Panting followed.

[Spirit Hounds] of those without taste. Pounding paws and the scent of herb-rich slobber. Of all that might be delivered through [Senses], this was least of what he sought.

Worse yet was his hanfu. Tanshuai’s distaste was clear on this, fixating on the brutality of yellow that assailed his skin.

The markets through which they laboured clear, swiftly. A parting tide in three hues that bent knee upon clearing, sweeping all to the avenue’s side. It placed Zhu between the rump of twin [Spirit Yak], granting little view of the unfolding scene.

He did not enjoy this.

“I do not enjoy this,” he said, standing amidst the crowd.

So prostrate were the forms that none lifted their head, save for the beauty that stood aside him. Contorting her face in disgust.

“Speak more, fool. Please,” she iced.

The hounds found their mark, spraying crimson upon the marble. Tatters flew, both of cloth and flesh, indistinguishable in the flurry.

Tanshuai’s distaste furthered. Such an attack lacked finality.

Oranges arrived to meet their Bonds, scoffing. Thinning the difference between Empires, for the insults thrown were unmistakably that of young masters and fools. “Unenlightened bastards. You dare!”

With no little need for strengthening his eyes, Zhu refined his other [Senses].

“From what dishonourable, rotted womb did you crawl? Brothers,” spat the loudest. “See here a bug lower than Red!” His foot then cracked like thunder, spraying further blood.

“The…” escaped a breath that only Zhu might hear.

This bastard of Orange continued, lacing [Intent] with his words. “Sun-scorched and gloom-touched filth. Cleanse this stain. It is unfitting for my hands to be sullied in such a way.”

Motion from the crowd addressed this without pause. [Spirit Beasts] of burden flocked with cultivators aside them, lowering to end the three that had fled. [Might]-possessing, yet unskilled, their blows became a bludgeoning.

Zhu heard the agonal gasps in clarity.

“Serpent Sect..”

“Cloudy…”

“Will…”

Whispers soon crushed.

Moments spanned until the Orange snapped in outrage, washing his [Intent] upon the already supplicating crowd. “Are buckets not readied? Fools! You would allow our venerable Emperor’s streets to remain in such a state? Must all be ordered?”

Tanshuai shared thoughts of frogs in wells as Zhu allowed the Reds to rush about them. Only now gaining notice of those below his colour of disguise.

“Mistress Yellow! Master!” cried the Orange, coming to a knee in the market’s center. “This humble-”

“I’ve no time for it,” said Zhu.

The colours soured much of his mood. Chalk-lines of red, congested as those of appropriate Caste set about their labours, then the orange aside, which he felt no better a hue. Doorways followed, set with the same demarcation.

Only yellow differed, for he sensed the [Arrays] on each. Not as Gao Fu would, but through the dull buzz of Qi he could feel in a range about him.

A mystery he would explore.

No, doors were not of interest. These distastefully dressed cultivators, less.

“Cease this endeavour, loathsome bastard. What use does this course hold? An exit to this realm is what we seek, not this idiotic wandering.”

Zhu thought the woman a festering irritation. If pleasantly direct.

“You’ve the personality of a poorly-healed scab,” he said, arching a brow as she grasped his forearm.

“If you held an inkling of who I am-”

Against her, the [Mantra of Heavenly Plums] was nothing. All the [Might] it afforded was as a candle in the wind.

Ice-blue eyes. Hair, dishevelled, but still the hue of purest snow. All set within a delicate frame, slight, to bely the overwhelming power her immortality granted.

His free hand tugged the fasten of her hanfu, and red rose upon her ivory cheeks. “Degenerate bastard,” she cried, and her grip released to protect what modesty was exposed. Zhu only frowned, shifting more fabric to show the devastation above her heart.

Malefic thorns the colour of rust. Qi rich. [Dao] rich. [Demonic]. These wound from within, through a clean, fleshy hollow that showed a further infestation within.

“There’s a standard to beauty. When all jade beauties are unparalleled, aren’t they the same? No. If I wished for that, I’d merely smile at any passing woman. That thing is of concern, and takes priority over who you think you might be.”

The woman slapped him with such strength that a tooth was loosened. “You are a child. To dare and speak as you have. In centuries- bastard, do- do not move from me!”

A more impressive structure of Yellow presided ahead, and so Zhu had moved. With resemblance to buildings of the Clear Sky Empire, he gauged it as official, or governmental as he had heard these coloured Imperials state.

Some facility of law.

Tanshuai set down on his shoulder, and the world faded. Their will drowned everything in grey tones, as his [Senses] expanded. [Divine] revealed the five [Constellation Seeds] of the vexing beauty behind, and yet, he sought [Karma].

Since their meeting, since the Four Corners Disappearance, a tie was wound between he and the woman. Ill-fortune having them land some few strides distant.

Zhu refined it, ignoring both presence and protest.

