I recall the moment of insight.

My [Epiphany].

There, beneath three sprigs of trailing willow. The form of my [Resilience], for [Dao] and for Path.

Forward, my junior looked on in disbelief.

One of [Foundation] gestalt, for he had no calloused hands nor trenches where sweat had stained his brow.

No creases as the finest oak’s bark.

“Senior brother,” he whispered, and dispensed platitudes of servile nature. “...and so, I would seek a stake around which to wind.”

Ekaksh, my most stalwart [Spirit Ram], lowered.

“For what purpose, junior?” I asked.

“My lacking [Dao].” he returned.

Curious, I had thought. For was this not my own goal?

I saw then a great bough of gold. Of characters profound and unimaginable. Yet a paltry show of light did not burst forth in the roots I might conjure.

This…

Even now it has me weep.

My [Dao of Roots].

The sight, within me, pulled taught around my core. An oath made, an accord struck with the [Dao]. For I finally knew.

The root does not dig for itself, nor pierce earth and stone for the satisfaction of progress. No, it burrows to spread its foundation wide, that the rest may weather what it must.

And so Ekaksh waxed.

His flesh turned verdant, coarse and sturdy. Each limb, a cord, bound in thin branches. His horns now as supple and reedy as the willow above.

There, I joined him.

A hand atop his illustrious bark, which brought my hand to embody the same. So too did the leaves bloom to replace my scraggle of chin-hair and the bun atop my crown.

“Your Path is your own, junior,” I felt, as much as said. “Strive. Push. Grow. Fail. But do so without concern. For the sky is open to you, and the ground need concern you no longer as it will soon rise to meet it.”

- “Apotheosising into Fable,” a conversation with Abundant Grove Sect Elder [Aspen Li]

If nothing else, Fu’s insight into strategy swelled.

Summarily, it was a replication of his Clouded Court’s tactics on a grander scale, and could perhaps be boiled down to intent and misdirection.

Arumina evidenced this now, the horsewoman at her fore. An accord was struck between the pair, albeit skewed - unbeknownst to the latter, and they advanced upon a party that had rejected their offer of alliance with violent actions.

In the midst of a dawn-drenched valley, another retinue of spectres charged. These, hostile to the Eighty Second’s forces.

Fifty podao-bearing soldiers whose footfall may well have thundered if not for their ethereal nature. Higher ground and superior numbers only accentuated their might, and made the battle’s outcome no attempt at guesswork.

But the Vajra appeared as stoic as her monastic robes suggested. No concern evident for the ten spectres held between she and her ally. They merely held, their own shafts levelled to meet the incoming party.

[Light Qi] dissolved the landscape. A reminder of Cheng Rao and his illusory [Dao] that shed any aspersions of their smaller number.

For hundreds of allied spectres then appeared aside their comrades, which Fu knew to be more than either possessed.

Timing clouded their foe’s judgement, and the mundane, scholarly cultivator further up the hillside responded with a single cry. “Retreat!”

The hostile spectres’ momentum ceased, pivoting from their charge to return whence they had come.

Arumina’s hand fell to issue her own command. A great loosing of spears and shafts that soared to plunge into the stalling spectres. The points dissipated all they touched. Clean blows in place of bloodied flesh if real beings were to clash.

“This eighty second rate daoist feels a sadness for these [Vestiges],” she sighed, granting her comrade an earnest, sorrowful look. “All are beings of the [Dao], and though we return them to the great cycle…”

“Our understanding on this differs, valued friend,” returned the horsewoman. “But better these than living souls. Were these constructs widespread the [Eastern Demon Front] would be cleansed in mere centuries.”

“Amituofo. This daoist would not think on such bloodshed.”

The horsewoman gave an affirmative nod, and blew through the warring ranks to confront their human foe. This blew far from Fu’s [Senses], losing what conversation they held to the passing breeze.

In ode to his Sect, the fisherman was atop his belly. Grains curtained his face, embracing him in their cover as he observed these foes at a hundred paces distant. It painted their forces in a broad spread, and similarly had him doubt his ability to reach the Vajra before her ally could react.

