This sunrise marked the third.

Jubilant squawks and chirps welcomed morning back once more, though Fu was awake long before this. His reddened, arid eyes set on the base of the tree where both he and Hushi had taken refuge for the night.

And still, he felt that poison in his channels.

A pollution of [Earth Qi] far worse than the sand, for the latter did not stifle him so. During their travels the pair had worked at removing this through cultivation, able to gather the ambient [Air Qi] to wash most away. Grains of it scraped at his insides, and his [Dantian] felt hollow and raw as a result, or perhaps, clogged and unresponsive were better terms.

Hushi fared worse that Fu, even after escaping the scene of their battle with the [Spirit Toad], and in truth, it was by his efforts alone that the problem was remedied.

Dropping from the tree, a thick and towering giant with vibrant blue leaves, Fu unfurled his chain. He stole several paces further into the clearing, still beneath the canopy of the mighty sentinel, and the shade it provided to this outcropping of rock where the rivers met.

Then he lashed out.

It was in no form or style, and a mere practice, but he continued all the same. He snapped the chain at the peak of its elongation, turning the head to strike in a multitude of directions. A step would turn him, and the direction of his weapon, bringing it about it rear in a wide arc only for these simplistic strikes to be repeated.

As he had now found, the [Air Qi] seemed to enjoy this. Sharing an emotion with Hushi, who sat above and worked internally. Such circulation alleviated the strain that his Bond was under, and while not a full invigoration, Fu felt it was a better use of his time than sitting in quiet contemplation.

With his [Resilience] as it was, it took a full hour of these movements for his body to reach the point of tiring. Sweat beaded his brow at the end, and a not unpleasant warmth suffused each aching muscle.

Then the trance of repetition was cast aside, returning to him a full sense of the external world.

“Hushi,” he called, looking up at the branches.

The octopus dropped, softly landing atop Fu’s shoulder.

“The greatest portion is gone, yes?” His words were more confirmation than question, feeling a certain vitality in Hushi’s body now returned. A crawl beneath the brim of his douli came as reply, and a gentle, affectionate slap on his cheek soon followed.

Fu gave him a curt nod, and they pressed forward.

The hunt for [Spirit Cores] was over, and the path they now took was back towards the [Paifang]. Each day they had stolen a little closer, bypassing the stretch of river where he had first encountered the [Spirit Apes] in favour of a large loop to the west.

Into unfamiliar territory.

Here, the terrain was craggy. That same river, or a distant cousin, wound through the base of steep gullies, a lofty fall below. It was quite impassable there, just jagged rocks immersed in the raging rapids and the hardy beasts that called such a place their home.

Above, thicker trees cast their branches across the distance, and it gave Fu a notion.

We are exposed on this edge, and I know not how far it runs.

Sending a minor prompt to Hushi, he approached one of these trunks. The octopus poked free of his reeded midden, gazing up in concert with his cultivator.

Fu placed his hand in the crook of the trunk’s fork, finding that it required barely any strength to bring himself up. He planted a foot there, and another higher up, steadily climbing to reach a height of a single story. Where he then paused.

Nature did not grow in perfect symmetry, and to look at the branches he saw just how far apart they were. This row continued for some distance, a vast distance, upon further study, yet their extensions varied in level and length.

A foolish idea, perhaps.

Despite his thoughts, he soon found himself on the longest branch. A thick arm of wood that was resolute in the straightness it held some way over the gap to the gully’s other side. Fu edged his feet forwards, his toes over empty air.

Hushi is not yet recovered, I must at least try to keep us from any further violence.

A measure of roughly ten paces spread from his perch to the branch ahead. Undoable for the mortal he had been, but a feat that Fu found would no longer be outwith his reach.

So he leapt, a stream of wind in his face, clearing the gap to land with only the slightest of stumbles. Fu’s arms flailed for a moment, adjusting his balance with a dance of bending knees and wobbling spine before settling.

A parcel of delight came from Hushi, and his tentacles wriggled in a dance of his own.

I… I feel as though I can go further.

Planting his feet as before, Fu leapt again, and on landing, did so again.

Soon Fu adjusted his footwork, coming to a crouch each time he touched down. A full push from his legs could carry him further, and it helped lessen the momentum of each jump to better guide his trajectory.

Motes of [Air Qi] were drawn in by Hushi, fresh and rejuvenative, gathered by such aerial passage, and he felt his Bond retreat further into the douli to ingest them properly.

His hesitation towards this unknown territory was realised many minutes later as he spied shapes rushing on the ground ahead.

Not an hour passes without trouble. A [Mystic Realm] holds much peril.