The Path of [Karmic] neutrality spared him much connection. Five, or perhaps six tethers now. Fates bound. Paths crossed. Connections of meaning. There was a taste of Gao Fu here. A sliver of petals that Zhu’s own trail merged with, emanating from this structure.

Plum petals that then flew unbroken through the sky.

“Thin,” he grunted, and Tanshuai agreed.

“Bastard,” belched a visceral cough of blood, and Zhu caught the woman as she collapsed. “My cultivation-” The blood founted, and her ivory skin grew paler yet.

Opposing [Might] did not prevent Zhu from cradling her, drawing the eyes of many. “Quiet. You’ll dirty my robes,” though he considered this. “Unless you might cough in black. It has my jaw appear sharper.”

Fury rose behind her eyes. Incredulity at her own weakness. A prideful, immortal thought, or so Zhu mused.

“A healing sage,” she fought. “Take me there, ape.”

“No. That thing is poison. Or an [Array]. There’s a better fate than trusting these Imperial sages,” Zhu said, looking beyond her blood-stained face to the tie ahead. His trail to follow. “You’re free to follow.”

The woman strained to free herself, and sagged.

Many eyes were upon them.

“Despicable,” she finally growled. “This treatment, this disrespect.”

Zhu released his grip, and set forth alone.

“Bastard!”

Her arm wrenched his at the threshold, showing no small strain as she blurred to meet him. “I do not follow,” she spat. “Where you are to walk, that is simply where I shall too.”

Hesitation.

“To the [Dao], I am [Dances Upon an Ivory Sea].”

Zhu arched a brow. He thought such a name too long.

🀦

Words.

Shaokang held poor words.

A tongue too thick, was their mother’s. To match his hardened head- their father’s, when bottles had shattered against it.

If true, this thickness was a boon. It shielded from the Sect disciples as he auditioned for their ranks. Their taunts, their laughter. Their cruelties, when disrespect had been found where not even a glancing eye had fallen upon them.

Then he recalled when this curse of thickness became a boon. When the ceramic shards of spirit wine stopped delivering their bite, and when their father had turned to An for the reaction he sought.

Fear, or power. Shaokang had thought it attention, for who would pay heed to a man of the Warriors Association? One of backwater birth and obscurity?

His knuckles proved thick, then. Thicker yet when he found Waipi, and the Path of [Might] began.

The pair grunted.

Memory. Bah.

Three days of slaughter played many tricks on the mind.

[Fist Technique: Punch].

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Shaokang’s knuckles exploded through the [Spirit Bear]. Waipi crunched, rolled, and contorted its rear.

All around, the crystalline cavern groaned. This latest felling had the crowding prisms of clearest white retract. Vast formations that jutted as though a thousand qiang loomed to pierce him from wall to ceiling.

Now gone.

Their absence wrought an archway ahead, clearing so that he might walk there with just enough room not to score his flesh. A hole to further trials.

He pushed aside the corpses that filled but one room of this vast [Reliquary], his hanfu soaked from the immensity of sweat upon him. Balm-like, he supposed, for such warmth treated his torn muscles to mild comfort.

Waipi grunted as they emerged into further crystals.

Some maze that repeated his reflection a thousand-fold. A ravaged ogre and his rough-skinned twin, extended endlessly about this passage. His appearance barely sparked concern, and so he merely moved on.

Much like the Sage’s [Dao].

The [Demon] that knew all paths.

Matriarch of the [Demon] that had crippled [An Array in One Hand].

Grandmother to…

Shaokang and Waipi shared the same impression. Grunting as the wetness of their step carried into a new expanse. “An is already a sister to them. The young mistresses and master. A righteous father, our benefactor. Kindness taught.”

Light spread about the cavern, emanating from a central point. Here slumbered the treasure, even Shaokang knew such things. An immensity of power weighed against his coming steps, growing as the strength of light ahead grew.

Cerulean flames that coloured the myriad crystals lining this vast cavern. Flickering things cast from a [Spirit Beast] of unparalleled wingspan.

And now it rose, subjugating Shaokang with a mere motion. Cracks spread where his knees met ground, and another grunt blew out in breath. For all his [Might], he could barely crane his neck to look upon it.

“The challenger comes, yes, yes. Half-dead brutes. But talent cares not for looks. My [Trial] is conquered,” it rumbled, causing Shaokang’s ears to bleed. “Speak, cultivator. What boon would you ask this sliver of the [Divine Serenities Phoenix]?”

Shaokang grunted, producing a soiled tear of parchment from his hanfu. “Receipt. For a debt owed.”

🀦

“-as if the venerable [Sixth Under Heaven] would not know! These un-enlightened think themselves above [Spring], bah.”

