Bitter cold gnawed at Fu’s blistered skin, and every laboured breath caught in his lungs, incomplete and agonising.

What was scorched and dry was now shaking; feverish, weary and unable to fill him with even a single gulp of air. Prying himself through jagged reeds, he dragged himself onto the shore and scraped himself onto his back, cursing the Heavens.

Affording himself only three blinks, he staggered to his feet.

My children… where… are they…

Supernatural weight forced down upon him, it had done the moment he had emerged from the waters surrounding Thousand Shore City, intensifying by an order of magnitude now that he dared to stand against it.

This was an Intent, an emotion of something far greater than he, made physical, and it ground against his will as he slopped through the reeds.

His resolve, however, was not defiance. Merely an acceptance of things as they were, a submission that he carried with every other weight.

Crimson flames littered the pier he came upon, not his pier, yet an omen of the devastation that his family might currently endure. Stone was shattered, segmented and scorched, with sections crumbling into the lake’s depths just as the buildings beyond crashed to the earth.

These flames poured forth with a malevolent energy, and they clung to the stone, eating through it as though it were some brittle wood.

Fu pressed on, firming himself through every step, limping and clutching his ribs as they shifted inside him, either displaced or shattered. He cared little for the pain. What fresh agony he felt each time his foot touched down was insufficient to wane his resolve for the greatest need, the desire to see his family safe.

A coarse wall took him further into the city, and he paid for the directions with the skin from his left arm, focusing on the pitched screams ahead.

“My children!” he cried, delirious and raspy. “Yuling, Fe-” Horrid vibrations from a bout of coughing had him slide further down the wall, yet he caught himself to whimper once more. “Yu… qi.”

Gentle grinding sounded somewhere amidst the crackle of flame, nearing him in ways he could not fathom. Something large neared, a dragging of harsh materials across the fractured stone of the debris riddled streets.

He had barely turned before it upon him.

A serpent, with intent of its own.

Pale in comparison to what now covered the city, but far beyond his mortal means to combat. Fu did not recoil in the face of the two fangs that made to snatch him up, nor the forked tongue of the glowing serpent as it lashed his sodden, battered form.

“Cease,” warned a voice behind it, and the Spirit Beast, a serpent whose jaws alone matched width with his height, retracted.

“Children,” spluttered Fu.

The voice returned, male and dismissive. It did not address him, and his words were spoken with a suffusion of Qi that caused a breeze to stir between them. “A sufficiently pathetic mortal,” it said. “Our Mistress may have what she seeks in this. Among the many others.”

Laughter followed.

🀨

Fu wheezed another breath as he was pushed through an ailing crowd.

He was not alone in his delivery to this new construction, a bridge of shattered buildings sculpted across the very lake that he had dragged himself from. The width of a weapon was thrust into the small of his back, smashing him yet another few steps and into the procession of weary remnants.

Only sagging faces spread before him, those he forced his head up to glean. None were his family.

Children were plentiful, elders and the young.

Each held resignation in their step, trudging ahead in a weary march and only spurred on by the line of silent, spear-wielding cultivators advancing at their rear.

From edge to edge, a row hounded the refugees of Thousand Shore City. Bonds, all serpentine and grand, lapped their heels or mounted their poles, hissing and snapping when any of their captives would lag by but a step.

With such weight on his shoulders, motes of treacherous thought tried to guide Fu’s body. A single rest longed for, a second stolen where he might gather his bearings.

The butt of a spear silenced those quickly before he could fully succumb.

He struggled for what felt like half a li before a softer blow came, a rap upon his shoulder that flared fresh pain. More strikes followed, a grapple from many angles that forced his eyes to widen and freshly moisten.

“Gao Fu, your stubbornness returns you I see,” began Grandmother Hua, placing her cane down to steady her as Fu’s children secured their hands around him. “Children, do not tarry your Father, guide his hand, but affection will do him no good here.” She pointed her cane to the line of cultivators but ten paces to their rear.

Emotion overwhelmed the simple fisherman, and despite his body’s protests, he clasped his hands to bow. “Grandmother, I…”

“Do not waste what breath still holds in your lungs, Fu,” she scolded. “It will be needed for such tribulations that lie ahead.”

To look upon his children, Fu saw only dirt. Smeared ash and mingled sweat clinging to their cheeks and brow, with no injury to be seen but the fright within their eyes.

