Hanzen Sang was the youngest El­der--by age and tenure, both--in the Moon­stone Is­land Sect, and also, only the sec­ond El­der to be ac­tive­ly re­cruit­ed since the found­ing of the Sect. This was not, how­ev­er, be­cause he was a ge­nius of qi, or in­scrip­tions, or alche­my, or any oth­er gen­er­al top­ic. In­stead, a younger Sang had de­sired his own float­ing is­land for his home, and had come to the Sect in­tend­ing to re­search the qi that held the Moon­stone Is­lands aloft, and he threw him­self into that re­search with re­lent­less, reck­less in­ten­si­ty.

Be­cause of that, Sang knew all too well that the dif­fer­ence be­tween var­i­ous phas­es of Qi was not men­tal, not a mat­ter of in­tent. It was im­pos­si­ble for a younger cul­ti­va­tor to dis­play the same qi as a more ad­vanced one. Sang had un­der­stood the Moon­stone Is­lands' qi when he was no more ad­vanced than young Ki'el--though he had been sub­stan­tial­ly old­er, hav­ing fo­cused on his re­search rather than cul­ti­va­tion. But his every ef­fort to bend qi to his will failed.

This con­tin­ued un­til he broke through to Quartz Qi, the be­gin­ning of Heav­en­ly Gem phase, and he fi­nal­ly be­gan to un­der­stand that each break­through grant­ed au­thor­i­ty.

Heav­en­ly Abode Qi--Sang's per­son­al re­fine­ment of the Moon­stone Is­land con­cept--had been cor­rect in the­o­ry from the be­gin­ning. Sang knew, be­cause he ref­er­enced his old notes, go­ing back fur­ther and fur­ther un­til he was de­ci­pher­ing scrib­bles from thir­ty years pri­or, but all of those old notes were cor­rect. Once his qi had the prop­er au­thor­i­ty, he could cre­ate mas­sive float­ing is­lands not dif­fer­ent from the Sect's foun­da­tions--and he had. Some of the Is­lands still a part of the sect to­day were is­lands he sup­port­ed us­ing those orig­i­nal notes, which were clos­er to Moon­stone Is­land Qi than Heav­en­ly Abode Qi. But pri­or to that break­through--all else equal but for that one crit­i­cal piece of au­thor­i­ty--there was noth­ing that Sang could do, no mat­ter how he gath­ered his qi, no mat­ter how he forged his in­tent, no mat­ter what lay­ers of in­scrip­tion he laid down or how he split his pat­terns among scripts and ar­ti­facts--not so long as those scripts and ar­ti­facts were pow­ered by his own qi.

He had come to un­der­stand since then that it was an iron­clad rule--one's qi had a cer­tain au­thor­i­ty, which shift­ed as one ad­vanced. Un­til a cer­tain au­thor­i­ty was gained, cer­tain things were im­pos­si­ble.

El­der Sang stood qui­et­ly by as he watched young Ki'el per­form an im­pos­si­ble feat--or per­haps, a hereti­cal one.

Sang un­der­stood, of course, that the ar­ti­fact that young Ki'el wield­ed was cre­at­ed by a mas­ter, and that mas­ter's au­thor­i­ty might be res­i­dent with­in the weapon. He was pre­pared, in one sense, to have sensed a for­eign tint to the qi that the Aether Sword re­leased, a tint that would be the mas­ter's qi re­spond­ing to the wield­er. And there was--per­haps--just a trace of it.

But what he sensed more than any­thing was the girl's in­tent. He had sensed her cre­at­ing the in­tent, wrestling with it, sensed the burn­ing of her chan­nels as she ex­ert­ed her­self--and un­der­stood what hap­pened next, per­haps in­cor­rect­ly, as the sword grant­i­ng au­thor­i­ty to the girl's in­tent. How much au­thor­i­ty was im­pos­si­ble to tell; all he knew was that she achieved what she at­tempt­ed. Per­haps it was un­lim­it­ed, and per­haps not.

