One of the old ones proffered the invitation in silence, and no warmth misted as its lips cracked open by a hair. It stood in the vacant [Paifang], bound in silken wraps that mummified what once might have held a delicate, female form.

Yet Wu Min only glowered, and hers was a heat that thawed the surrounding ice. An [Intent] stoked by such a fuel of rage that all with her hallowed Sect may well combust should she forget herself any longer.

Abomination.

Her master’s summons were plain, needing no words from this soundless thing. But the delivery was fitting for one with her failures, this she knew, for it was the reason she had secluded herself for days.

The reason for her festering [Heart Demons].

Wu Min pulled herself weakly from the frigid pit, and her skin proved to be such a temperature that a touch reduced the surrounding treasures to mere pools. It was a lacking effort to suppress herself like this, for even the [Everlasting Ice Blooms] scattered loose about her hole could do naught to pain her.

Her sister disciples might well have put these to better use, cultivating their paths of [Mist], or [Steam] with so rare a set of treasures. But she cared not.

The discomfort had allowed her thoughts to gather.

So it was that Min wrapped herself in her blackened robes, and marched before the thing. To speak at it would return nothing of value, yet she sneered all the same. “Abomination,” she spat.

The figure remained statuesque, unfeeling and unflinching.

It was not a product of her hallowed Sect, this thing, not in conception at least. The dogs of the Clouded Court Squads had turned their own hand in similar things, the Nine Hounded Hall, the Ghostly Hand Sect, the Beggar Sect: all had some variation on these… jiangshi.

Crippled cultivators, infants raised in pits to know only darkness and the voices of their masters, those infested with parasitic [Spirit Beasts], mind altering alchemy, [Demonic] influence, but a few of the methods created.

But her Sepulchral Sabre Sect had this on retainer, held by some approximation of guest right. More a reminder of to whom they were bound, and towards what purpose they strove.

Wu Min sneered once more, feeling the need to slice something, and to inflict injury if only to appease her own spirit. Though she could not, and left the ice-coated room to meet with her master.

By nature the Sect was quiet, and dogged only by the crackle of myriad brazers on each corner. A rock in one, pushing a fugue of violet mist, and its adjacent brother, a treasure of undiluted smoke that billowed to join the miasma. But one pair of ten thousand.

For that is what clouded this pavilion the moment Wu Min ascended above the ground. An eeriness of a screen, where all vapours, fumes and clouds of myriad composition coalesced to cover all.

The cultivator called upon her [Art], [Eleven Covered Strides], and became the thinnest trail of leaf-green smoke. Here she met her [Spirit Tiger], who impressed impatience at his waiting, even as they flew.

It took a span of breaths for Wu Min to arrive, and she fell into supplication at the moment her body materialised. “Matriarch, I greet you,” she called.

Silence.

A trap she would not soon fall into.

Wu Min held herself prostrate for an hour. For two, for five. For twenty. For two passes of an unseen sun. She held, and remained motionless. A trifle for one at the peak of [Core Formation], yet a torture for one whose [Heart Demons] were a reminding dagger, cutting deeper as the silence only darkened her thoughts.

“The disciple proves how she might wait,” whispered a voice ahead.

“I would wait longer should the Matriarch require it.” But this surfaced a predatory growl from the surrounding clouds, inspiring the coldest dread in Wu Min’s heart.

Her throat tightened as a finger bid her chin rise, and was allowed to look beyond the brim of her douli. Into the eyes of immortality, painted in ever-shifting, malefic grey. A tone of faded corpses, and pallid, maligned skin.

Wu Min gasped to feel her blood freeze.

“The disciple waits, and the disciple is silent,” her Matriarch whispered. “The same does not carry for her juniors.”

The tides of cloud were clear at the pavillon’s peak, done in veneration for the Saber interred in carved obsidian beyond. And here, by the Matriarch's allowance did the Sect’s [Heritage] emerge plain to see.