I’d thought her power exhausted. To think that she still held this much…

Again, Fu clasped his hands to offer respect and gratitude, edging forward as he did. He knew better than to question this woman and her mysteries, even in how she stood now. Much reduced from how she had been before… before him.

“Father, where are they taking us?”

“Who are these cultivators?”

Smiling warmly at both Yuqi and Yuling respectively, Fu strained to squeeze their hands tighter. “Be at peace. The Azure Shoal Sect will rectify this. I cannot say where they take us, though to lead us across water…” Land formed beyond the heads of the masses as he stretched his gaze forward, tinged crimson.

And familiar.

“Dismiss any notion of the Azure Shoal Sect. They flounder, as their name suggests. Fools that play at cultivation with no greater comprehension of the myriad paths than you, Gao Fu. Who these villains are, and the power under their command, the difference between these forces is that of Heaven and Earth.” Grandmother Hua tutted, and Fu found her eyes to fall upon a ragged disciple in the ranks ahead.

Hard words. Damning and dangerous. But beyond me.

Fu nodded sharply, wishing he hadn’t, and urged his children forward.

I would rather her give words of comfort, if only to ease their worries.

He steadied himself with a breath. “Grandmother, there will be a way to navigate this. Unknown to me as this is. We are of no worth to any.” Gently, he swayed his family closer to the bridge’s edge. “How is your swimming?”

“Oaf. How quickly you forget your trade. Would you trade a cultivator’s spear for the jaws of a Spirit Beast? None should know better what lurks below the lake than you.”

Feng sobbed then, pressing against Fu’s blistered stomach.

“Talk does not cook rice,” stated Fu.

“Yet bodies must live for mouths to open!” snapped Grandmother Hua. “All under the Heavens are cruel. We must take the measure of what comes when it comes, and think no more of flight. Think, Gao Fu, why would all be gathered if they have no worth? Steel yourself, conserve what strength you have. The end approaches.”

True to her words, their destination was reached. Fu and his family were herded tight, and he yanked his children closer to keep them by his side. His daughters were bunched beneath one arm, corded around their shoulders, and Feng was by his front, a palm pressed against his chest.

Other ragged mortals were jostled, falling upon him, and Fu stumbled back to clatter his head against the face of one behind.

“Children!” he cried, his fingers slipping from Yuqi’s tunic. She fell from his grasp, and landed upon a young woman. But they did not cry out with rage or pain, only seeming to stir into lucidity upon impact.

Then she moved on, as did her frost-covered Bond, a shrew, leaving Yuqi to scramble up from the dirt before the weight of many feet landed atop her.

“Draw closer,” he said, his heart growing more frantic as she mewled. Fu boxed his arms wide, creating scant protection for his children, futile against the swaying crowd. Puffs of exhalation and effort came between surrounding sobs, more so when they dismounted the bridge to stand upon solid ground.

Waves of people toppled from the small space between gap and grass, the cultivator’s behind providing no respite in their urgency. His children went first, stepping down with Grandmother Hua at their backs, and as they descended this minor flight, Fu spied the full scene before him.

The Paifang stood empty atop tiled ground, a hexagonal formation beneath the base of its two marble pillars, and only open air and the endless waters of the lake beyond it. Cultivators stood in ordered rows around it, walls to hem in the mortal cattle they had brought, resolute walls of bodies and glowing serpents leading only to those two figures that stood at their head.

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“A True King realm,” warned Grandmother Hua, shaking her head. “The one beside him, even I cannot say.”

A lethal Intent crashed upon the refugees then, and gusts of rapid Qi streamed down between the crowd. It came with an abominable chill, and harsh flakes of snow lashed within. Fu felt his grip upon his family sever, and he cried out as each of his children were shifted by this force, ordered into neat rows to either side of him.

Desperate, he tried to reach out, finding that his body could not obey him. The air had solidified, encasing him with bonds he could not see, leaving only his eyes to dart as he wished his arms to do.

“Peace, children!” he wished to cry, unable to move his mouth. Unable to form words nor pry apart his lips.

His family’s faces were unflinching and expressionless. But panic leapt about their pupils, gazes falling to him to their kin, and back once again. He could offer them no comfort or reassurance, try as he might.

Internally, he roared, trying to shed this pervasive Qi that trapped him, yet his bare, mortal will was stamped out in vain.

