Have you ever fought a full Shade? Not one newly born, but one that’s fed and evolved? Gone Yokai I think you call it? Cause they’re absolute bastards, I tell ya. They don’t follow the rules we set for our lives. They’re more path than person, and it shows in their kit. They ignore most techniques, and it takes a good and proper path or a ton of qi to even damage ‘em. Well…or a void artist. Lucky bastards just chuck some void qi in and call it day. –A mercenary named James Kerrison from the Summoned Isle

* * *

Shen…where had I heard that name before…

“Master Shen,” Tenri began, his voice tense. “Do you know the shade that stands before you? It’s one of the Four Spirits of the Shore.”

“I don’t care if it’s the Darkened Moon himself. No one insults me.” I almost wished I wasn’t bound to Tenri so completely. If I were at my full strength, he’d sing a different tune, of that, I was sure.

“Insulting the Chain-Bound Fury will bring the wrath of all four spirits upon our heads! Please, there are innocents, here!”

Shen growled and snapped his fingers. A burst of void qi exploded next to Tenri. The Bronze artist’s glasses dissolved to sand, and he grunted with pain as the qi burned his skin. I narrowed my eyes at the cultivator before me.

As much as I wanted to help Tenri, I couldn’t. Xinya still wept over her father’s broken body, and I couldn’t leave her to face the five Bronze artists and this rotten Iron alone.

“And you.” Shen Yaoxan fixed me with a look of hatred which I returned with a cool and calm gaze. “That child could be a moon artist. In the name of Governor of the Moon-Soaked Shore, turn her over at once, and I might spare your life.”

That was the best he could do? Was he such a complacent pig that he couldn’t comprehend the tiger baring its fangs?

I turned and looked at Xinya. Her eyes were wide as she gazed up at me. She didn’t know if she should fear me. I was a monster, but one that had saved her from certain death. Then, her eyes flicked upwards.

“Chiho?” she whispered. I winced. Of course she would recognize the little pin. Chiho vibrated happily with the attention, but it didn’t realize just how bad it would be if anyone else recognized it. I hadn’t even thought to hide it first. But, what’s done is done. None of these cultivators knew of it, and as long as I didn’t bring attention to the pin, I hoped it would be fine.

A glimmer of light caught my attention on the ground. It was the detection rune the cultivators were using. Gently, I knelt and picked it up before handing it to Xinya. She took it gingerly. It blazed with light, shining with a mix of silver and violet. The nature of her core would be that of celestial moonlight, and divine lightning. I smiled.

“You are the one I’ve been searching for,” I said softly, but loud enough that all the gathered cultivators could hear. “My sister, the Flower Maiden, asked me to collect you.”

“S-she did?” Xinya asked. I held out my hand. It was blackened with void and tipped with claws, but Xinya’s gaze was focused on my own. She took my hand, and I pulled her to her feet. From her other hand I took the detection rune.

“Hold tight to my chains, meimei,” I whispered. “I won’t let them take you.”

I stood and turned back to the cultivators. The five Bronze artists were gathering their courage. They circled around us, ready to hinder in any way they could, but I wasn’t worried about them. It was Shen Yaoxan who had my attention.

“Don’t you see? She’s tainted by the Darkened Moon!”

Was that really what they were so afraid of? Did they really think that any moon artist could follow in my path of destruction? How foolish.

Rather than answer, I held up the detection rune once more. I shoved my qi into the rock. It exploded in a chaotic swirl of black and silver. There was only enough time for Shen’s eyes to widen in recognition before the tiny stone burst into a thousand shards. I replaced it with a mote of ominous void light and tilted my head in challenge.

“Moon arts…” he breathed. I didn’t care if he saw. In a few days, my twisted form would wear off (I hoped), and I’d be my normal, handsome self again. He wouldn’t be able to connect the chained shade back to me.

Shen hesitated for only a brief moment more before he shook his head in frustration and drew his sword. In the instant he began to run forward, I struck, summoning and solidifying a jagged lance of light from the ground. It slammed into his side, but, in that moment, I immediately knew something was wrong.

The five Bronze artists were creeping closer, but I knew nothing of their actions. Flash Forward was not warning me which one would strike first, or from what direction. I was completely in the dark, forced to live in this one, single moment instead of witnessing the full myriad of possibilities.

Looking inward, I found out why. Both my blooded techniques were sealed under a bluish white film of light, the same light that was emanating from the ominous orb in my hand.

What’s the point of this light if it harms me? I thought frantically to myself. In a split second, I granted the ominous moonlight substance and threw it at Shen, determined to get it as far from me as possible as quickly as possible.

If anyone were to take a tally of all the strongest Ascendents of the ancient world, I would have been near the top. After all, it had taken five other Ascendents working together to take me down. However, if that tally were to rank those same Ascendents by martial prowess alone, I would probably lag towards the bottom. They would argue that Master Tsuyuki’s strength lay in his exceptional luck in always being where his enemies least expected it, but those who knew me and my path knew better.

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My blooded techniques were feared far and wide by those who understood anything about martial arts, sovereignty, or literally anything else. Flash Forward gave me the ability to see my enemies’ actions before they ever happened. Flash Back, my other ability, gave me the power to deny a reality in progress and change the course of events. Both of them were extremely powerful, and the reason I could get away with being less martially skilled than my peers. Only one man could evade the powers of my blooded techniques, and he was my closest partner…or so I thought.

Being trapped between six cultivators without being able to see what any of them would do next gave me painful flashbacks to when the Sword Saint had taken me by surprise in my final battle. They could come from anywhere, and, though I was confident taking the Iron by himself, I was not keen on how their superior numbers could play out.

