“I’ve supped with one, crossing paths at the precipice of their [Demon Scar]. Why? Curiosity, of course. A man should experience all things once, no? And how was I to know what was in the dumplings?” - A conversation overhead.

“On Gu,” - A Primer of the Western Demon Front

A jerk as his foot landed spun Fu into motion. Attributes rising, the light overhead flaring, the freshly spilled blood of his target, landing. In this step he launched further, breaking before the body had collapsed down.

His leap, true, and his hook once more primed for execution.

The [Demon] not three strides distant gaped, some manner of challenge caught in its lime-green throat. But Fu’s flight was swift, and absolute, with a [Might] that savaged the thing’s chest to fell it in no uncertain terms.

His knees braced in collision, battering into, and riding his foe down. And here he gasped, rose, and set his attention to the rumbling that continued without surcease.

What coalesced in the air beyond was a much misguided thing. A spear, once honed for a strike upon his person with blazing corona and angle, true. This was swept by the construct’s mighty arm, and loosed to spot far more populous than his own.

As ever, its tribulation landed.

An obliteration of light, swallowing earth and flesh. This epicentre, however, paled where others had shone like a malignant sun.

The pillars claimed saw to this, speaking on how his comrades- the cultivators, had wasted no effort in capitalising on the panic. And yet… and yet Fu’s was wholly different. Not the difference between Heaven and earth, but of this degree.

He looked at the staining of his hands. The red there. No sopping wetness, but the spots where rivulets had splashed like the spray of a passing wave.

Soft, and already running.

Fu drove back in a spring, imminently sober. His thoughts far from wallowing or grief. Well resigned to the murder at his hands. The man, the father, the brother, the disciple of some venerable Sect or Hall, gone. Ended by one who ought to have stood at his side, at the least.

In his next leap he did not dwell on this action.

Not how it differed from a contract- ordained by Cloudy Serpents. Nor how it strayed from personal survival, for the dead had not challenged him to a duel over honour or face. No, he merely arrived at Zhu’s back, and drew his guard.

“Desperate,” said Zhu, and that same, beckoning tong fa was stretched towards the not-so-distant fray. The patchwork earth and receding light, occupied by no standing soul. A canvas of childish scrawl, where a landscape was almost half-remembered so much was now absent.

So few remain on either side.

Down from the hundreds they were, Fu saw the dozens of now. The Cloudy Serpent, and her lashing bian, those that enshrined her step- seeking favour as a retinue of mops by their cleansing of weaker [Demons] on her arena’s edge. The brutish Vajra, the mundane blademistress, the radiant bow man that punctured his arrows as [Dao]-birthed stalks of bamboo.

A few, with fierce contingents. Described as such for no other breed of cultivator might have survived so long with an uncertain heart. Save for one, perhaps.

Two, in truth, shown when Zhu scowled at the iron-grey vapour in the battlefield’s center.

“An indication of her total pillars. For Qi to flow so openly, as it’s done for some time,” started Zhu. “Queer. Truly, a fearsome ghost.”

Fu waited, weighed, and found he could only dispense a nod. Now he had stalled, the pain of his back wound made itself known, thus he sagged, putting a palm across his eyes. “In this I can relate.”

“You’re no fearsome ghost,” confirmed Zhu. “But if you speak of the changes. It is bizarre, yes. I stand near the middle of [Core Formation] if attributes were all that marked such a thing, yet my cultivation hasn’t progressed a step.”

Those scattered through their own patch of gully were reconvening. Thinned dregs, though Fu did not wish to stand idle.

“I’m loathe to say this, Fu. Yet the rice is cooked. What a bore.” Zhu spun his tong fa, locking them tight to his wrists. “We’ve no chance of this now. The [Trial], and the treasures we’d extract from it.”

“Oh?”