First set down the blades of titanic forelegs, skeletal - yet with no evocation of slight and brittle bones. No, the [Spirit Tiger] was of such a might, such a scale, that a single paw stole five strides of width. It prowled from the clouds, setting the grey-toned sockets where eyes might once have rested down upon Wu Min.

Miasmic fog billowing from each crevice.

“Siwang calls for your end,” the Matriarch whispered. “But the wages of incompetence cannot be paid in mere blood. Speak, disciple, tell me of your shame.”

Wu Min dribbled her words, for the terror that gripped her could allow only this. “My junior acted rashly,” came her enfeebled voice. “I instructed her poorly. Please, Matriarch, end this miserable existence if it would rectify but one part of my folly.”

“You would presume to command your Matriarch?” returned the whisper.

“N-no!” cried Wu Min. “Never!

Her bow gave way, and she collapsed to find that her hand was a stride beyond. Cut so clean, and with so sheer an edge that the pain had not begun to make itself known.

The disciple slipped in the wetness of her own pooling blood, this fresh stump of hers moving to support her weight. “My junior acted rashly!” she repeated. “To open the [Mystic Realm] with no forethought was a fool’s choice! It is said that she fell to the Cloudy Serpent Sect. A [Core Formation] expert by the name of Zheng Yifei.”

“Deaf ears then, if your junior did not heed our wisdom. For even dragons struggle against local snakes,” whispered the Matriarch. “Yet, an excuse.”

Wu Min nodded desperately, her completed path of [Body], and the [Control] she possessed now directed towards stemming the blood from her missing hand. “My head is offered, Matriarch.”

“Your head means nothing, Wu Min. The Four Corners Prefecture was your domain, the [Hollow Hegmon’s Splinter], your duty. But the serpents possess our beloved’s treasure and these actions cast suspicion where none stood before.” The Matriarch stole away slowly, and all Wu Min saw of her was the rear of her douli. Tipped back so she might gaze upon the Saber. “Beyond this, the matter of the Cloudy Serpent Sect is closed.”

The master’s [Spirit Tiger] cast no shadow upon her, yet it allowed its presence to be known as it appeared above Wu Min. For each wisp that shed from its impossible mane was frigid, and stung like the earth that was heaped upon one during their final rest.

On this turn, she screamed. A segment severed from her arm to leave only that which rose above her elbow.

“An unhallowed sound,” whispered the Matriarch.

Wu Min prostrated once more, her bow uneven and wet. “I will restore the Sect’s lost honour, Matriarch, as my final act. Unworthy as I am. Useless and degenerate. The Clouded Court Squads shall regret this.”

“The Zhu bastard is beyond your reach, disciple. As is Gao Fu. No. The Sepulchral Sabre Sect is not to touch any serpent henceforth. Have I not said this? Is my word not law?”

The third severance gushed a further spout of blood, and this flood dispersed before even a rivulet met the ground. It misted before the disciple’s eyes, tinting the clouds in her periphery with a drop of crimson.

“It is, Matriarch. It is. I speak only by my love for the Sect. Passion mires my judgement.”

A shrill sound set Wu Min’s spine to prickle, more so than the terror and blood loss. As ahead, the Matriarch’s fingertip caressed their valued Saber. The metal, singing in protest. “Passion. Mire, it does,” the Matriarch’s whispers lingered, wistful and long. “To such an end, I bestow a final duty upon you.”

“I am unworthy of it.”

“This is so,” the Matriarch lamented, stroking the Saber a final time. “But you will prepare the [Spatial Array] for my coming, disciple. So-”

Streaks latticed the clouds around them, and they were severed in ten thousand lines. A great crumbling began then, deafening blows as pillars and walls toppled to the pavillon’s floor. It exposed a starless night above, and the impenetrable black of the [Autumnal] sky.