Shen managed to dodge the baleful light hurling towards him. It sailed past him and into a shopfront which exploded in a cloud of dust and wooden chips. I winced. It was not my intention to cause damage…

The Iron artist swung his blade with all the speed his advancement gave him, and an edge of purest black destruction sailed toward me. Wrapping my arms around Xinya, I ducked down only to find myself staring at a bead of metal already mid-flight from the metal artist. I curled towards Xinya, taking the steel pellet in the shoulder, and hissing in annoyance as the pellet lodged under my skin. From her position a few dozen paces away, the metal artist grinned wickedly, pleased with her attack.

A wave of cold air was my next warning sign, and I narrowly ducked in time to avoid an icicle aimed at my head. It was swiftly followed by an orb of void qi from another of the artists. I twisted to the side. This couldn’t keep up. There were too many of them. If I didn’t act soon, I’d be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks and the fight would be over.

“Get him!” Shen screamed again. The two so-far inactive artists drew weapons, a whip and a sword. They approached me cautiously as I dodged the onslaught of the other three, struggling to keep Xinya safe as I pushed my body to its limits by leaning on what martial skills I had. I knew I’d have to go all-out here. That I’d have to show Xinya and Tenri a violent side to my arts I’d rather not tap into so soon after knowing them…

The fight was interrupted by the creaking of wood. I looked up just in time to see a support beam of the destroyed shop front snap. The building collapsed in a cloud of rice flour and dust that enveloped the entire square as the beam fell on the store’s wares. This was the opportunity I’d been looking for. I pushed Xinya to the ground and put pressure on her back to let her know to stay down as I went into motion.

Not wanting to find out what tricks the metal cultivator had up her sleeves, she became my top priority. I gripped the chains of my right hand and flung them before me in her direction, sending a disk of razor-sharp moonlight as immediate follow-up. There was the sickening crack of metal hitting flesh, and then a gurgle as my disk no doubt found her throat. She didn’t even have time to scream before her throat was severed and she collapsed to the ground.

The dust was already settling a few seconds later, but the other artists were slow. In a flash, the sword-bearing cultivators were downed by a flurry of lunar blades. They slumped to the ground, never having gotten off their attacks.

I spared a moment to study the dissipating cloud, suspicious of the convenient timing of the collapse. Tiny threads of silvery-blue light surrounded the cloud, just like the ones blocking Flash Forward and Flash Back. Was this another result of the ominous moonlight? A smile made its way to my face, for what was misfortune for my enemies but good fortune for me?

“Enough!” Shen shouted, bursting through the dust cloud, sword raised. “You bring shame to your name by killing artists beneath your advancement!”

“This coming from someone who would casually murder a mortal child,” I countered.

“Who cares? She’s mortal!”

Little did Shen realize that I was actually the same advancement as his goons. The fact the metal artist had injured me at all was proof of that. However, most artists can’t hope to challenge anyone above them. I, however, had two things most artists never get: centuries of experience fighting stronger cultivators and monsters than myself, and a spiteful streak that nearly always surfaced when fighting above my advancement.

Shen gripped his sword, and void qi swirled around the blade. His strikes would be deadly if they were to land. However, the challenge had been issued. There was no backing down, now.

“Back up, Xinya,” I whispered. The remaining bronze artists wouldn’t dare attack her during the battle. Shen’s challenge was one of honor, and they wouldn’t dare tarnish his by interfering.

My chains shimmered in the moonless night. I readied myself for Shen, a plan already forming in my thoughts. He was a bully, but I didn’t want to kill him. No, he needed to live to cry to his superiors about the bad-mannered shade that stopped his hunt. Otherwise, the town would take the blame.

Shen lunged forward. I watched his sword, ever careful to avoid its black blade. He swiped again and again, and I dodged each blow, ducking back to keep out of harm’s way.

“Get back here!” he shouted. His hand wrapped around my chains and pulled me towards him. Panic filled me, and I felt age-old instincts leap into action.

Void qi surged outward in a torrent, dragging moonlight along with it. Close as we were, Shen could not avoid the light which sprang to life in my hand. It was soft, emitting the same baleful blue tinge as the last light I summoned, only this one used far more of my void qi reserves.

Shen screamed as the light fell upon his skin. It burned like acid, causing welts and blisters to form on his hands and face. He released my chains, and I stepped back. Before I could fully retreat from his range, though, he reared back and threw his fist forward.

He was clearly aiming for my nose, but his eyes were squeezed shut from the blistering voidlight that had left burns all across his face. Instead, his fist made contact with my collar, and I grimaced as my left clavicle snapped under the force. My concentration broke, and the voidlight vanished.

That would be the risk with fighting someone stronger…all the qi efficiency and power I’d learned through pain-staking effort…none of it helped my body to withstand the blow of someone punching with four times my strength. Skilled as I was at hitting higher than my advancement, taking the blow was another matter entirely.

Still, despite the injury, I seemed to have the upper hand. Shen cradled his face in his hands. He stumbled away, trying to regroup and recover. However, a silver thread caught my eye a moment before he yelped in alarm.

Shen tumbled into a hole that had opened up under the ruined shopfront. Though such a thing wouldn’t really hurt the Iron artist, it was more than a little embarrassing. His subordinates stared at each other and their boss who looked rather undignified flailing in an inconveniently-placed pit. Distracted as they were, I took my chance to flee, scooping up Xinya with my good arm before fleeing into the night.