“Aside from attaching ourselves as those leeches ahead do, the [Demons] will overwhelm us. If a [Reliquary] is to open, we’d fare worse. Unaffiliated, and foreign,” explained Zhu. “Wait, and the spears will claim us. Fight, and we’d certainly fall. A cruel, and efficient design, this.”

“Then what would you suggest?” asked Fu, and he lashed out into the space ahead. A blow of warning, with a [Might]-infused speed he could scarcely believe he possessed.

The advancing [Demon], one of reddened hue and willow-like limbs, dodged sidewards. It loped from this, ill prepared and driven for a moment to all fours.

In this scramble, Fu blurred. A crack appeared where the strength of his step bolted him across the battlefield. Dust flew in his wake. The air responded with a light trill, and he swept a rotational kick forth from the [Wind Phantom Strides]. This punctuated a feint, one telegraphed to have him arc for an aerial blow.

He delivered the kick hence, and splintered the beast’s kneebone in one fell motion. A resounding crunch came next, for it toppled at the connection. Seeming to sink into where its solid joint had

been, and to but one knee.

Zhu rushed by him, a cross to his weapons as he braced for a secondary [Demon] only ten strides distant. The same dust trailing, the same earth cracking underfoot as he went. If vastly more profound.

But in the same breath as he met his foe, Zhu was tossed distant by the clamour of a gargantuan club.

Ground-trembling steps approached as Fu’s hook lobotomised his own foe with a strike, ear to grotesque ear, plunging through all that connected them. And no sooner had he done such, than did the same club blow in his direction. A pillar in its own right.

Fu’s [Control] flexed him to the ground, weaving beneath its path with a degree of flexibility that beggared disbelief.

[Dao of Wayward Breezes].

In the wake of the weapon, Fu appeared, scaling in one leap what he found to be an ogre among [Demons]. At ten foot of height, and possessing an oddity of jewel crusted, tan skin to accompany the solitary sweeping horn that rose from its crowd, the foe proved a true champion among fiends.

With no deliberation the [Demon’s] club rounded. Peerless, as all who faced the fisherman were, yet awkward in positioning. To save himself from injury, the hook’s flat side met it, braced as best Fu was able while mid-air.

A cacophonous wail followed. The metal protesting, knowing well it was outclassed. But Fu thrust himself to the side, having the club smash by with meteoric force.

How-

There came a conjuration of richest plum, uncharacteristic for the [Dao]. An interspersing between the storied gold, that carried with it a miniature axe of mundane design. Zhu at its heel, sorrowful as it cleaved the [Demon] in twain.

Fading then, as swiftly as it had appeared.

Another oddity.

“Were this any other place,” grunted Zhu. Emphatic, as he had grown over the course of this [Trial].

Fu saw in him a man pained, and pressed not on the origin of what clearly ailed him. “Gratitude,” he nodded, and moved to set his back against Zhu’s. “Your suggestion?”

“Damn our [Dao Oaths] to the Sect, and adopt one of those facades I so hate. The Cloudy Serpent is key. We’d appear to her with half-truths as to our being here, instil ourselves by her side and gain access to the [Reliquary],” he said. “Claim enough [Demons] that the [Hegemon’s Spears] no longer trouble us, by any hope.”

“An idea,” agreed Fu. “[Dao Oaths] are not so easily unwritten. Or bypassed, I should think. Our vocation has no telling mark of belonging.”

Zhu tugged Fu’s sole remaining sleeve up, revealing the faint indentation of a serpent. His false [Three Eyed Spying Array], at which the fisherman stared with surprise. More at his wrist, and how instinct did not have him lurch back defensively.

“Most don’t. To bear this is as foolish as the insignia’s granted by Silkworm Hall. Inviting danger by association. You’ve duty inspired reasons, no doubt. But this is fateful.” The words left Zhu’s mouth under grim forbearance, appearing as he returned his eyes to the omen of vapour trailing hence. “How stands your rank? I’d see us move soon.”

Fu scried his [Ink]. “Twenty-three.”