“Amitabha. Shame, no? To see distant kin stand at shoulders with the pale fools,” agreed the second, grimly. “Our taller blade shared their name. [One Hundred and Eight Seeking Vajra]. Further shame, that they have fooled the Heavens to think themselves of some connection to him.”

This conversation was distant to Mridul, who did not distract from the fray. Gates ahead, with walls many li high. Myriad maladies inscribed upon them.

Haste. Her presence is among them.

“Honourable Mridul. Lend your voice to this,” came the call some heartbeats later.

Mridul did not turn. “Our immortal Emperor is named Sixth,” he said, and his sister blades of grass fell quiet.

Stormclouds were gathering above the Imperial Repository, chased by a gentle rain that soon reached their vantage. It slickened the grass there, never pooling. [Spring] growths were well used to showers.

And yet-

Warmth.

Their Empire was abundant, and thus named. Each land beneath [Sixth Under Heaven] held a bounty in growth. Treasures flourished, nature flourished, [Spirit Beasts] and spiritual herbs alike. Never did the blessed Qi wither as it did in [Autumn] or [Winter], and only in rare circumstance did it share attributes with lesser [Seasons].

[Winter’s] bite or [Summer’s] searing touch.

This is a dangerous wind.

Water slipped from his orchid robes, rejected by the quality of fabric if not the [Resilience] of his skin. Even so, Mridul felt the interaction with his [Core]. The nourishment of water upon his [Affinity] of [Earth].

All within his [Ink] became enriched, and perhaps he could attribute his growing concern to this sharpness of [Senses].

“We should commit now,” he said, unsheathing his twin jian.

The comrades aside him could only laugh. “Brother, this is most unlike you. Note that this disagreement has but begun. Our intervention only grants face to the unenlightened behind those walls. Our step would cause unnecessary whispers.”

“Amitabha. All things hold a time, no?” added the second.

Strangers, in truth, for the summons from their respective duties had merged many from the [True Orchid Path] together.

Mridul enjoyed the second more.

“Allow the heathens to fulfil their role,” snorted the first. Her gesture harkened to the same imposing gates. To the stampede of a thousand souls that ashed against the great [Array] inscribed there.

Myriad hues of [Spirit Beast] remnants added to these specks. So did flesh and fabric intertwine. Red. Orange. Yellow. Their demarcation became a meaningless white, singed and then thickened beneath the rising shower of rain.

Indeed, Mridul might say that his solitary enjoyment came from the second. Her spectation of this scene held no glint of malice as the other’s did.

Samudra. Did we not make a promise?

An impression quaked the ridge beneath him and half the landscape deflated in motion. Ten thousand granules rose, abandoning mundane stone to bellow upwards and break free. Mridul rode this wave, feeling his Bond beneath him.

A titan emerged, pulsing honey-coloured tones. Samudra’s fragments coalesced in heartbeats, and the form of his indomitable [Spirit Whale] then trumpeted her arrival to the fray.

[Domain of Ten Thousand Sands].

Mridul’s jian rent gashes in the rain-thick air. Great crosses that winked as if distant stars, and from them, sand rushed. Torrents. Tides. The pressure of emerging [Sand Qi] was so vast that it cleansed the skies of their downpour and battered against the [Array] below.

At first they ashed, overcome by the golden mandalas that focused its power. Such was the defensive strength of an Imperial Repository within a peak [Formation Grade] realm. But the stampede below was a feat of days, and could not cicadas fell a tiger with enough weight?

With each stroke of the jian, his tide rushed. Condensed as [Prowess] orchestrated the granules, reacting where his tip sought and dancing where his edge traced.

In mere moments the [Array] fell, burnt as paper upon flame. The gates burst ajar in the next stroke heralding a thousand cheers and roars of gratitude.

He did not need [Senses] to hear hers.

The seething hatred therein.

Samudra knew his heart, and descended before any other. Here, he scored a great line in the sand-strewn ground, and shouted no quiet lie. “The dishonour of this trespass has my blood ignite. Do not disturb my vengeance!”

None would disobey him.

Behind the shadow of the great gate, his enemies were gathered. Thunder roared overhead, a precursor to the fury held in dark clouds above.

Mridul levelled his jian at the Sect. At disciples. At cultivators that bore all manner of robe, from sleeveless azure gowns to short, improper fastenings of verdant green. To say nothing of their [Spirit Beasts], without uniformity.

The Heavens laughed as a woman in crimson moved first. Red, to mirror the sheen of her colossal [Spirit Serpent]. “You are all the false Imperials offer? Perhaps you might return when you hold a few more centuries under your belt.”

Insults held no sway over Mridul.

“The aged hold wisdom, cultivator. Sense enough to see the blood spilled here is wasteful. Lay down your weapons,” he said. “[Spring] nourishes enough that we need not see the land drowned.”

[Senses] returned discontent behind his line in the sand, and above, thunder once more roared.