Fu pressed low to the trunk, a crouch that had him almost hugging the branch. Obscured by a steady barricade of leaves, he stilled himself to observe.

A dirtied adolescent battered her feet across the ground, some young mortal with panic laced features and bloodied scrapes that had long since dirtied the scraps on her back.

From the leaves’ position he could glean nothing further about her features, save that the leg she dragged behind her did not seem to slow her movements.

Pain is driving her forward. The poor child.

Outraged cries reached his ears with greater clarity than his vision, and their owners were far out of sight despite the volume at which it reached him.

Fear, not pain.

The girl pounded on, her gasps as tattered as her clothing, and she came closer by another tree.

“Return the [Spirit Core] you filthy, shameless thief!” roared one of her pursuers, still quite the distance off.

Fu’s thoughts went absently to the six within his pouch, though he refrained from touching them. He was of two minds then.

Hushi is yet to recover fully, and these voices may belong to cultivators. To intervene is to jeopardise all I have worked for. And yet, to let them pass by is to sentence her to death.

Having no thoughts on the matter, Hushi readied himself as Fu moved into a position to leap down. Before remembering the chain on his arm.

Reckless. To go with the first thought in my head.

“Girl,” he called, unspooling his chain to dangle towards the ground. “Grab this if you wish to live.”

His voice startled the poor child, and his timing was… imperfect. Unleashing the chain when he had brought it to a stark drop only a single pace from her head.

On instinct, she yelped, and her hands went up to shield her face from impact. She clearly favored this metallic, suddenly appearing length sent from the Heavens more than the fate behind her, recovering to clamp her body around the head and neck.

Swiftly, Fu dragged the chain back up. The girl was little more than skin and bones, a state reflected in her weight. She climbed as it lifted, expediting the process, and her eyes widened as Fu lifted her free to sit on the branch.

“Quiet, now,” he urged in a whisper.

Full minutes later and the voices had passed beyond their tree, a set of four that, with his face tight to the branch, Fu could not study. Beneath the shade of a canopy three trunks away, they growled and stomped, spouting curses and foul words about the quarry that had escaped them.

Will they pursue, I wonder?

“Come out, thief,” they called, just one taunt among many. “A quick death awaits you should you give up this chase.” All bore the same intent, the same undercurrent of malice towards this girl that each of Thousand Shore City’s refugees had treated Fu with in turn.

Chancing a look brought their leaf-blurred figures into sight. A set of two women and two men, unwashed and mean. None looked to be in fair health, and the weariness shown in such half-hearted searches of the nearby shrubs shone a light on the true state of their bodies.

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Time passed, and he could not place why they chose to linger where they did. Only they had appeared, and their outlook of waiting was something that Fu wondered on.

Hushi was first to give insight on this, emerging from his hat to gesture across the gully.

An emittance of a russet glow, marking the aura of a [Spirit Beast]. The strange colouration evoked a fear in Fu that this was a creature of [Earth Qi] and that, should they come into contact, might undo all of the pair’s restorative efforts, and worse.

Again the blurring of leaves marred his sight, and he caught but flashes of its outline.

It buzzed about distant trunks, a shiny, near reflective scale on- Fu thought it a stone, for a moment, his vision still obscured. The truth showed as it crossed the gully, however.

This beast buzzed to a stop near the humans, and he saw then its form to be a beetle. Four wings splayed from a hairy outer skin, and a strange, faceless body even for that of an insect.

The humans released exasperated sighs in turn, almost a chorus of frustration, walking back in the direction they had come. “Your Spirit Beetle flies in the wrong direction, what use is it?” barked one of the men.

“The ways of a [Spirit Beast] are beyond your understanding,” quipped the woman of his attention, abruptly defensive.

Amidst their conversation, Fu noted that only the cultivator’s words made his lobes tingle when uttering such important words. A wayward thought he squashed given how close these pursuers now were to his own tree.

Behind him, the girl tensed at their oncoming presence, shifting slightly as though their very proximity caused her great pain.

“Scents of differing [Qi] are fragrant to it, and at times she cannot resist the pull. Such as you are with wine, Hong.”

Three of the party laughed at his expense, though this Hong released an audible grumble. Right below the branch where hidden bodies clung tight.

Fu felt his heartbeat rise, a lick of sweat rising in his palms. Their heads were just below, each scalp and clump of dirtied, matted hair only a stray sound from turning. He dared not breathe, holding himself still.

The area under his fingers, now clammy and uncomfortable, wished to be moved. A snag of chain pressed there, more itch or irritation, only mildly painful.

To move it would cause a drop, and he knew this. The sweat there reacted first, and his chain ever so slowly crawled from his grip. Now his heart thundered, and he tightened his grip only to see it force more length from his palm.

