Zhilei led them to the kind of cave you’d expect silly children to wander into and never come out; the kind of cave where bones crunched beneath your feet with every step. It looked like it housed a Moon Serpent.

He had a wood torch in hand, its tip a knot of burning cloth.

“Stay close,” said Sen, hand on the hilt of her sword.

“Okay,” said Ruyi happily, and nuzzled up to her.

“Please,” said Zhilei. “I wouldn’t let harm come to either of you.”

“I don’t trust you,” said Sen.

“Sen!” Ruyi rapped her on the arm.

But Zhilei just laughed. His wheezes echoed down the tunnel. "I am an odd fellow, aren’t I? Anyone this fascinated by the mating cycles of beetles can’t be up to any good.”

There were eyes in the darkness above—too small to be Moon Serpents. Zhilei caught her looking.

“Blood bats. Not to worry! They’re deathly fearful of fire. Let us take the left fork here—watch your step, yes.”

For a while all she heard was the sound of their echoing boots, the soft echoing shriek of a few bats now and then. She couldn’t be sure how long they’d been walking. One chunk of wall looked pretty much like another, and she couldn’t tell the darkness behind her from the dark in front. She was convinced Zhilei had gotten them lost when the walls began to widen out, opening up, leaving them standing in some great cavern. After a few steps she couldn’t see anything physical save the ground. They could’ve walked into a world of pure dark, for all she knew. Was it just her, or was it colder here? Her fingers felt clammy.

“Still, now,” he said softly. “She spooks easily, but she’s harmless.”

Ruyi thought he was speaking about her at first. She had a good shock—first embarrassment, then ‘how’d he know?!’, then anger—before she realized he was referring to the Moon Serpent.

“Don’t Moon Serpents kill people?” said Sen. At the mouth of the cave Ruyi would’ve might’ve told Sen to have a little faith in their guide. But here, entombed in the darkness, she had to admit Sen made a very sensible point.

“Don’t people kill people?” said Zhilei. If this was meant to reassure her it was doing a poor job of it.

There was no time to think on it. A swathe of darkness, darker and shinier than the rest, was moving. Growing. It must have been slithering but it made nearly no noise.

Zhilei stepped forward and the torchlight picked out its shape. A flowing river of ink, but its yellow eyes, slitted orange, were lanterns in the darkness. Its fangs were the size of Ruyi’s legs. Why was everything in these mountains so damned huge?

It drew up to Zhilei, mouth open, purple slick tips of its teeth glinting, a thick pink forked tongue flickering at the air, and Ruyi was certain it would lunge and swallow him whole.

But it swam through the air slowly, almost timidly; it gave him a lick. Then it began to wrap around him, rubbing its head against his arms, drawing a chuckle.

“Meet Ness,” said Zhilei. “She’s very old, and quite blind and deaf, but her smell’s still sharp as ever.” Ness started poking her nose at the pack on his back. He unlaced it, brought out a bundle, and when he moved it around Ness’ head swiveled to follow.

“Skinned rabbit,” he explained. He chucked it into the darkness. Ness slithered after.

“So how did you…?” said Ruyi.

“Poachers.” For once, the humor left his face. “They’d hunted her children for ingredients. I managed to stop them from taking her too, but she’s never forgotten. The poor thing’s too afraid to leave her cave now. I think the dark comforts her. Ah—here she comes now.”

He strode up to her; she lay her head down obediently, and he began stroking her scales in patterns, somehow making himself understood. Ness yawned.

“Aww,” murmured Ruyi. How was it possible for such a huge killer serpent to seem so cute? “Can I touch her?”

“…Best not,” said Zhilei, wincing. He smiled apologetically. “She’s nervous around strangers. You understand.”

Soon he uncorked a vial and pressed it to her fang, and the Moon Serpent bit down almost tenderly. Its venom dripped out.

“The textbooks always said you had to slay a Moon Serpent to harvest its venom.”

His face sagged; he seemed older suddenly, and his smile was weak and weary. “I’ve had my fill of death. I see it enough day-by-day.”

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Ruyi watched the venom droop into the vial. It flowed slow as sap.

“Yet you killed to make our sandwiches. You killed that rabbit,” said Sen.

“What is up with you?” said Ruyi.

Sen looked aggrieved, like a child being scolded for something she didn’t do.

“True,” said Zhilei. “I have certain… dietary restrictions… but make no mistake—I am not a pacifist. What do you think happened to the poachers?”

Sen was silent.

“Please understand,” he said. “You must hold two things in mind at once. First, that you should never be quick to destroy. But once you deem it necessary you must act decisively, and leave no doubt.”

He met Sen’s eyes. “You must seem to your enemies a sleeping dragon, a creature they fear to wake. For when you do you shall shake the world.”

***

The sun was setting fast.

“At this rate it’ll be midnight by the time we get back,” muttered Ruyi.

“Alas, I take full responsibility,” sighed Zhilei. The darkness had passed; he was chuckling again. “Do forgive me. In my old age I find myself going on and on—it’s quite embarrassing, really… at times it feels like I begin a sentence at dawn, and end it at dusk! Hum—shall we take a shortcut?”

***

They split from the path, fought their way through a thicket of brambles, and emerged before a ravine.

