of his secrets were stripped away. And... as planned, it was now that he should reveal it, all the more because the Patriarch already knew.

"There is one more prize," Sui said, looking away from those eyes, although he could still see them, burned into his vision. "One... greater, more important than the rest."

Sui could feel the heavy footsteps of Ginjo as the man approached. Ginjo took his position as the Patriarch's right hand very seriously, and his body reflected it--thoroughly muscled and heavy, his qi nature was a variant on the Patriarch's own [Adamant Threads] that he used both for sealing... and to reinforce his body in combat.

But more than anything, Djang Ren Ginjo built up an image of being huge, and in this moment, Sui felt his own size shrinking in comparison to the man. With every beat of his heart, with every twinge of his nerves, the size comparison was hammered into him--he was small, and Ginjo was great.

"[Show us,]" Ginjo commanded, and Sui could not have refused if he tried.

What passed out of his space ring was a simple crystal spike, but out of it spilled energy, pure and clean, feeling like nothing that anyone there had ever felt. Sui's own experiments with the device had proved that there was some mechanism to control it--but he understood nothing about it. In truth, it baffled him completely.

"I believe that the foreigner used this to use more qi than should have been available to her," Sui said, his voice sounding very small in the room. "It has not stopped releasing energy since I captured it. I believe it is a spatial artifact, though where it connects to... I do not know, except that it seems to be... in the heavens."

Ginjo plucked the crystal spike from the ground with his own fingers, holding it up, and for several long moments, everyone in the Djang Ren family--at least, everyone worthy of this special meeting--benefitted from it, their qi soaking in this pure energy.

[Seal it,] the Patriarch commanded, and Ginjo's threads formed a shell around it.

"Honored Patriach, if I may--" Sui spoke up, but he was not even aware of what power was used to stop his speech. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, with his own eyes, he witnessed the Patriarch's shriveled form stand.

It almost looked pathetic, watching the old man use his muscles instead of his power. Ren, the man who had formed the clan in the time of the Diamond Lord's ascension, was many things, but physically fit he was not. His use of power was subtle and intricate, and the depths of his qi seemed bottomless. He always seemed to know what he should not and had reach where he could not go, but his body was shriveled and his face was gaunt. Whether it was age, sickness, injury, or some combination, few would ever be told, and Sui would never have been one of those.

Only when he was standing straight did Djang Ren pass forward like a ghost, plucking Sui off the ground as though carrying a troublesome dog by the nape, and Sui felt himself sink in his clothes, all manner of poise or honor gone.

[You will redeem yourself, (for the moment Djang Ren) Sui, by being sacrificed to the Ban clan to gain us the time that we need.] The Patriarch's words were harder than diamond, and Sui found those eyes boring into his soul, scorching away his memories and his thoughts, so that nothing that would dare resist remained. [These prizes will be used for the good of the clan,] he continued, although there was no Sui left to hear them. [Those in the generation who may yet advance further will have unfettered access, and we will do everything in our power to suppor them. We will not be a clan which passes over a Dragon to become a cloud.]

[We are a clan that will crush other dragons and devour the moon.]

With that declaration bindings that Djang Ren had long ago put into the Elders and Family Leaders sealed any thought in them that might have been contrary to his will. They all, in lockstep, made a military salute, and the Patriach simply nodded, returning to his seat and beginning the laborious process of bending back into a sitting position, satisfied that the Ren family would move forward as it always had--exactly as the Patriach willed it to be.

Only Djang Ren Ginjo, whose qi was just enough like his grandfather and Master's qi to resist it, was even aware of the binding, and he would not dare let it show, not here. It would take weeks or months to begin to free himself from the Patriarch's [Red Threads]. He had done it before... and would do it again. But never, never where the Patriarch could see. And the Patriarch's eyes saw much.