“A foolish question, now I think on it,” said Zhu. “We’ve no bearing of the total remaining. We will go.”

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🀧

Flight through the [Demons] was a swift affair under the ghosts’ combined efforts, and harkened back to Zhu’s comments on training. It was no [Trial] in which Fu had faced hundreds by his lonesome, for that total lay in the tens, but neither had he done so alone.

Six, lesser [Demons] fell on their path to the Cloudy Serpent disciple, done so with a skill of tandem arms that had them fight almost as one. Fu, and in turn, Zhu, had grown accustomed to the other. The minutiae of motion, expression, step, and [Prowess].

So saying, the tong fa struck as bludgeoning wings. East and west colliding on their latest foe’s shin and temple respectively. A stunning finisher to a set that Fu then pressed, blurring from the rear to gouge his hook down the [Demon’s] spine.

In a step the fiend was looted, and the pair progressed onwards.

The ring was reached before long. Eight cultivators in what once might have formed a perimeter, now scattered loose as if dropped grains of rice. Similarly, a voice rang out in greeting before they reached ten strides from the first.

“With respect, comrades, senior sister Yifei requires no further aid,” spoke a man of forest-green hanfu, a yew-carved gun in his grip.

Fu held this exchange from beneath the dipped brim of his douli. A slight, he knew, to ignore the speaker. If intentional in his affectation of the role he played. “Sister? You go too far, comrade.”

The speaker tugged his crooked beard, which Fu caught in the slim gap of vision he allowed himself. “Is that so?” he returned. Then, he perpetuated the disrespect, expanding his [Senses] so that Fu’s [Dantian] was searched. “Ah.”

“As comrades, I might warn against such a thing,” stated Fu, dry and dispassionate. The [Clouded Ghost Arts] would hide his cultivation realm, unless this man was talented in his [Senses] enough to pierce it. Lending well to the air of menace that he so wished to project. “We hold business ahead, and arrive here only as a formality.”

“With sister- with Mistress Yifei?” the man said, uncertain. “Apologies, strangers. This [Trial] holds us on edge, and we have sworn by our honour to uphold her safety in whatever manner we can. Were [Demons] not rampant, I would not speak so carelessly. Yet, I am uncertain if your approach is the wisest course.”

“He would deny us,” growled Zhu, a stride behind. His sham, a sham, poor in every aspect of acting.

“Deny? No. Only that if a message might be delivered, I would act as intermediary.”

Fu frowned deeply. “Brother,” he said, addressing Zhu over his shoulder. “This cultivator thinks he might speak for the sister. Perhaps then, he might know better than one of the Cloudy Serpent Sect?”

The man’s fingers flicked in a barely suppressed fidget.

While neither ghost had confirmed their allegiance, nor would their [Dao Oath] allow this to be openly admitted, what lay in the absence would prove sufficient. An uncertainty that conjured some small power of doubt.

“I would never!” broke the speaker.

The pair strode then in purposeful gait, expounding no more. “Insightful,” mused Fu, saying such as the man brushed from his path.

With no true allegiance to the Cloudy Serpent Sect, he knows it would invite trouble should he challenge it. Let us hope all share this wisdom.

Many eyes fell to them, done so for the dwindling combat. Scornful. A lack of [Demons] allowed their passage to garner a heat of gazes that followed until their destination was met.

Another break in the tide, where Sister Yifei stood with bian clutched loose and [Spirit Serpent] engorged around her legs.

It hissed at their approach, a fork of some five foot lashing around its maw, navigating scarlet scales and impossible fangs. But this was calmed by its cultivator, a palm caressing the ridge between eyes. “Peace, sister,” she whispered. “Let them speak.”

“Senior Yifei,” bowed Fu, a knee taken thereafter as Zhu repeated the greeting.

“Time is short,” she noted.

“We have come to petition for your aid,” he said.