“Sparrows fly further under the wings of phoenixes, but they must never mistake themselves. Your false Emperor did not declare this, and a child on the cusp of immortality remains a child. No, [Spring]-blind fool, such a foolish request is rejected.”

Those around the serpent cultivator grinned as tigers might.

“My hope lies dashed then,” Mridul said. “I had thought to find a righteous soul among you.”

There came a flash as two sets of orchid robes arrived aside him.

Thunder followed.

“The heathens have their role, brother,” glared the first, her words nigh lost as an uncountable mass stampeded by.

This expendable thousand, neither first nor last to respond to their summons. All as ineffectual here as against the [Array], for the previous ashing repeated. If only replaced by Qi, blade and fang.

Scores fell against the foreign cultivator’s first line.

Samudra and Mridul slaughtered beyond it. His [Spirit Whale] crashed forth at unparalleled speed, breaking into her ten thousand grains to surge as a vicious, cutting tide. The particles shredded or scored as if a desert itself held thoughts of vengeance, ridding great swathes of the un-enlightened.

And her cultivator slaughtered.

[Imperial Manifestation Art: Abundant Sand]. [Imperial Twin Blade Technique: Tempest of the Sun Demon].

Mridul’s strokes cast sand in one cut, and reaped vitality with the next. Lust rose as his [Demonic Art] shrivelled the Qi from each foe, contorting their energy so it might be used against them.

Dunes then lined the Repository’s approach, and Samudra waxed for it.

He knew not their number. Tens or hundreds. He knew not their [Arts]. Deft and mighty. Practised in how they returned the slaughter of Reds and Oranges.

His only thought was her, held ever in the focus of his [Senses]. If she-

Samudra!

[Become as Blown Dust].

The toll of [Demonic Urges] fell as Mridul blurred, shattering into the sands. From skin to blood, [Core] and all, he became the dunes, stepped through the dunes to reappear some hundred paces distant.

Both jian lunged, chimed, and scored to then parry the downwards force of a [Spirit Serpent’s] fangs. A swift arrival that had his ward gasp in surprise.

“Say nothing,” he warned, enforcing silence on the Yellow there. Her eyes narrowed, and skin pallid. Uncertain how she had just survived the serpent’s attack.

Mridul’s reformation set him before the crimson cultivator, who now scowled at both he and the his blades protected form harm.

“Much of your number has fallen already,” he called, now some few strides from her. “Reconsider my offer, cultivator. There is surely mutual ground between us and to resist further is folly. Do not let this be the grave of your followers.”

“Grave?” she returned.

Samudra erupted to tower over the [Spirit Serpent].

“Put in your eyes, child.”

Thunder roared once more.

Ninety moons of experience translated to a thousand [Seasons]. The strength Mridul had fostered through cultivation and the standing that had promoted him to one on the [True Orchid Path]. He did not fear this immortal.

No.

He had slain many.

And yet he met the woman’s stare, rising skyward. To something beyond immortality.

Mridul had thought them forks of lightning. Golden bolts to accompany the shallow rain and the ruckus of approaching thunder. But now he saw the shapes. At first, fingers, until they wound and slithered, revealing themselves as myth.

Four [Spirit Serpents] that made the sky their throne, and to which all clouds bowed. Supplicants of the golden cultivator at their center, desperate and incensed to hear the single call she uttered.

“Heed me, and you shall know it,” it sounded. Louder than any thunder. “The majesty of serpents that this land forgets.”

Mridul’s very soul strained beneath this cry. The cultivators of Red to Orchid, gasped. His ward cried out, aghast, awe-filled, and even this could not move him. He knew this call continued further, he could feel it quake through [Spring].

Such was the connection a True Imperial held.

Yes, [Spring] shuddered at the divine call, sharing such a message with all lands, all beasts and all ears.

Then came the holes within his desert. Burrows through all he had manifested. Ten thousand grains that felt movement within.

But no lesser man, Mridul mastered himself. He wrested control of the sands and drove them to the furthest corners of their fray. Distancing the contents from what was most precious to him so he might share swift words.

“Daughter,” he whispered, grasping her by the fold of yellow robes. “All that has transpired is meaningless now. Look once, then listen. We flee.”

As his comrades were before, so too was this young woman a stranger. Foreign save for physical resemblance.

“It- it is you.” she stammered, and spatso it sprayed upon his cheek. “Unhand me.”

The earth then erupted with a tide equal to his sands.

Yet here were serpents. Uncountable in number, uncountable in [Realm] or danger, for their sheer number overwrote such things.

A leap stole Mridul and his daughter to Samudra’s back. “Never again,” he said. Then his jian fell, stowed as the scene faded to distance. Their flight went without pursuit or direct attack. They simply soared, skimming over the realm as the great quake continued.

As the serpents flocked, seeming as the land itself as they engulfed each hue that stood against them.