Sang knew all too well the stages. Bright Met­al al­lowed you to con­nect your qi, but the dis­trib­uted struc­ture could not be treat­ed as a sin­gle whole for most pur­pos­es. At Earth­ly Gem, the qi that you stretch across space could be­come whole and sol­id, sim­pli­fy­ing bar­ri­ers sub­stan­tial­ly, but no mat­ter how much qi he poured into it, the qi was sim­ply not in­tense enough to hold to­geth­er such a mas­sive ef­fect as a Moon­stone Is­land. Heav­en­ly Gem had been an in­fu­ri­at­ing step for­ward, for Sang, be­cause it added a touch of in­ten­si­ty to one's qi, an in­ten­si­ty and sin­gu­lar fo­cus that tru­ly be­gan to re­shape what was pos­si­ble with qi. But for Sang's pur­pos­es, it was use­less--he need­ed his en­tire, dis­trib­uted qi struc­ture to hum with that vi­brant in­ten­si­ty. With­out that, hold­ing up an en­tire float­ing is­land with qi alone was im­pos­si­ble, no mat­ter how much en­er­gy you threw at it. And Heav­en­ly Gem re­fused to al­low that--the in­ten­si­ty could be gath­ered at any point, but the whole of his qi could not be im­bued with that strength, no mat­ter the in­tent, no mat­ter the clever arrange­ment of scripts. It felt like a be­tray­al that Sang reached the Moon­stone tier of Qi but was un­able to cre­ate a Moon­stone Is­land. Only at Tran­scen­dent Gem Phase had his qi gained that au­thor­i­ty, and when he had it, every­thing sim­ply worked.

Ki'el's [True Sword Qi] was at that phase, and per­haps be­yond. And it was her qi, with her in­tent. He had watched it hap­pen. If Hanzen Sang had such a tool at his dis­pos­al when he was at Bis­muth Qi, he could have--slow­ly, with ef­fort--recre­at­ed the en­tire Moon­stone Is­land Sect.

Sang was not a war­rior by na­ture, and his qi was not suit­ed for com­bat. But El­der Sang was not an id­iot. He had watched gen­er­a­tions of war­riors grow, since be­com­ing an El­der, and had been beat­en over the head--some­times metaphor­i­cal­ly, some­times lit­er­al­ly--by how some peo­ple did not de­serve the au­thor­i­ty of high­er tiers of qi. Not only would they use it for bru­tal vi­o­lence, but many were sim­ply too stu­pid to use greater pow­er with­out de­stroy­ing them­selves, and every­thing around them.

And this was what the An­gel wished to hand out. A war­rior's weapon, one which would grant the wield­er Au­thor­i­ty. Even Sang might not have un­der­stood, when he was younger, that an Aether Sword might be used to cre­ate float­ing is­lands as eas­i­ly as it cut them apart--not un­less he was told.

Sang watched young Ki'el's Sword Qi cut straight through an In­ner Sect dis­ci­ple, a no­ble, at Opal Qi--high Mor­tal Gem. High enough to be able to cre­ate qi bar­ri­ers, but not high enough to im­bue them with in­ten­si­ty. But Ki'el seemed to lose con­trol of the strike, as with the last time she used her sword to at­tack, and it flashed for­ward, cut­ting what­ev­er was be­hind the man.

The no­bles had each brought be­tween one and three re­tain­ers, and nei­ther the two re­tain­ers in the way of the blow had the pres­ence of mind to dodge the strike, or even throw up a bar­ri­er. Why would they, when a Young Mas­ter was be­tween them and the blow? One was lucky enough to only lose half of a hand and part of a shoul­der, but the oth­er... lost more than enough.

And the strike con­tin­ued on, past them. A part of Sang's mind watched it go with re­mark­able de­tach­ment, not­ing that it cut a sig­nif­i­cant depth into the ground, and the same for an­oth­er is­land above them in that di­rec­tion, while scraps of the qi ex­it­ed the Sect, the bar­ri­ers that re­mained al­low­ing qi out but not in. Un­less he missed his guess, it would con­tin­ue on well past his abil­i­ty to sense, though not for­ev­er. The pro­jec­tion was co­he­sive and in­tense--a mark that nor­mal­ly in­di­cat­ed Tran­scen­dant Gem and be­yond.