Here, the woman’s eyes dulled, resignation evident in the flick that carried them towards those already gathered behind. “My patience is tested further with each that ask this. Truly, do the Heavens populate this realm solely with cowards and fools? Take space to my rear, and stay clear of my [Reliquary].”

“We hold no designs on the [Reliquary].”

“Such is said by all who have come before,” she said. “The paper tigers that seek refuge behind my [Prowess]. All are fierce before sharper fangs are shown to them.”

Fu took stock of the woman. Her crimson robes, her fastening of bone-white hair, replete with jade bands of serpentine design. The perfection of her disdain on Heaven-crafted features. A prideful woman of a breed he knew well.

If she is used to respect, to supplication at her presence… then might we put ourselves on equal footing to show none? A risk, truly.

Seconds of silence lingered, and Fu’s mettled failed. The [Spirit Serpent]... the scale, some dozens of meters long, evoked an unease that could only be attributed to memory. Despite his vocation, despite his-

“Senior Sister, our appointment doesn’t allow for the claiming of [Reliquaries]. We’ve no inclination to rid the Sect of a disciple’s fortuitous encounters.”

“The Sect,” frowned Yifei, intent on Zhu and his muddied words.

“The Sect,” Zhu confirmed.

“Do not speak in riddles, I have no love for them.” The [Spirit Serpent] uncoiled, circumnavigating the three until all stood between its crimson scales. “If you would dare to falsify what you infer, my vengeance will exact a swift toll.”

“Would we?”

Yifei frowned further. “The world is boundless, and opportunistic dogs are just so. Do cowards not stand to my rear? Though none were so bold as you. Still, this [Mystic Realm] holds queer fate, and if you are what you might claim then [Karma] may yet have bound us.”

As they had discussed, Fu unveiled his [Array]. The serpentine band that none would be so foolish as to falsify.

The woman scoffed. “The storied mock disciple. Truly, I must be your [Karma], for who else but an expert of my grace might extinguish whatever inadequacy you have wrought.” Harsh as she was, her head tilted in acquiescence. “Be this an [Art], or some [Boon] of flesh changing- my earlier words stand. But speak, Juniors.”

A tong fa lowed to the distant, iron-grey vapours. Thick, to rival the namesake of their own Sect. It needed little specificity. “A thief, and murderer both. We’d ask that her body be returned to our custody, and that we aid in your pursuit of her.”

Off count, a rumbling began. No hour from the previous, by any approximation.

The air thickened. The ground quaked. The cords transcended in hue from a totality of white to that of a deep and bloodied red. Yet behind this the skies bled to back, repealing its colour to leave naught but a tranquillity of stars.

Fu braced under this latest earth-shaking assault, and followed each trail of light to the base where they collected. The first pillar, whence came the bronze statue of which he was so acutely familiar.

But arms and spear, chest and plates transformed from their usual show. Now, a tower stood with the same ethereal glory. Wide, and squat, affixed with a glow of spectral light from each striated seam upon it.

The [Demons]- we have survived them.

Yifei flew first, and the iron-grey of distant range swarmed with equal swiftness.

“Mock,” stated Zhu.

“[Reliquary],” said his companion, a [Half Cloud Step] already suffusing his body.

🀧

What changes to his [Ink] had come paled to the acquisitions of those at higher ranks, for when Fu arrived at the [Reliquary’s] boundary a crowd had already arrived. Low in number, perhaps, and telling of how humanity had fared in this [Trial].

He saw among them the champions, the aforementioned leaders of this fray.

Yet they were barred from entry by a blockade of robes, shoulder to shoulder, mane to horn and so on. Recognisable cultivators from Yifei’s retinue whose [Might], [Dao] or proficiency had delivered them here well before the others.

Arguments echoed into the cavernous vestibule at their rear. A hall of rectangular entry, more akin to the yawning mouth of a furnace than any building Fu could pull to mind. Shouts, cries, outrage, sharp words and sharper blades - all awaiting a definite spark to fuel what would be a slaughter in the coming minutes.