However, his target’s command of [Light Qi] was a facet of [Mind] cultivation. A path of small [Resilience].

All he required was a moment.

Fu blur-

A startling, imminent warning shocked through Hushi. He held firm, absorbing an impression that soon revealed its origin.

Not one stride from his rump, the grains parted. A practitioner of his [Clouded Ghost Arts], this beast was not. It clucked through the grasses, dipping its head with rapt attention to what insects gathered in the undergrowth.

His [Senses] split from the clash ahead, where a duel of single combat began to secure some unknown outcome, and put his hearing to the tapping of talons and beak.

A [Spirit Pheasant].

The bird gormlessly plodded to his front, bringing the pluck of motion into equal height with his own eye.

Hushi lashed before the bird might unmake them. A pair of teal arms that birthed a quiet snap as the bird’s neck angled.

Innocuous, were the Heavens not cruel.

Cold drew into the pair, which only amplified the sensation. A frigidity of Qi that swept through their shared [Channels], depositing a kernel within. But this… The energy, he found, had his thoughts spiral with hostility.

A thought of hunger akin to [Demons].

Fu lost all grip on his [Qi Suppression] for a hair of time, now faced with a force long put absent by circumstance.

His [Hollow Ivory Splinter] filled, if fractionally, and his [Ink] heated in contrast to the cold.

Let us seek more, Hushi…

Hooves beat across the grasses, and reason returned as he tightened his grip upon a blade that he could not recall drawing. A breath put his mind in equilibrium. Ready to face the stampeding hooves ahead.

Misdirection.

The [Spirit Pheasant’s] corpse was lifted in his rise, and he affected a disapproving grin as he cast it across the intervening distance. “You are a brutish woman, and I have no interest in your advances,” he called. “But it is only natural that bland birds might wish to roost in the best trees.”

“Fu Gao, I will cut that dishonourable tongue from your mouth. Fengzhou Yi Nuo spoke of your villainy, and the righteous cannot allow stains such as you to walk the land!”

Fu spoke, seeking to amplify his image with words heard from the horsewoman’s ally. “I hear only the words of a juvenile. Honor? Righteous? Something spoken on the shores of unimportant villages.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A broiling rage had the woman’s cheeks flush.

[Dao of Wayward Breezes].

His next step put him to the rear of Arunima, where a pressing boundary of Qi threatened his next move. A wall of warmth, pit against his [Senses]. A threat of power that would ill reward those who moved closer.

[Defensive Array]? In the form of a treasure, perhaps.

It held his planned strike at bay, and drew a scoff in its place. “Girl,” he said. “That brute has eyes but fails to see. You will not make the same mistake. Do not interfere with the Sepulchral Sabre Sect, lest you wish for a swift death.”

Arunima’s face tightened. “This daoist knows such a sect would not reveal-” Her words stopped short as they met Fu’s back. At the shameless disregard he cast as he walked away.

He turned but once, piquing a brow. “Do the clouds conceal themselves from the land below?”

His foe stalled the incoming horsewoman with a gentle palm, though Fu caught the rage upon [Spirit Beast] and cultivator alike in his final glimpse. With a casual gait he descended the valley, shading himself further with a tip of the douli.

These actions of his were fractured, he knew. Disparate with the patience he so wished to employ. But the horsewoman’s presence was a bet he would not hedge, recalling well her [Might] when first they had clashed.

I must isolate Arunima and discover how to bypass her [Defensive Array], if that is indeed what I felt. Her [Intent] did not feel as this, but may again be a ploy.

“We have seeded doubts about our intentions,” he whispered to Hushi. “At the least it may grant time before she rallies the trial-goers against us.”

The octopus was quiet, ruminating on recent events. Their [Hollow Ivory Splinter], and the changes it had stirred.

An inspection best saved for the safety of their fortress. Which the Heavens obliged, for once more the [Mystic Realm] retracted in scale. To be upon the ground during such was novel, more so as his peripheral [Senses] were focused upon the surrounding wind.

The current compounded in almost bloated form, before ribboning back to normality. A bulge of air that increased its strength to compensate for the reduced distance it had to roam.

A section of his [Dantian] warmed.

Interesting.