But also... giv­en its in­ten­si­ty, it did not ap­pear to be a spe­cif­ic "cut­ting" in­tent, only "sword" in­tent. It did cut, but Sang knew well what cut­ting in­tent with that in­ten­si­ty did. He had re­paired the foun­da­tions of sev­er­al Moon­stone Is­lands where stray cut­ting in­tent had cleaved rock like wa­ter. This did cut rock, but it did not con­tin­ue care­less­ly. It re­mained [Sword Qi], and it did only what a sword did.

Fas­ci­nat­ing, if still dis­heart­en­ing.

But... Ki'el was in no con­di­tion to con­trol that pow­er, as Sang knew she would not be. In a sin­gle blow, she blew through what­ev­er pow­er she was us­ing, burned her merid­i­ans again, and was im­me­di­ate­ly strug­gling to re­main con­scious. Her com­pan­ion fox spir­it--Sang was glad that she had ac­com­plished that, at least--im­me­di­ate­ly pulled the girl away, but that did noth­ing about the no­ble step­ping for­ward, face twist­ed with hate. Djang Ren Xari, for her part, kept her dis­tance, and her face looked... con­flict­ed, but she didn't raise a hand to stop the oth­er.

Sang might have wast­ed words on the man, or the Ren, un­der dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, but his mind was full of too many oth­er things, and the mo­ment passed.

Sang forced him­self to step light­ly, mov­ing be­tween Ki'el's re­treat­ing form and the no­ble--Tan Fong Men­shi, if he re­called cor­rect­ly--more than quick­ly enough that the man had time to re­act. And he did re­act--by draw­ing a long and wicked­ly sharp blade from his space ring, al­ready un­sheathed, a howl­ing scream of heat and vi­o­lence be­gin­ning to form around its edge, and he be­gan to swing, his In­tent mur­der­ous.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Sang sim­ply brought his hands up, and pulled his fin­gers in like he were snatch­ing at pup­pet strings. Stone and root, dirt and heart­wood, gold and crys­tal... the fun­da­men­tal el­e­ments of a Heav­en­ly Abode were al­ways around him, and form­ing a small foun­da­tion, and with his pow­er and in­tent, im­bu­ing it with a sol­id de­fen­sive for­ma­tion was only a mo­ment's work.

Af­ter all, El­der Sang had long since reached Mor­tal Flame, and had the Au­thor­i­ty to draw pow­er from his own Greater Self. It was risky, in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, but un­de­ni­ably faster than draw­ing qi from the world, and with­out ex­haust­ing him­self as quick­ly as emp­ty­ing his dant­ian did.

[ Heav­en­ly Abode: Seal of Re­jec­tion ]

Sang's qi sang out with the tech­nique name, and the no­ble's qi snarled back its re­ply, the sword seek­ing out a flaw in his spell­work.

[ In­fer­no Blade: Howl­ing Fang Strike ]

"De­sist," Sang said, try­ing to fill his words with more au­thor­i­ty than he felt, or ar­guably, had un­der the cir­cum­stances.

"You have no right to stop my vengeance," the no­ble's voice was be­yond un­yield­ing, and he drew back the blade only enough to repo­si­tion it for an­oth­er thrust.

"Your ally can be--"

"Men­shi!" Xari's cry went un­heed­ed, just as Sang's words did. The swords­man's qi fo­cused down into the finest point he could cre­ate, and Sang knew that in truth, his qi was not that of a war­rior's.

Al­though Sang had the more ma­ture qi, for an at­tack­er, Heav­en­ly Gem--the mo­ment where that in­ten­si­ty was un­locked the first time--was the mo­ment when any­one could be­gin to be tru­ly dan­ger­ous to an op­po­nent. Al­though Sang's scripts were well-fin­ished and had many re­dun­dan­cies, they had weak­ness­es, and he knew they did. All one had to do was be clever about how your pow­er was used, and any qi above Heav­en­ly Gem could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly pierce Sang's bar­ri­er.

To­day would mark the first time that Sang had ever seen that in a real fight, but then, Sang didn't get into a lot of fights.

"Sang!" A scream from be­hind him seemed odd­ly out of place. Xoi Xam, he re­al­ized, was call­ing out to him. He flicked his hand out, cre­at­ing a Foun­da­tion with sim­i­lar ease to the last one, but some­what larg­er, and flicked it in her di­rec­tion, as­sign­ing scripts to it with his right hand, fin­ish­ing well be­fore his left arm fin­ished falling limply against his body.

