The scream rang through the cavern, ricocheting off every wall until it was distorted to a mere echo. That was how it reached my addled ears, and I did nothing, sure that it was just another facet of the prison tricking my senses. The labyrinth below the shore…it was known to feed off my imagination. That was what it was built to do, after all.

When the second scream came, I stirred. There was…more to this. It was…clearer.

“Get behind me!” echoed a voice. There were two people. I listened more closely, opening my eyes for the first time in a century to peer into the darkness.

Screeching echoes, the sound of a sword striking stone, another scream from the one the swordsman was protecting. Those were…different somehow. They were real, and not in the same way that my prison altered reality itself to bind me. These were honest to goodness people who’d wandered near the entrance to the labyrinth! And if there were people and they were fighting…maybe…just maybe…

I called upon my core, praying that I could pull off the plan I’d dreamed of. I didn’t know the details, I couldn’t have planned them without the labyrinth catching on, but it had crossed my mind once or twice. The time to act was now, my window was small.

Radiant moonlight filled the darkness of the labyrinth as my qi surged outward. The labyrinth gobbled it up like a hungry wolf, just as it had done a thousand thousand times over a thousand thousand turns of the moon. But, I would not let the opportunity pass. I poured my power into the moonlight, sending it streaking through the labyrinth, trying to find those in trouble.

In my heart, I held firm to the desire to help them. I needed to help them. Whatever foe they faced, I could fight on their behalf. I just had to reach them, and to do that, I needed to escape the labyrinth!

The powers that bound me fought and writhed. With every ounce of qi I poured into the search, it grew stronger. Flashes of light filled my eyes, and the scene shifted. I was in a forest, then a desert, then on a moonlit beach. I gritted my teeth and ignored the shape of reality around me. I was still in the labyrinth, regardless of what my eyes and ears told me, and the people were still in danger. I forced the power further, desperately searching.

The tendrils of light and qi came to a wall. This was the edge of the labyrinth, I was sure of it. Skirting in any direction would only lead me back into its clutches, so I gathered my strength and sent the qi into the wall like a drill. The Moonlight bounced harmlessly off the side, its strength crippled by the labyrinth.

“Brother Tenri! Behind you!” cried a woman’s voice. The sound was followed by a cry of pain.

I sighed. At the rate my powers were being consumed by the labyrinth, I would not escape in time.

“You know what must be done,” said the voice that I refused to acknowledge, the one that had haunted my prison as long as I’d been here.

The labyrinth fought me. As much as I hated to admit it, the voice of the hated one was right. Only one power would be able to break the labyrinth before it was consumed and turned against me: the same power that landed me here in the first place. But…if I didn’t…

It wasn’t just a matter of my own freedom anymore. I finally had a chance to help people again. The people were in trouble…and I would not let the thousand shames of my past stop me from saving even a single life when it dangled by a thread before my very eyes.

I turned to the darkness in my soul. My lunar brilliance was consumed by the hungering void, and I felt the labyrinth recoil. It had seen this power before, but not in many centuries. It was enough, just barely enough, for the void to strike. My tendril plunged into the wall with renewed fervor, slamming through and forming a connection to the outside.

There, it probed, seeking out those in harm’s way. It searched steadier halls than those of the labyrinth until it found them! Not far from the edge of the labyrinth, a man fought three enormous bat creatures while a woman cowered behind a rock. He was bleeding from a gash on his shoulder, but he fought on valiantly. His sword sliced through the air, and his own qi filled the cavern. Roots shot down from the roof, stabbing into the wings of one of the creatures. It screeched, and the sound echoed with a power ten times the strength it should have had. Rocks fell from above as the vibrations knocked them loose.

He would not last long against three of them. I couldn’t get a good look at his face through the connection, but I imagined it was frightened.

I urged my qi forward, purging the darkness and allowing the light to shine in my mind’s eye. The tendril reached forward, darting between the beasts before plunging into the man’s chest.

He staggered back, gasping as my qi reached inside him and drew upon his core. This man was a cultivator, and that was enough.

The plan I’d built, that I’d scarcely dared to dream about for fear it would be foiled…I enacted it. Freedom would be mine.

*          *          *

A band of bronze squeezed around my core, making me wince. It was wrong, unnatural, and against every one of the rules of reality that I lived by. But, at the same time…

For the first time in an age, I breathed in air that did not stink of the labyrinth. I was outside! I was free!

Briefly, I took stock of myself. I had no weapon, but that was expected. My sword, Eclipse, was broken during the fight that imprisoned me. I had nothing but the white and blue silk robes I’d been wearing back then.

I would simply have to make do. I still had some of my qi, though most of it was bound by the band of bronze, and I still had my mind, at least what was left of it after centuries of imprisonment. It would be enough.

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The cultivator fell to his knee, gasping. I stepped forward, taking his place against the three spirit bats which hungrily snapped at him and his companion.

“You may wish to close your eyes,” I said softly to him and the woman he protected. Without checking if they’d followed my orders or not, I circulated my qi through my body once before sending it out from myself.

Reality bent and warped at my command, and a blade of pure light erupted from the earth, penetrating deep into the chest of one of the beasts. It tried to shriek in anger and pain, but it only came out as a gasping wheeze as the light faded from the creature’s eyes. I turned to the next one. It streaked forward, teeth bared. I ducked beneath the strike, and the bat slammed into the wall behind me, dazing itself.

These beasts were Bronze, just like the cultivator…and now me…but they were still weak. They hadn’t even advanced enough to gain a spark of intelligence. They knew only hunger. I pitied them for that, but they were a danger, and it was my duty as a cultivator to end them before mortals were hurt by their quest for qi.