Wu Min did not see her master cross the distance, or note when she had folded into the most reverent of bows. But the Matriarch’s douli faced her now, having fallen from the tip of her head. “My beloved,” she whispered, and the sound was cast to the void.

A tapestry of [Ink] illuminated the night, the glow from it as disorienting as any mist. It coated much of the body that now lowered towards her Matriarch, but of note was the arm. How it gently cradled the woman’s chin, and how it caught the errant tears that cascaded down her cheek.

With no reply, for this was not his way, the man demanded what he sought. Wu Min knew this as her life was already forfeit, and if she would dare, this afforded the chance to gaze upon the totem of their Sect.

[Sullen Saber]. The unreciprocated love of their Matriarch.

Four objects of immaculate bone materialised in the space before them. The objects that their hallowed Sect had recovered over seven generations. Mayhaps the reason for their establishment.

These claws hovered, suspended above her master’s head as she extended a tear-soaked smile towards her heart’s desire. “I have failed you, my beloved. But is this smallness not proof?” she sobbed. “Proof enough for a token. A second longer in your embrace?”

The man brushed a sodden hair from the Matriarch’s brow, and graced her forehead with his lips. Wu Min saw then the embodiment of joy, of fulfilment, and held back the grief that came as her master’s body was decimated by the force of it.

She fell in tatters, and [Sullen Saber] moved on. His boot to her robes, and the shreds of douli that flitted amongst Siwing’s dispersing wisps. The four treasures were drawn to him, vanishing as he reached the Saber ahead.

Unlawfully taken from NovelBin, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Matriarch,” whispered Wu Min, and felt another presence by her side. A [Spirit Tiger] of mundane look, belying the immortality it warned of in every step. What honour, she thought. What majesty, to be graced into the afterlife by his venerable artform.

But she found instead, a hand extended. Aglow with calamitous power. [Sullen Saber] lifted her to her feet as though she were the brittlest jade, his grip a bastion.

Wu Min trembled, bringing no small shame upon herself. “Ve..nn..era..ble,” she shook, and sobbed with a rawness she could not place. Offence of this nature would see nine generations of her family slain, impudent as it was, deserving as it was.

Yet all she received was a sabre, the hilt placed in her open palm. A signal, wordless and without expression, beckoning her to follow.

🀨

Peak.

It used to mean more, and these fools knew little of mountains beyond mountains.

Yongwu Long only slashed, and mused how his arm would tire from banality far swifter than his body would turn weary. Another [Demon] fell, the latest in procession of corpses. Truly, this inspired no need for his techniques, and to use them here would be shameful.

Putting a boot to the latest, four-armed, peak equivalent body, he shunted it aside. The thing clattered across the temporary battlements, toppling at least two of its brethren as it went.

Long took a moment to grin, and looked upon the field of chaos. The spectral walls conjured by [Dour Faced Strategist’s] prized treasure, the Three Ringed Ghost Fortress, had imprisoned the flood of their foes in sections. And here the cultivators of the Black Ribbon Graves pushed back, killing corridors between each wall.

Atop the ephemeral tower that crested its centre, some handful of li above, he was certain the city-lord had him under a watching gaze.

The promise to close the [Demon Scar] was a lofty claim, after all, and with all his resources now dedicated- bound around Long’s directing sword-arm… He levelled his jian, swishing it free of the foulness that besmirched it.

Ahead, the spectral gates were flung wide open. The mouth where hell itself flooded through, for minor [Demons] continued to spill forth. Three days after they had arrived.

But Long only strolled, unceremoniously slaughtering the unready dozens that met him. Their fortunes were worth little, and to reap them as he had others would put his cultivation into strange orientation.

To say nothing of the Gu that would consume his [Dantian].

Twenty [Demons] fell. Forty thereafter. All the while his arm but slashed, his feet but stepped, and his attention grew lax.