Movement in the two figures caused his attention to shift, birthing more squirming if only internal.

Is this moment to be their last? Can nothing be done? I curse myself! I curse my weakness and mortality!

Fu screamed, wordlessly, his only defiance a small haze of warmth from his nostrils, dissipating in the glacial air around him.

The figures came closer, tides of crimson light sprawling around the woman. She bore an elegant frame, lithe and pale, and a band of shimmering metal pinned back her onyx, flowing hair. To spy her features was harder, veiled as they were, concealed under a crimson weimao that obscured the face beneath. Yet Fu was drawn to the snakes upon her robes, both inlaid and fabric, to those outwith and living.

For they numbered many.

A conversation reached him across the silence of captives, dampened less for the paces they stole closer. The man was of a scholarly sort, flawless and feminine in feature if not for the trailing knots of silver that fell from his chin, and his voice was soft even from this distance.

Fu watched as the scholar bowed low, turning without words to face the dozens kneeling behind them.

Myriad serpents tore through the crowd.

Glowing Bonds of every hue raced from their cultivators, Qi permeating the air as their elements left clear lines of passage. Crackles of lightning, droplets of water, many uncountable streaks that marked the points between the villains on the outer rows and the violence they now unleashed.

Stomachs were shredded open, and throats were ripped.

Blood soaked the ground before the scholar, great pools and sprays forming as mortals were crushed and torn, some of the larger Spirit Beasts swallowing them whole.

Fu screamed harder, gouts of warmth fleeing his nostrils. Strain burnt at his eyelids as they unwittingly tried to widen at the horror ahead.

Is this to be the Fate of my family?

The two figures paced closer, and their exchange grew louder. Not a conversation between parties, nor a dialogue of any sort. But poetry, and words laced with a soft-spoken grace.

The scholar wove through the ranks of refugees, now in the recesses of his vision.

“A fell wind rushes from east to west to cast petals from each lotus, save for those in the mountain’s shadow, who linger in the safety of an earthen embrace.” These came as a song from the veiled cultivator, her head craned to the skies as her lips formed each softened syllable.

No sooner had it ended did the snakes return. Arriving to slaughter another two rows with brutal, unnecessary cruelty. They returned with the same haste, bloodied fangs still freshly crimson as they arrived by their human counterparts, falling into stillness.

And the figures moved on.

Fu gleaned discrepancy in the rows, seeing forms that were unmolested by this villainous touch. Figures still kneeling, small in number, yet there all the same.

Some are untouched. But by what power? Is poetry to be their undoing? Does Fate decide who lives, or is it this cruel Mistress who dispenses who she wishes?

A small hope fostered those latter thoughts, and in that he considered that his children might be spared.

Yes. If she so chooses. And none are cursed enough to slaughter children, she is no Demon.

Another strange recital of poetry ended, only four rows from his own, and his heart raced further.

The Heavens were playing him for a fool, as was their right.

Through flashes of glowing scales, Qi-laced streaks of flames and fang, Fu witnessed those who fell with greater clarity. A telling sight within the crimson aura of this foul being.

Indiscriminate, the bodies continued to fall. Grains of wheat to be sliced without purpose, reaped with the same ease. From mature stalks of many moons, to those of but a handful of seasons’ growth.

His skin quivered, and a sickness rose in his gut. He knew then that this realm of cultivators was truly foreign to him. That his beatings, for across his life they were abundant, and his suffrage at the hands of these others, was far outstripped by those marked by the Heavens as true.

They were monsters.

Prickles arrived at his side now, accompanied by a voice. “Follow my every instruction, Gao Fu, and they shall live.” Fu could not react to Grandmother Hua’s instructions, and the words came from outside his periphery, strangely calm for what now neared. “If the children are to be saved you must incur a wrath that is far beyond you. Understand this. Pain will come in a moment, and when it does you shall be free from this force. That veiled cultivator must look upon you, Gao Fu, she must tilt her head, or your voice must reach her ears. Any acknowledgement will suffice. Do only this, and yell only what you would sacrifice louder than any bell might be struck. Speak no other words.”

Pressure mounted by Fu’s left, and as he could not turn to face it, his view became fixed upon the scholar and his mistress. He stopped at an aged farmer, placing her to his back and tugging twice upon his knotted beard.