An image passed briefly over my vision, and I saw the bat behind me tear into my shoulder with its dirty teeth. As soon as the image came, it left, and I dodged to the side just before the teeth snapped into place.

“It was a good attempt, friend,” I said to the beast. “But, I’m afraid you’ve challenged the wrong artist. You stand no chance.”

To prove my point, I waved my hand and a silver disk of moonlight in the shape of a crescent moon streaked towards the bat. Even as it sliced the bat clean in half, and its head tumbled to the floor, I sighed. The disk was so weak compared to what I remembered. It was to be expected, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

One bat remained. I raised my hand, ready to call upon more of my qi, but I paused. Several possible futures passed through my thoughts, fueled by the moon aura that emanated from my person. I smiled and lowered my hand. The fight would be over in three, two, one.

The bat lunged forward, only for a streak of green to soar past. First, it slammed into the creature’s nose, slicing through it like a dart. Then it circled around and penetrated its wing membrane. Just as it the bat staggered back, the green dart circled back and shot through its heart.

The bat froze, the light of life draining from its eyes before it even hit the ground. The silence of the cavern was broken only by the heavy breathing of the cultivator behind me, and the keening whistle of an object moving at high speed. The object in question?

I laughed and held out my hand. “Have you been waiting all this time, old friend?”

The green dart flitted around before coming to rest in my hand. The tiny jade crane nuzzled my thumb before settling back into its true form, a hairpin. It warmed my heart, and I had to resist the urge to cry tears of joy to see my loyal companion once again.

Chiho the crane vibrated in my hand. The hairpin had been given to me by a dear friend in an age long gone. It was infused with the aura of the winds, allowing it to fly at incredible speeds.

“Who are you?”

In my joy, I’d almost forgotten about the cultivator and his companion. I turned to them, holding Chiho out to the side lest the blood on it drip onto my outfit.

“I don’t suppose you have a scrap of cloth?” I asked.

Neither cultivator nor companion moved an inch. Now that I was seeing them in the flesh, I could actually see the details of their features. The man was dressed in a simple black tunic, with a bronze badge wrapped around his arm with a silver thread. Though, if it weren’t for the sword in his hand, I’d have likely mistaken him for a scholar. He was thin and wiry, and a set of glasses rested on his nose.

The lenses had been cracked during the battle, and blood leaked from his ears. Despite his injuries, though, he pinned me with such a hostile stare that I might have been frightened…if this were a few thousand years ago and we’d been of the same advancement.

His companion, however, was clearly no fighter. She hid behind her rock, only peeking out enough to see if the cultivator would bid her to run. She was dressed in a simple housewife’s dress, with the sleeves tied back for working.

“I asked you a question,” the cultivator said. “Who are you?”

“I heard you the first time,” I answered, slightly annoyed by his stubbornness. Young cultivators were always so…arrogant.

Chiho chirped in my hand, responding to my thoughts. It was chastising me, and I sighed. It was right. I shouldn’t be too critical of those beneath me. This cultivator was just as much my savior as I was his. It was bad manners to treat him without the proper respect.

I pressed my fists together and bowed before the cultivator. “My fellow Spirit Artist, I am Tsuyuki Yoru, and I thank you for coming to my aid. Might I beg a scrap of cloth to wipe the blood from my pin?”

There was a moment of tension as the cultivator looked me up and down several times. Eventually, he sighed and sheathed his sword. A moment later, the mousy woman approached me and provided a small handkerchief. I smiled at her.

“Thank you, Miss,” I said, then I went about cleaning the blood from Chiho’s length. The jade pin resembled a crane resting on a branch and had several cracks where blood could wedge itself. Cleaning it was a difficult process, but one that I did swiftly from years of practice. All the while, Chiho vibrated happily before leaping out of my hand as soon as the deed was done. I smiled as it nestled itself in my hair, just where it belonged.

“You must be a powerful cultivator to so handily defeat the spirit bats,” the younger cultivator said with a bow. “We are grateful for your assistance.”

“Please, consider us even. You’ve helped me with your very presence,” I answered. “But, might I know your name? I would know the name of those who’ve helped me escape.”

“Escape?!” Alarm rang clear in the cultivator’s voice as he took a step back. The woman noticed his hesitation and hid meekly behind him. She was a mortal, and I had no doubt that they suspected I was about to do something heinous.

“Yes.” I looked at them expectantly, my hands folded behind me so as to show no threat. The cultivator paled but stammered out an answer anyway.

“I…um…My name is Tenri Lin,” he introduced. “And this is Zhao Jaili. She’s just a medicine woman from our town! She has no quarrel with you, shade.”

I frowned. Who exactly did he think I was? Shades were ghosts, fragments of qi left behind by a powerful spirit, or one harboring intense emotion. I, on the other hand, was very much real and solid.

“I’m no spirit,” I said, then I sighed. How was I going to explain? How do you even begin to put words to something as vast and limitless as myself?

The bronze band around my core squeezed, and I winced again. I guess I wasn’t as limitless as I was before, not bound like this. Still, it was better than being in the labyrinth. Chiho vibrated in encouragement, and I sighed.

“I have no intention of harming either of you,” I began. “In fact, I’m just a cultivator. Bronze, like you.”

“But,” Tenri cast a glance at the dead bats.

However, before he could finish saying that I’d displayed powers beyond a mere bronze, the woman, Zhao, perked up. She left Tenri’s side and ran past me, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Tenri! I found them!” she shouted, pointing to a cluster of tiny mushrooms that had started glowing once the commotion had died down. “The Veined Mooncaps are here! We can finally make the medicine!”