It looked like some Heavenly sword had split the mountain in one clean slash; its walls were sheer stone, darkening the deeper it went. You could pick out the strata—orange, reddish-orange, gray, black.

They stood at the very tip of the slash. The sun was lined up just right, setting down the line of the ravine, so that it poured hot red rays downs its length. From up high it must’ve looked like a bleeding wound in the ground.

“This lovely ravine is called Bael’s Folly,” said Zhilei. “There is a story behind the name, but I’d best not tell it—we’ll be here ‘till tomorrow! No flora live here. The stone’s too tough for that. It has no alchemical value… but Heavens if it isn’t beautiful.”

“Yeah…” murmured Sen. Her eyes flickered with sunset red.

Ruyi had never been one for spirits, or mediums, or the creatures that lurked in the so-called beyond. Some fringe cults worshipped them; she’d always thought herself too smart for that. The Heavens had always been a fairy-tale to her, something you shouted in curses. But as they descended between these sheer twin walls of flame, rising up to dare the skies, she felt an upwelling of feeling, something like wonder. She could see why, striding through the gorge, someone really could believe the Heavens were at work. Most of the ravine, especially the deeper bits, was like endless plates of steel; the cliff faces reddened each other, reddened her and Sen and Zhilei’s bodies so it seemed they were all bathed in blood. She imagined this was what an ant must see, perched atop a great sculpture—seeing its giant perfect geometries, but blind to its meanings. The gorge felt vast and beautiful beyond her comprehension.

“Oh, dear,” said Zhilei.

She was in such a trance she didn’t detect the worry in his voice. Then Sen yanked her to a stop by the collar—“what?” she snapped.

She followed their eyes, looked up, and saw what.

Wings loomed overhead. Giant wings. Dozens of them, black slashes over a gray sky, circling. Ruyi gave a start. How’d they get so close? She would’ve thought they’d cast a shadow! But sun’s rays, slanting down the horizon, washed it all away.

With each widening circle they spun closer and closer, frightening fast, a hurricane of dark feathers. In a breath Ruyi could feel the wind beating off their wings—and they made no effort to hide their auras.

A dozen Foundation. And its leader, peak Core.

“Nebula Rocs.” A shadow fell across Zhilei’s face. He cursed; Ruyi hadn’t thought he knew a curse word. Somehow he felt too affable for it. “They aren’t meant to be here. What foolishness! Their nests must’ve been built into the upper cliffs… I’d mapped this ravine three years back, and found nothing… but that is old knowledge.”

“Go, Ruyi,” said Sen. Her voice was calm yet intense. “I’ll hold them—”

“Nebula Rocs rank among the quickest roc species. In a footrace they can outpace creatures a tier above,” said Zhilei. “And once they scent prey they are relentless. They will not cease until their claws—which shred flesh faster than lodestone swords—end their quarry.”

“Enough with the facts!” snapped Sen.

“What I’m trying to say is, there is no running.” The weariness of the cave was seeping back into him, his smile slipping into a frown. “I’m sorry. I’ve failed you—I am in the business of knowing. And I did not know.”

“If we can’t outrun them, I’ll cut them down.” Sen drew her blade in an instant; at first Ruyi thought it was soaked through with blood, but that was just the light.

“Please don’t.” Zhilei looked pained. “They’re beautiful animals. And there’s precious few left in these wilds—”

“Ruyi’s life is at stake!” Sen looked genuinely angry.

“What I’m trying to say,” said Zhilei. “Is that we need not be quick to destruction. There is another way.”

The wings of the prime Roc shrank instantly. Folding into its body. It dropped beak first, and it was like seeing a meteor coming to bear upon them, filling up the sky frightening fast.

Sen’s blade trembled, primed to cleave.

“You have good instincts,” said Zhilei. He wasn’t looking at the Roc; he was looking at Sen. “You knew, didn’t you? I can see why the Butcher likes you.”

Only then did he look to the sky.

Run a finger through a candle and there’s a moment before you burn. Shove a man off a cliff and he registers, in that floating, wide-eyed split-second, the coming fall. There are little stillnesses before great horrors.

When Zhilei Zhen looked to the sky, every living creature in a five li radius felt a little stillness, deep in their hearts, or perhaps their souls, something past thinking. A touch of the primordial.

Then killing intent swamped the gorge. An ocean of it, spilling over, so immense it wobbled Ruyi’s knees and froze her breath in her lungs; he gave of blackness like a star gave off light. Her heart felt like it might burst.

The Rocs fled shrieking into the sky.

Ruyi could see why, standing in his presence, someone could really believe that creatures of Hell strode among men. As Zhilei Zhen turned to face them he seemed a gorge unto himself. Dimly, she felt herself sink to her knees.

A great scraping echoed through the gorge—it wasn’t just the Rocs that fled. The crows in the crevices, the moles mining the stones, the serpents slithering the dust, hosts of great vultures and the thousand thousand insects big and small all fled screaming and hissing and screeching, fearing for their lives, like some great invisible hand of fear reached down and brushed them away.

Every creature save one.

One single girl was struck by a fear as she had never felt. But she had made a promise.

Sen Li put her trembling body between Ruyi and the Demon King.

“Ruyi,” she breathed. “Run.”