“The watercourse does not rush from south west to west, even the gentle, flexible flow, abundant as the Eldest Daughter, cannot nourish that of youth. Gre-”

An outline of a radiant hound glimmered at Fu’s knees, and golden light streamed as its paws set down from wherever it had appeared. Qi jolted out within each, and another force, profound and world-shaking, suddenly split all that held him.

His bones cracked upon his left wrist, the flesh around it falling limply by his side.

But Fu rose, lurching and wailing his intent for all to hear. “Each life I possess!”

The scholar was upon him faster than any being could process, the hand that held Fu’s throat as unshakable as a mountain. Narrowed eyes drove into his own, hateful and disbelieving. “You dare, mortal.”

“Each life…” he managed to croak before fingers began to crush the breath from him, his spine creaking from what appeared to be the barest touch.

“Could the Eldest Daughter be the Mother? And could the west be reached by that which yields? The wind answers a call to none, only passing where providence may take it.” More soft words cut short his execution and the pressure subsided.

Beneath a furrowed brow, recognition bloomed in the scholar’s eyes, and he placed Fu gently from whence he had come. The wintery Qi unfolded in the rows one above and below, freeing his children to flock to him with rasping cries. Many arms covered his blistered body, as tight as the grip had been upon his throat.

Tighter yet, as the myriad serpents tore through the surrounding crowd to spray fountains of blood across his family. Fu did not know whether to laugh or cry, sickened and overjoyed in equal measure. “Hold tight, children. All will be well. I swear it. All will be well.” To them, he showed a grin.

One pasted in grime and blood. Showered as they were in the vitality of their neighbours.

Within, however, his heart flurried, pounding as he saw a faint smile upon Grandmother Hua’s wrinkled face.

🀨

Fu still clutched his family close as they were squired before the Paifang, and Dawn’s rising rays did little to further their comfort.

Chilling night turned to chilling morning, and he suppressed a shiver whilst combing his fingers through Yuling’s blood-matted hair. They were separate from the others survivors, closest to the inert gate and occupied by three times the number of cultivators as the remaining few. Only hundreds knelt now, a division of Thousand Shore City’s population that he could not begin to work out.

Grandmother Hua stood tall. Taller than Fu could ever recall seeing her stand. Her cane of simple wood was cracked, and no longer did she seem to need it for support. A strange sight indeed, but empty in the face of her defiance.

The two figures approached, with the Mistress three paces ahead of her scholarly underling.

“Bow, children. As low as you are able,” rasped Fu, pushing back his pained delirium in what he felt to be the last words his throat would allow. His children did so, and the ground muffled each whimper and sob. He followed suit, unsure if he might muster the strength to rise should that order come. “Be as quiet as a mouse.”

A chilling Intent reached them upon the pair’s arrival, and he heard Grandmother Hua’s cane creak as she bowed. “Young Mistress,” she said, spiking prickles down Fu’s skin.

Not Elder, nor Venerable. She’s showing much disrespect. Doesn’t she…

A susurrus rose in the serpent cultivators standing guard, as brief as an instant. Fu could feel their surprise, and their rage that their betters had lost such face in addressing a mortal.

“I will commend your attempts to fool the Heavens, Young Mistress,” she unashamedly continued. “To fool Karmic binds requires much.”

Karmic binds?

In his limited knowledge of cultivation, Fu had not heard such a term. Yet, he was sure in this regard there were many.

The scholar spoke next. “A hidden master,” he began, the Qi-birthed cold around them intensifying. “No. Perhaps once, yet now crippled. Reveal yourself to me, name your clan and allegiance.”

“Ripened fruit may fall from the tree, but it does not fall within an open mouth,” she replied, and the surrounding cultivators’ Intent rose sharply in anger.

Fu grasped his hands around his children, fruitlessly shielding them from the intensity of pain that struck his very soul. He felt unmade in every passing second, and white hot agony screeched through him.

The same energy that had freed him from his bonds of air permeated the area then, flavoured different.

Almost mirthful.

It met with that which he had already felt, a signature recognized in his limited understanding and only gleaned through the absence of pressure that surrounded Fu.

“I see your Dao heart, Elder,” said the Young Mistress, and to Fu it sounded like the scholar had dropped to the ground. Then came the sound of clasping hands. “Gon Ma, you have eyes but you fail to see.”