🀦

“If I did not have need of you Hushi, I would have you hunt,” he whispered. “Even if this hunger would rise.”

Atop their walls, Fu watched as a blaze crossed the plains. Columns of turgid smoke plumed in each cardinal direction- a strategy no doubt enacted. He wondered, however, for whom it was for.

His own fortress was an affront to the symmetry of his competitor’s positioning. A fifth, wayward point where all others had shrunk to face them. Yet proximal flames likewise rose to his fortress’ rear.

Soon, they ringed.

A merging affair that severed the lands surrounding these five, and the flare of unnatural blue that licked their base spoke of Qi or [Dao] interference.

“The strategy is grand,” he mused. “It is only natural that it comes at such a scale.”

Hushi arched a brow, if through impression only.

“Our time in the [Hollow Hegemon’s Splinter] was the same? An accrual of power begets more, and so at this stage those who remain are well positioned. Hundreds of spectres at their command.”

The octopus flashed pridefully at his cultivator’s insight, clear that his mind was put to other things.

An acrid stench blew by his nose, tainting the [Air Qi] most foul.

“No, I suppose not,” said Fu, countering a second, queried impression. “Our shortcomings are clear, but I take strange solace in this. It allows us to act simply.”

So saying, they gave a call for the fortress’ doors to blow wide. A curt order followed, bidding his spectres to push out of sight. Behind bends, crouched near low-slung walls, or a simple step away from the entrance.

Nothing profound.

As was his intention as he dropped from his walls for the final time.

🀦

Arunima affected a tranquil contentance amidst the clouds of smoke that lapped the battlefield’s ground. Her sleeve rose to shield the object of Fu’s desire, and while at peak [Foundation Realm] no such irritant as this would tarry her, it was a nuisance.

The villain Fu Gao smiled as her procession trailed from the fortress walls, and in the awning his [Senses] expanded to hear an interesting dialogue.

“An assassin? Pahpah-pah,” trilled the first strategist. One of two rotund men, adorned in the usual attire of scholarly hanfu with fans laden in an iconography of birds.

“Indeed, Brother, indeed,” addressed the second. “A clear imitation of the Twelve Heavenly Dissentions, and a sham at that! Even a glance would deduce ‘Hit the Grass to Startle the Snake’!”

But the first turned then, indignant. “Brother? ‘Hit the Grass to Startle the Snake’... What demonic scripture do you read from, to have your mind addled as it is! Pahpah-pah! This is a marriage between ‘Watch the Fire from Across’ and ‘Lure Tiger from Mountain’!”

In most dramatic fashion, the second swept sidelong to their fortress’ stone, a bracing hand upon the dwarf wall there. “A marriage. All stratagems are a marriage when properly employed. We are allies under the same master, what use is there in bickering over names? I, of course, would choose simplicity. ‘Kill with a Borrowed Knife’.”

The pair whirled at each other in long, pensive acts.

“But what of the possibility of truth?” the first quietly returned.

“The Vajra was indeed of the One Hundred and Eight. Her insight was plain to see. Those closest to the [Dao] are rarely disingenuous.”

The first nodded in half-contemplation. “Pahpah,” he chuckled.

“Hide a Dagger in One’s Teeth,” they both exclaimed at once.

From the rooftop above, pressed tight, Fu wondered once more on strategists. These cultivators on the path of [Mind], and their queer ways.

Further inane conversation followed. An exchange of counterpoints, strategies and best routes. Each were punctuated by sweeping gestures and flaring sleeves, and many sentences ended with a stymied laugh behind drawn fans.

Intelligent men, for they have listed no less than thirty six strategies. Their Master is peerless if he is able to condense warfare to a simple list.

A pair of birds descended, similar in variety to Grandmother Hua’s [Spirit Cuckoo]. Yet where her partner was trim and regal, these beings were bedraggled and plump.

Fu and Hushi swept upon them with finality. His [Dao of Suffocation] poured out to bury them beneath airless torment, and Hushi’s arms made short work of choking his own unconscious.

The cultivators retaliated by collapsing, limp as their Bond’s resonance put both in near similar states.