Sev­er­al cut mus­cles and ten­dons in the shoul­der, pos­si­bly nerves, Sang mused qui­et­ly to him­self. Straight through the bone, of course. That would be a ter­ri­ble prob­lem to heal. The sword was with­drawn with­in a mo­ment, and Sang pushed the foun­da­tion away, trust­ing that the oth­ers would un­der­stand. If no one else, his nephew would, as­sum­ing they went to him, or he caught up with them. Heav­en­ly Abode foun­da­tions weren't that dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand, if some­one only showed you the way.

[ Heave­ly Abode: Pri­ma­ry Foun­da­tion ]

Sang moved back with more grace than he felt, his fin­gers al­ready twitch­ing, and the next sword strike was stopped by a stream of ma­te­r­i­al com­ing out of the ground, form­ing a Foun­da­tion around the blade. He had every right to be an­gry, of course, but Sang was not the an­gry sort of cul­ti­va­tor. He was not the bat­tle kind of cul­ti­va­tor. He was not the killing kind of cul­ti­va­tor.

His op­po­nent, how­ev­er, was.

[ In­fer­no Blade: Lion's Claws, Un­sheathed ]

Five blades of fire carved open gash­es in Sang's chest, even as he moved back again, avoid­ing a killing strike. He hadn't been think­ing; he poured his qi into his body's cy­cle, re­in­forc­ing it and al­low­ing that in­ten­si­ty to coat every inch of his skin and to fill his bones.

"That's more than enough," Sang said, and he felt the trem­ble of Au­thor­i­ty be­hind his words, an in­ten­si­ty that he knew struck against Men­shi's low­er, Star Ruby Qi. The next time that the sword came for Sang, he caught it--be­tween his fin­gers. "I de­test vi­o­lence, but you will cease."

He sensed it be­fore they did, of course, but not fast enough.

Two pres­ences, both a match for his qi, had en­tered the Sect through the hole in the out­er wards, but only now, only here did they re­veal them­selves. Both were Ren; al­though Sang couldn't iden­ti­fy ei­ther by sight, their qi shout­ed their Qi Na­tures too loud to be ig­nored. [ Silk­steel ] was the more dan­ger­ous one, the man glar­ing down at Sang with the in­ten­si­ty of an en­ti­tled man whose do­main had been trod upon by an un­wel­come peas­ant. Be­side him, the woman's [ Gold and Sil­ver Paint Strokes ] were even now weav­ing a ta­pes­try into be­ing that Sang could do noth­ing about--but that, at least, was un­like­ly to slaugh­ter him out­right.

Col­lec­tive­ly, the three of them, and the two be­low, felt Her stand up.

Sang al­most sagged in re­lief, but the wield­er of [ Silk­steel ] only need­ed to ges­ture sub­tly, and his vo­lu­mi­nous robes be­gan to send out streams of raz­er-edged cloth to­wards Sang. So Sang called again on the Moon­stone Is­lands, and his own Greater Self, and even the ma­te­r­i­al he kept in his Space Ring--

And still the cloth cut straight through his leg, leav­ing noth­ing be­hind from the low­er fe­mur down.

Sang twist­ed his qi, hold­ing him­self up­right and pulling him­self away, but he too could feel the me­thod­i­cal pace of the Moon­stone Is­lands' mas­ter. She did not rouse her­self too of­ten, and was not ea­ger to get into a fight. She might, just might, be­come en­raged if Sang died be­fore she got there... but that was of lit­tle use to Sang, now.

"Fa­ther, stop!" Xari's voice cut through the air, but Sang thought that the younger woman's voice was less like­ly the rea­son the man stopped than be­cause the woman's tech­nique com­plet­ed.

[ Gold and Sil­ver Paint Strokes: Pic­ture of the Un­re­pen­tant Con­demned ]

The seal­ing tech­nique that slammed into Sang would have left him com­plete­ly un­con­scious, if he was not cy­cling the qi of his Greater Self through his body. As it was, he could dim­ly feel his fu­ture self--and that gave him strength, be­liev­ing that he would not die here, had not al­ready died here. But his sense of pre­sent self van­ished, leav­ing him in an in-be­tween state.