Zhu stalked through the crowd, dozens at best. Measured steps taken under the auspice of the [Clouded Ghost Arts] and practised quiet, leading stilted expressions of shock as he pushed by those who could not detect him.

And Fu followed, receiving the same.

Beneath the mask of his douli he wondered if his gait was that of an expert. His projected calm, his purpose. Was this enough to dissuade a confrontation?

For none challenged the pair.

To mask one’s [Dantian] and step silent left few options for their vocation, he knew, and surged Zhu’s musings to the forefront of his mind. Cultivators did not look upon assassins with favour, and for every strike he did not receive a leering eye met his gaze.

“Hold there,” came the first. “You would dare!”

Fu maintained his step, wielding the menace of his dubious nature as a cloak. As such this left only the most brazen to call out, the bold or short-tempered.

Despite three such attempts to rally their attentions, the pair arrived at the entrance unmolested. Fu dispensed no bow to the man with whom they had spoken previously, his role that of gatekeeper for those massing outside.

Upon his crossing of the threshold, Zhu but one step ahead, the Qi rose in earnest. Myriad signatures, sequential by the nature of its revelation. One cultivator that spurred another, loosing roars from [Spirit Beasts] and ire-riddled, disgruntled throats in turn.

The interior shade stole much of this sound, however, and the ghosts swiftly vanished into the comfort of darkened corners. Neither man relaxed, but took a breath in place of such before moving on.

Some facet of tension left Fu’s shoulders. His spine. Queer, he mused, that an embrace of shadows could be attributed as something safe.

The [Reliquary’s] interior comprised a path of spiralling stairs, recalling a similarity with that of [Green Blight Valley]. Where scored trunks of foliage, moss and creeping vines had clung, now rose a plain edifice of bronze, paved with a shallow height of steps.

Their ascent however, soon immersed them in wisps of grey. Drifting trails that crawled beneath the circular door at their path’s end.

“A faint impression of the [Dao],” noted Zhu, pressing a palm into Fu’s chest to stall any further steps. “We’d spoken of prior discussions, none of which have come to pass.”

Fu blinked. “My history is of little import as it stands,” he said.

“That’s- Well, before I contradict myself, you’ll find it is. But don’t play the defensive fool. I speak on the Silver Loom. On smoke-grey contrivances, [Mystic Realms] within [Mystic Realms] and what will lie beyond that door.”

“Zhu, the cultivators are soon to riot below, the [Trial] is yet to be concluded, and any moment wasted…” Fu shook his head, his facade slipping. “In truth, this situation is a madness that I can barely contend with. The steps we have taken are seeds thrown to the wind, and we follow, hoping that one may grant a yield to see us through.” As he loosed his true thoughts, fatigue-borne, encouraged by a weary heart, he grew cold with stark realisation.

I have unmade myself.

However Zhu but granted a nod. “I’d agree. This encounter has pushed us far, but scattered us all the same. The Four Corners Prefecture will be drained of spirit wine upon my return, if only to wash aside the [Heart Demons] I’ve fostered in this place.”

“A crisis,” suggested Fu.

“Yes. Though it’s said they are akin to opportunities riding the wind. Nothing is gained without first being ventured, yet I’d prefer a [Trial] to be more of my choosing. No? That’s why we’ll take these precious seconds to hedge some semblance of strategy.”

Hushi tightened, and Fu’s palm went white as he clutched his hook. To speak now, some steps from the [Trial’s] end, courting danger on two sides- to call a pause… “If you are of a mind to leave me to the wolves, Zhu.”

“What?” the man barked. “By the Heavens, you’re a complicated, insufferable bastard, aren’t you? No. I’m merely suggesting that I’ve no intentions of dying to some pre-ordained machination against our Sect. These wolves, Fu, above and below, I’m of a mind to avoid them entirely.”