“Remove your spatial rings,” Fu whispered, placing himself from their sight. Both men slowly writhed with the barest semblance of control. Worm-like and pained.

But through this they could not respond, and gasped in place of speech. The rightmost weakly proffered a hand, and though behind, Fu saw the treasure upon his index. He slipped it free against a dim protest.

A splutter came, along the lines of “Scripture, shame and dishonour.”

Fu stowed it in his belt, and slit the man’s throat. “The Eighty Second requires your aid. Go to her,” he whispered to the second.

Another ragged gasp filled the silence where the [False Dust Life Array] whisked his comrade away.

Hushi impressed a sense of Qi from this man’s wrist, and Fu pried it free, roughly. A band of gilded silver that looked to be of no small value. “Tell this Vajra that I await her.”

In a span of seconds the villainous Fu Gao had entered the grasslands, and set across in pursuit of his target’s party. Any notice of his actions would have spurred the righteous horsewoman to charge, or Arunima to unveil an order or strategy. Yet nothing rose but the towering flames around them, consuming nearer so that their curtains nigh reached the rear of each fortress.

The groundward puffs were reminiscent of the Sepulchral Saber Sect. Of the cultivator he and Zhu had bypassed some few weeks ago.

A form of simplicity. Is it not, Hushi?

Of the five fortresses, Fu moved towards the fifth. Not Arunima’s, the assumed Star Sister across, his own or that which he had just visited.

Arunima’s wise, monastic pleas struck a fifth cultivator there. A single occupant, an effeminate man with shrimp-hued plumes set upon his brow. The origin was clear, for a [Spirit Stork] of peculiar breed balanced aside his ramparts.

A wading bird.

Such things were of no import, in vein with the speech delivered by his foe. Thus Fu stole low until the time where Arunima’s words ended and her back was all but turned.

A set of bounds within [Half Cloud Step] brought him below the crest of this third stage fortress, and he slung himself to the rear. As the construction was identical to his own, Fu ascended through sections he knew to be blind.

Here his stay was repeated, and he placed another cultivator under scrutiny from atop the peak.

The effeminate man held conversation with his Bond, caressing its slender nape with a patter of fingers. “...the cause is noble,” he said.

His [Spirit Stork] preened under the attention of its partner.

“To be in the good graces of the Eighty Second is more than we might hope. Our defeat was sealed by the appearance of these peerless competitors. Will we withdraw?” he continued, his resignation well entrenched.

Hushi cut short the stork’s coo, having it wheeze through a tangle of arms. A mirror of his cultivator, whose chain had snared this man’s throat. Fu pulled it taught, seeing the links depress cruelly into skin.

“Your spatial ring,” he repeated, as he had before.

Timid hands slapped against his chain. A flail of arms that sought to free their owner. It unmade a fold in the man’s robes to expose a floundering, Qi-rich chain.

Fu snapped the clasp, and stowed it among another warning. “Arunima has need of you. Tell her that Fu Gao is eager to meet. That she will now reap what she has sown.” In a flash, he severed a single finger.

The last vestiges of [Air Qi] dispersed around his captive’s mouth, and Fu released before significant harm was done. His messenger would do little good if too damaged to speak. It was a moment later that the man regained breath, some facet of his cultivation granting a swifter recovery than most to have suffered this fate.

But Fu could only hear the labour.

The scramble of feet, of an outraged grunt, and soon enough the clatter of doors as they were flung ajar.

Wedged on the underside of the fortress’ lip, he merely watched. Two parties advanced with correlatory direction, wary eyes upon the other. A retinue of twenty spectres paced in rings, each, holding their cultivators within the safety of their numbers.

All with an aim to join the Vajra before his own fortress.

With no need to affect villainy, Fu’s heart felt nothing. The Heavens may judge him for manipulating these intelligent, albeit meek cultivators, but this was the natural law. An adage that mortals had inscribed in their hearts.

The weak are prey to the strong.

Fu dropped the man’s finger, which plunged below. A reminder of his misdeeds. That the threat of his harm was greater than their apprehension at Arunima’s offer, and thus, they followed.

Simplicity. Now, Hushi, let us see what they make of it.