Grandma Hua hummed approvingly. “I am Jinghui Hua, and to the Dao, I am the Cherry River Sage.” That same energy laced those words, resonating within Fu. Calm reached his heart, and though he could not hold it, Qi jolted it into steadying. “My allegiance is to these mortals, for whom I have left the Boundless Path. A matter of heart, and a thing I will speak on no longer.”

“This cultivator greets you once more, Cherry River Sage. I am Nu Wa, Elder of the Clouded Serpent Sect, and to the Dao, the Gleeful Viper.” A silence of several heartbeats followed the revelation, and Fu stilled his hands to deflect any attention from he or his children.

“A Gleeful Viper owed a debt of lives,” reminded the scholar.

“Indeed,” replied Grandma Hua. “Lives you shall have. Four from the one, and sworn to be fulfilled beneath the Heavens. As is proper.”

The scholar, Gon Ma, rose then. “Forgive this humble cultivator,” he said, speaking with no hint of the forgiveness his words implied to seek. “Elder Wa answers to only our Matriarch, and will take lessons from no less an existence. The Cloudy Serpent Sect has many a tutor, and none crippled or base. You show great disrespect in this exchange, Sage Hau.”

Nu Wa allowed him to continue, told by a break in the voices beyond Fu’s head.

“Wise as you may be, and powerful as you were, our talk is a courtesy. This modest village is the first among a litter to have incurred any debt of Karma, yet even then, it is of no consequence. A rectification of mere decades to fix. To force a solution such as this shows desperation, Sage, and only whimsy has brought you this far.”

A series of three taps told of a cane stomping the ground, and then Grandmother Hau hummed in displeasure. “You seek mortals to enter this Mystic Realm, and here stands one. A man beholden to you, with many lives forfeit. If junior Ma does not accept the debt, then this crippled old sage shall incur it for you.”

Frost spread from the ground surrounding them, reaching Fu’s head.

Is this the scope of who she was? To be able to demand such a thing. Cherry River Sage.

“You are a dragon no longer, Sage, now but a frog in well. I will suffer no further insult towards my Elder,” replied Gon Ma.

For the first time, Fu realised, Nu Wa spoke on the matter at hand. Previously, only her greeting had been exchanged. “Hold,” she began. “Have this mortal participate. Already are we tied, a fledgling seed that may yet grow to blossom.”

“As Elder wishes,” agreed the scholar, and before Fu knew it a wind had lifted him clean to his feet. Qi eased the burden that simple standing brought, and his vision blurred in such a way that he could see no further than his nose. Gon Ma neared, scoffing as he pressed a bolt of paper into Fu’s chest, sticking there as he retracted. “This talisman is worth ten of you, mortal, be honoured.”

More Qi flared, and trails of cool heat seeped through the paper, inscribing whatever was upon it into his flesh. Fu bared his teeth, though the effort he summoned was slack.

“The expression upon his face,” said Nu Wa, ponderous. “Gon Ma. Do you see it? It is close to what I seek.” Fu saw her blurred visage bow, ever so slight. “Gratitude.”

The scholar’s cheeks tinged a shade of rose, and he returned a bow.

Nu Wa continued, and as she did a light glinted from within the paifang behind her. “Even the Heavens smile upon this encounter. Gon Ma, a moment must not be wasted. No destination may ever be reached should one stay upon the shore. Explain,” she ordered. “With haste.”

Winds plucked Fu into the air, and he dragged behind Gon Ma’s steps as they neared the light of the opening Mystic Realm. A Summer warmth beat on him, enveloping his neck as he craned to see the children he left behind.

What is this? Am I to go through?

“Return here with Spirit Core in hand,” said Gon Ma. “And do so no later than one Season from now. This circumstance was forced by your hand, but agency is returned to you. Success and life will be measured by your efforts. Of which I suspect will fail. Yet do this, and you will be worthy enough to incur a true debt, and all such honour entails.”

Fu still strained to see his children, processing the words. “Anything…” he coughed. “Anything to save them… from this fate.”

That’s when the scholar chirped, clearly amused. “No, mortal, to save the children you must return with four. Such are the terms you so foolishly set.”

Focusing on the silhouette of Grandmother Hua, Fu snapped his head to face Gon Ma. “Five,” he spluttered, unable to comprehend from where he drew such confidence. “Five,” came his repeat, swallowed as an angry surge of Qi thrust him through the shimmering aperture of the Paifang.