It fell.

Caught not a half instant later by Hushi’s arm.

The head dangled like a slow-moving pendulum, silent but a nail’s length from where it had fallen. Fu held tight his sigh of relief, grateful once again for his Bond.

Less grateful for the [Spirit Beetle] that now buzzed just beyond the edge of his nose.

Fu and Hushi both lunged for the creature, their reactions only fast enough to knock aside one of its six legs as it took flight. A blur of wings brought it from the leaves, and a shout from below told him they had been revealed. “Stay here,” he whispered behind, dropping the not inconsiderable height to the ground.

All four of his potential adversaries rounded on him, fanning out with more anger held in their expressions than exclamation. “You would hide from us?” said the first, the one named Hong. A man that Fu felt some recollection over.

He is familiar to me, somehow.

The cultivator in their midst showed more caution, going so far as to stay her companions movements with a back facing palm. “Greetings, master cultivator,” she said, eyes affixed to the robes upon him.

She thinks me a member of some sect. Or a travelling cultivator. Very well.

Fu straightened his posture, dispensing what he viewed to be a nod worthy of someone regarded as senior. “Well met.”

The others in the group viewed him with suspicion, a wariness in their eyes no doubt born of the teal arms that writhed from beneath his douli.

Hong, however, glared. Caught between rage and a look of forced contemplation. As though he were either trying to recall something or pass a bout of violent wind.

“Apologies for disturbing you, master cultivator,” the woman continued, taking up the mantle of speaker for the group. “We are on the hunt for a thief, and did not expect to come across one such as yourself.”

Short of dispensing some form of wisdom, Fu was caught flatfooted in his speech. “That… that is fine. You will find no thief here. Only beasts.” He noted that the [Spirit Beetle] was not by its cultivator’s side, and he could hear it buzz from the branches above.

A flash of Qi pushed the girl from the tree just then, and she battered to the ground with an almighty crash.

Instinctively, he stooped to check her wounds. Finding terror more than a leaking, visible injury. Her dirtied face was ravaged by tears, rivulets cutting through the grime, and she pleaded with him, silently.

Only a moon or two older than my own. Such cruelty to inflict upon a child.

Fu placed himself before her.

“You… you have found our thief,” the woman said, stealing an inch forward. “We will find some way to repay you.”

Obviously the brute of the group, Hong growled his displeasure. “He is but one, and you are his equal. Finish this foolish act, I wish my Spirit Core returned to me.”

“Quiet, Hong!” she snapped. “A thousand apologies, master cultivator. This ordeal has been hard on all of us. To have our homes and families brought to ruin in so short a time, and then to be thrust into this treacherous [Mystic Realm] with little hope of survival. We, the lowly, cannot hope to flourish as you clearly do. Our only hope is the return of the [Spirit Core] that this thief has so wrongfully taken.”

Fu pretended to nod contemplatively, much as he had seen some of the cultivators that had journeyed upon his boat do.

The girl for the core. That is a fitting trade.

“You would not harm this girl if she were to give you the [Spirit Core]?”

Strangely, the woman felt at her ears, disturbed. Allowing Hong to voice his rather visible disdain for the situation. “Release a thief? What-”

“Yes, master cultivator. The girl will go unharmed, you have our word,” she interrupted, reddening Hong’s face.

Gently, as not to startle her, Fu extended a hand to the girl. His fingers beckoned forth the [Spirit Core] she held so tight to her blood-crusted chest. Her reluctance was almost palpable, and he smiled softly upon the exchange.

“Here is your [Spirit Core].”

The woman caught it as it was thrown, palming the brilliant, tangerine marble. “Then we will give thanks, and take our leave of you. May your path be fruitful.” Her final words sounded like a repetition, as though unsure of what they actually meant.

All walked away, save for Hong. That same look of rageful contemplation stuck on his face. “I know you. Fa. Fung. Fu. You visited my store in naught but rags! Do you not recall?”

“Do not anger the cultivator, fool!” ordered the woman, her [Spirit Beetle] hissing in a shared sense of anger.

Hong stamped forward, lowering a meaty, accusatory finger. “I am Quan Hong, the toysmith. Not three moons ago you came to me asking after my cheapest carved figures. But you could not afford one limb, let alone a full body. Yes. My clerks sent you away with orders never to return, and the stench of fish lingered for many days!” To the others now, he shouted. “He is no more a cultivator than you! He cannot keep us from exacting justice from that thief.”

Internally, Fu cursed.

“Let it pass, Hong,” urged the cultivator. His three companions had rejoined him, leaning further to his side of the issue than the woman’s, if their expressions were anything to go by. “We have the true treasure.”