He had heard of it be­fore, be­ing sealed while con­nect­ed to one's Greater Self, but to ex­pe­ri­ence it was... some­thing else. He might have ex­plored it... if he could do so, and also, if he had con­fi­dence that he would keep his san­i­ty. But al­though he sensed his greater self, while sealed, his mind slowed to a crawl, and then ceased.

When he re­turned to his prop­er self, he was gasp­ing on the ground, more than halfway healed, El­der Onda's heal­ing pat­tern re­vers­ing the dam­age be­fore Sang him­self was quite aware of it. And she was there, the two Ren glar­ing at her, but they re­fused to budge.

What­ev­er had been said be­fore he awoke, Sang only heard si­lence now.

"I don't care," she fi­nal­ly said, the head of the Moon­stone Is­land Sect turn­ing away from the war­riors who had am­pu­tat­ed and sealed him. "But the next time you ar­rive here with hos­tile in­tent, I will not feel in­clined to for­give you."

"Hon­ored Founder--" the woman with the Gold and Sil­ver qi, whose name he could not place, be­gan.

"Go," Onda snapped back at them, his voice harsh. "There are more peo­ple in this sect you need to wor­ry about of­fend­ing than just the Princess."

For some rea­son, the man--if he were Djang Ren Xari's fa­ther, that would make him Samar--scowled, and puffed him­self up, look­ing en­tire­ly too proud. "Un­like my wife, I don't hold any sil­ly at­tach­ment to this sect. I well re­mem­ber most of you, and how ut­ter­ly near­sight­ed you all were. My ad­vance­ment may have stalled, but I don't fear you in bat­tle. Not af­ter what I have learned, and done, in the fam­i­ly since then."

"Is that so?"

The voice that came from be­hind Samar was small, and Sang glanced past, feel­ing a bit too pained to find any amuse­ment in the woman who came up be­hind the two of them. "No fear at all?"

Sang heard Onda chuck­le a lit­tle, and want­ed to smack him. [Fo­cus on heal­ing me, would you?]

[ As if I couldn't do that while jug­gling knives, ] Onda re­turned, but the mous­tached man let the amuse­ment fade from his face. [ Pity we won't ac­tu­al­ly see her fight. ]

[ Peace is not a pity, ] Sang re­turned, but glanced back and forth be­tween Samar and Futi, won­der­ing if the woman would ac­tu­al­ly dare show her cards again. The terms of the ban­ish­ment... but then, if the Di­a­mond Lord were tru­ly dead...

"Our dear Sect Aunt," Samar said, af­ter a long mo­ment when Sang imag­ined he had forced him­self to ra­tio­nal­ize what was in front of him. At least, his voice was for­mal, now. "Here to pun­ish me? No longer afraid of the Em­pire's re­stric­tions?"

"Be care­ful what you as­sume, and about whom, Ren Samar." The small woman scowled at him, but looked to the woman next to him. "Wu­lai. It has been too long."

"Sis­ter Futi." The woman bowed. "Apolo­gies, but it seems we won't be hav­ing that drink any time soon."

Futi looked past them, and past Sang, to the re­treat­ing own­er of the Sect. "No. But I sup­pose I may find the time, some day, to bring wine to your grave­stone, to drown the for­got­ten days. If you die in such a way that leaves a body to bury."

Sang could feel some­thing em­a­nat­ing from the three of them, emo­tions long buried per­haps, but he was not so adept with peo­ple as to un­der­stand it, and not so clear head­ed to care. At least his pain was eas­ing, enough to re­mem­ber what had come be­fore. He glanced to Onda. [ The kids? ]

[ Away, ] Onda an­swered, with­out de­tails. And in truth, Sang shouldn't have asked, not where the ques­tion or an­swer could be over­heard. But it was good for his heart to be­lieve that young Ki'el and her group were not ac­tive­ly be­ing chased by these mon­sters.

At least... un­til he re­al­ized that he did not see Tan Fong Men­shi, nor any sign that he had been wiped out by some­one else.