Summoners are a rather unique type of cultivator that rely on their metaphysical qi aspects to bind and call forth powerful creatures to fight in their stead. All serious summoners are usually incredibly weak for their advancement, and, in fact, quite unlikely to ever advance at any stage due to crippling requirements. But their strength is simple: they never fight alone. And woe to any who fail to realize that summoners necessarily must have a broad set of powerful abilities, even if non-combatant, to wield their craft. -Advisor Len Lan of the Council of Moro

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“I don’t know.” Kansi rubbed the back of her neck with uncertainty. “He hasn’t bothered anyone.”

“And if he’s just trying to find an opportunity to strike you down? Or worse, strike me down?” I countered. Kansi might not have been as powerful as I had worried she would be…though I still wasn’t convinced I knew the full extent of her strength…but she was still definitely stronger than Iron. Furthermore, if she’d studied under the Sword Saint, she had to be at least a hundred years old to have been alive at the same time as him. If the stalker was smart, then he wouldn’t attack her, but he likely had no such qualms about hurting some random void artist who happened to cross his path.

“Are you always this paranoid in towns?” she nudged me playfully, but I only scowled back.

“Not just in towns,” I muttered. I was so tired of being around this woman. At least around Xinya, Tenri, and Hanako, I could be myself. My own little family who knew who I was and could forgive any eccentric behavior that was inherent to being as awesome as I am. With Kansi around, I felt as if my every behavior was under an appraiser’s lens, and one wrong move would lead to my certain death.

“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she continued, not altering course in the slightest to deal with the unwanted eyes on our backs. “Your accent. It’s from the Pearlescent Valley, no?”

I froze. How had she…nobody ever said I still had an accent! Why didn’t Tenri say anything? Or Xinya? The little girl studied me like a hawk studying her prey, finding every single detail about my knowledge and demeanor, and yet, she never once mentioned that I talk with an accent?!

“I…uh…worked quite hard to lose it,” I admitted, not sure what else to say. “Haven’t been back in years.”

“I think it’s cute. It comes out in the way you clip your shorter vowels,” she explained. She noticed my sullen expression and put a hand on my shoulder. “For what it’s worth though, it took me weeks to really notice. I don’t think anyone else would know the difference.”

How long was she going to drag out this charade? Surely, she knew that the person her master sent her to find was walking two feet to her left. I just wasn’t a good enough actor, it seemed. For all the diplomatic skills I’d developed as a ruler, it seemed I was a terrible actor.

“Come on, let’s just get this stalker,” I said, shrugging off her hand and splitting off down a side alleyway.

The plan was a simple one: split apart and make him choose who to follow, which was most likely to be Kansi. The lucky loner (me) would then follow at a distance to try and catch our stalker in the act. From there, the plan would likely devolve into combat where the two of us would quickly subdue our pursuer and interrogate him.

I turned down an alleyway not far from the main square where I’d fought the Spider Witch. However, no matter how many turns I made, the attention that crawled over the back of my neck never diminished. In fact, it only seemed to grow stronger.

So much for being the lucky loner. I sighed. With his focus on me, there was no way I could draw him out of hiding without his notice, but I still wasn’t sure if Kansi would actually help with my plan or not. All I could do was lure him to a nice, quiet corner and hope that she would be able to snatch him.

Twisting and turning through a dozen identical alleyways, I found myself wishing that the Moon-Soaked Shore had more presence at night. Though the Pearlescent Valley was about as sleepy as sleepy towns went, the home I’d built for myself in Half-Moon Hearth, the capital of my old kingdom, was a city that never slept. You could walk from one block to the next and pass a hundred people going about their business. If you wished to be hidden, all you had to do was slip in with the crowd and enjoy yourself.

Even in Saikan, which was a thousand times livelier than Heimian, had only a few shopkeepers that kept their doors open after dark, and most of them sold goods and sundries for fisherfolk as they unloaded their daily haul. Even with my hair covered, as it always was at night to prevent it from reflecting the moon’s light, I always felt like I stuck out after dark. Then again, everyone else did, too, being out so late.

I wandered to the central square. Not a soul was in sight, which hardly surprised me. Heimian was recovering from an infestation of monstrous spiders that hunted primarily at night. Though there was no official curfew, everyone was still too frightened to venture out after dark, lest they become the unfortunate meal of a straggler.

Here, the remnants of our battles with the Spider Witch remained. The cobblestones were cracked in places, the damage caused by giant spider limbs stabbing into the ground as their prey dodged away. However, much of the rubble had been cleaned up by the locals, which brought a small smile to my face. It was nice to see people recover from disaster.

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A gust of wind, followed by the clanging of steel, echoed through the night air. I spun around just in time to catch a glimpse of Kansi chasing a dark figure out of the shadows of a darkened shop. I drew my bow, eager to join the fight to get this amateur stalker off my tail.

Sure enough, this was clearly the same dark-cloaked man who was following Kansi back in Pemai. He must have trailed us at a distance, ensuring that he would arrive several hours after we did so he could pick up his surveillance again.