The foolish man rushed forwards, exploding in rage at the woman’s commands. Plain to all that he had reached the limits of his patience. He swung for Fu.

And Fu watched the clumsy, lagging knuckles come towards him. So very, very slowly. With his own hand, he slapped it away, and Hong was blown to the side with a force it was clear he could not register.

The [Spirit Beetle] barged into his gut, buzzing in an arc to hammer him back from the edge of the gully, and he fell flat in a wheeze.

Surprised himself at his [Might], Fu hoped the others would see reason. But they charged all the same. “Can you move?” he asked, putting his fists before him.

“No,” the girl squealed back.

Grabbing her tattered clothes, Fu flung her into the bushes, further from harm. [Air Qi] fled from his [Dantian], and Hushi swelled. The octopus landed at his side, his size possibly reduced from the poison of [Earth Qi] that still held flecks of pollution in his [Channels].

His focus was on the beetle, as was its on him, and the pair clashed with one another heedless of the humans all around them.

Fu weaved to the side of the mortal woman’s punch, and, unwilling to deal significant damage to any of them, he slammed her to the ground with a jerk. Two arms wrapped around him from behind, Hong spouting obscenities with flecks of spit by his ear. So Fu stamped down, breaking the man’s foot, and led on with a chain-wrapped blow to his stomach.

In such a short series of blows, two of the mortals were grounded, both groaning aloud. This left only the third, and the cultivator.

Fu leapt. The force was dramatic, and delivered his elbow clean into the man’s nose. Unintentionally receiving the hardest part of Fu’s arm by way of poor positioning and poorer fate.

“You have silenced that pig, and for that I thank you… Fu,” the cultivator said. “Yet they are still members of my party, and I cannot return alone.” She produced an insignificant carving knife from the waist of her trousers, and moved to meet him.

Her slashes were of a far higher sort than the mortals, given her cultivating nature, and Fu was forced to move out of the way of many. A strange energy was suffusing the blade, one that he could not comprehend, nor study given the rapid strikes upon him.

Characters, or… runes? They cross and move in patterns that make it seem like flowing sunlight.

All he could fathom was that they were dangerous, and not of [Qi].

Fu leapt back to near Hushi, who had ripped free two legs of the [Spirit Beetle], and now worked on tearing one of the wings. [Air Qi] formed the same cushions around his arms, proving a deadly match for the buzzing, airborne insect.

Unfurling his chain, Fu drove it out in a left-to-right sweep, and the woman dove underneath to come up behind her Bond. “Hong says you are no cultivator, yet you have managed to pillage a treasure from one of the [Reliquaries]? Impressive, though the Heavens do not favour you as much as you think!”

More of the strange energy built around her knife, clearer now that her attacks had momentarily paused. Mirrored runes blossomed on the [Spirit Beetle], its wings transforming into a pool of bubbling, black liquid, fluttering even then.

Hushi drew back, and Fu sent his chain flying forwards. His foe bent backwards, avoiding the weapon but for a single point where her knife made contact.

Purposeful. To what end?

Wary of this energy, Fu snapped the strike back at her thighs.

The woman tried to leap, clearing most only to be caught on the shin. Bone cracked the moment the head struck, forcing the woman to be heaped upon the ground. Her [Spirit Beast] hummed to her side, flaring its liquid-wings from atop her hip. Facing each of them in turn, it released a hiss of warning.

Fu jabbed out with his chain as if to strike it, aiming for its left side. The insect dodged easily, but placed itself in Hushi’s outstretched grasp. Four of his arms snaked around its midsection, avoiding the buzz of wings if only just, and crushed everything beneath their grasp.

Blood coughed out from the cultivator’s throat the very second her Bond’s life ended. The comparatively healthier sheen of her skin underwent a change, growing pallid as her face went gaunt amidst rasping breaths.

“I will leave you here, as a kindness. Killing is not… I do not wish to kill you. This much is enough,” said Fu, retrieving the stolen [Spirit Core] from a rag fixed around her arm. “Please, do not pursue us.”

More blood heaved from the woman’s mouth, though Fu was now walking away. Hidden partially by the bushes where he had left her, he came across the girl.

“Gratit… tude,” she shivered, voice as weak as her body looked. “Senior.”

Fu put on his kindest smile, the same that came naturally upon returning home to his children after a long day on the boat. “Gao Fu,” he said, first pinning his thumb to his chest and then towards his hat. “Hushi.”

“Mei,” she trembled back, prompting Fu to peer up at the Heavens. Bringing him to ponder just what it was they had in store for him.