The hostile cultivator spotted me approaching from the side and skidded to a halt. So far as I could see, he held no weapon, but tendrils of green qi seemed to silently wrap around his body, leaked by his core.

He eyed us the way one might eye a pack of wild dogs closing in for the kill. Kansi held her weapon loosely in both hands, and I had an arrow nocked to the string. His eyes flicked between the two weapons, mentally calculating his odds of getting out of the situation without a fight.

“Who are you?” I called. “Why are you following us?”

“None of your business,” he snarled back.

“Given that you chose to follow me across half the city, I kind of think it is.”

“Then you would be mistaken.” The figure flicked his hands, drawing several qi sigils in the air before him. They shimmered with a mix of jade mist and crimson flames.

As soon as he finished, the circle exploded in size. In an instant, it was nearly seven feet tall and filled with a swirling darkness that filled me with unease. However, the circle didn’t unnerve me nearly as much as what stepped out of it.

“Oni! Watch out!” Kansi cried as the seven-foot ogre lunged at us. Its skin was red and covered with boils and scars. Its face was a grotesque image of jewelry, thick tusks, and horns that curled upward over greasy hair.

The monster roared and brought down a wicked spiked club that cracked the ground where Kansi and I had been standing just a moment earlier. It growled in fury, and its eyes burned with fiery hatred. It lunged again, swinging its club in a deadly arc. I ducked before raising my bow and firing.

The arrow buried itself in the oni’s gut, and it grunted in pain before yanking the shaft from its body. I stared at the hole left behind. It seemed so small compared to such a large enemy.

Kansi was up next. She darted forward, her sword low to the ground before she leapt up. Her blade sang as she swiped at the yokai’s stomach. It cut deep, and the oni howled as it swung its club back around. Being a wind artist, she was difficult target to hit and had already shifted to the monster’s back by the time the blow landed.

Drawing the tip of her blade across the ground, she used a technique I recognized from the Heaven’s Light Sect: Mist-bound Moonlight. Tiny pebbles and a spray of dust were launched at the back of the oni’s head before Kansi turned the blade around and sliced down from above. Qi infused her blade with a potent glare that extended several inches from the blade itself and shone so bright that anyone with too low of an advancement would be forced to look away. The blade sliced down across the oni’s back, the glare cutting just as sharply as the sword itself.

The oni spun around to catch Kansi, but only found itself blinded by the residual dust left behind the attack. By the time it had cleared its vision, the wind artist had already retreated back to join me.

“That was quite the technique,” I praised.

“It was one of my master’s favorites,” she answered. Of course, I already knew that, having been on the receiving end of Jinshi’s Mist-bound Moonlight several times during practice spars. However, it did confirm for me that the Sword Saint’s disciple was familiar with her master’s sect arts, meaning I would have to be wary using my own versions of those techniques.

“My turn,” I said with a smile. The oni groaned and growled with pain, but it still gripped its club with a strength born of determination and hatred.

I looked the oni up and down once. Every yokai had a weakness, and being one of the more common forms of monster, this oni was no exception. It was young, still bound to a form as grotesque as the resentment it bore in its soul. Elder oni often sought more beautiful forms to better hunt prey and mask their own hideous nature. However, no matter how old they were, they all had the same weakness: they were all incredibly vain and prideful.

“Hey! Ugly! I’ve seen kittens that are stronger than you. Are a couple of scratches all it takes to bring down a mighty beast like you?” I shouted. “Kansi, I don’t know what we were worried about. This thing is nothing.”

“Don’t listen to him! He’s just jealous of how amazing you are, Mo!” the stalker countered.

At least he’s smart enough to know the weaknesses of his own summon, I thought to myself.

“Why would I be jealous of this hideous ogre?”

“Not HIDEOUS!” shouted the oni, swinging its club with renewed fury. It lunged at me, overextending itself in the process and leaving itself open. I rolled under the spiked weapon, drawing three arrows from my quiver in the same motion. As I came back to my knees, I drew them back on the string, infused them with void mist, then fired.

Two of them slammed into the oni’s chest and shoulder while the third slammed into the creature’s neck. Thick green blood oozed from the monster as it trembled and swayed on its feet.

“Mo!” shouted the stalker. A wave of green qi surged from the man, a completely contrasting image to the dark aesthetic he’d chosen for himself. The cuts in the oni’s flesh began to knit themselves back together as he wove vital life qi back into the monster.

The qi was abruptly cut off as Kansi rested her sword against the cultivator’s neck. “I recommend you send this monster back to wherever it came from.” The coldness in her words made it quite clear that it was hardly a recommendation.

The cultivator looked from me to the oni, then to the sword point in the corner of his vision. He sighed. With a snap of his fingers, the circular gate opened once more.

“I’ll heal you better later,” he said to the oni. The monster hung its head and stepped back through the portal before it closed behind him.

“Now keep your hands where I can see them,” Kansi ordered. He nodded. I slung my bow over my back and approached the two.

“My compliments on your ability to manipulate an oni,” I told him. It was best to give respect where it was due. “Now, I’ll ask again. Who are you and why are you following us?”