Three thousand cultivators, soldiers, of inscribed armament and lamellar plate, washed forth with him. A wedge, with he at their fore. Each section had triumphed against the numbers trapped within them, and had cascaded into adjacent battlefields at an exponential rate. Door after door, ridding the land of [Demons] before merging with the next.

Hardly an ingenious strategy for one named as such by the [Dao], but impossible to field when his attention had been on his ailing daughter. Long reminiscenced in the coming steps. It seemed distant, his curing of the mundane illness. Or perhaps it was the commonality that had it engraved so shallow in his memory.

Gu Accumulation sickness. A trivial matter resolved by needles and skill. So simple that a fisherman could cure it.

Any in his day, at least.

His reverie was broken not by the commander of these [Demons], whose shoulders no longer had anything resting above them. No. It was by the lone figure that stood beyond the head his jian had just summarily removed.

Or the [Spirit Peacock] that splayed its feathers behind it.

“A good dog does not block the road,” called Long, proceeding towards the gate that this fool stood betwixt.

“This daoist suffers no insults from you, Yongwu Long, as all are lesser in the shadow of our betters,” waxed Cheng Rao, a hand unfurled from the clasping within his robes. “It is the Cloudy Serpent Sect you have insulted. Daring to think that your treachery might go unnoticed.”

“Oh?” laughed Long. “Are you under the assumption that I’d tried to cover my tracks? The serpents are lacking, as I’ve waited for near a [Season] so you might catch up.”

Cheng Rao furrowed his brow. “The [Hundred Immunities Fruit] was not yours to take, thus this daoist moves to reclaim it. To recover you, wayward bug, that you might answer for your insolence.”

“You do? You. The talentless paperweight that has allowed himself to dull for decades at the whim of his masters. A bird flies farther while soaring with a phoenix, Cheng Rao, but its beak grows blunt from disuse.”

It delighted Long when the cultivator twitched, and peppered a spring into his step. Putting him ten paces distant from the man.

The [Dao Field] unmade Long’s surrounding reality in a blur of azure eyes. Each pinion of the [Spirit Peacock] splotching into the air like blotting ink. It vanished the corpses, the walls and surrounding cultivators, which all fell prey to the growing colour. Ever growing until Long stood at the base of a courtly tribunal, facing Cheng Rao on an azure dias above.

“It is beneath the venerable Cloudy Serpent Sect to seek vengeance, for such implies an equilibrium between standings,” said Cheng Rao. “However, this daoist is humbled for the opportunity to dispense of the aphid that scarce tickles its scales.”

Three serpents surfaced around this space of judgement, drawing forth from the azure ink so that it seemed a liquid. Here, they guarded his cardinal directions. Monstrous in form, and leviathans given their coating.

But they hissed not. Nor snapped as whips might to drive each human-tall fang through Long’s dismissive form.

“You will face the weight of your transgressions,” sounded Cheng Rao, and his voice carried as if this expanse were an echoing hall.

Long was driven down by a force of [Intent], extreme enough to have his outstretched palm hover a finger from the azure ground. Yet he smirked under such crushing pressure, even as the solidity of his [Dantian] threatened to crumble.

Oversalted fish.

He licked the wetness of sweat that trickled from his brow, and slowly brought himself to a rise. The pain was tolerable. The weight, a pinprick of what he had faced. Myriad true [Intents]. Though this too had its uses.

With a flash of his robes, two [Spirit Carp] emerged. Both of radiant gold. He felt their impression as they danced freely in the air, riding the currents of Qi to leave a pleasing dust in their wake.

Ahead, Rao’s brow twitched again. In response to his failing [Intent], he curled a palm and in doing so conjured a peerless agony. Ten thousand needles felt as though they had pierced Long’s skin, entering and skewering only to be retracted once more. Aside this torment the cultivator sculpted his Qi, called upon his [Dao Field], and more.

But Long only shrugged, knowing well of illusions.

As with the minor tribulation that Gao Fu and Long had faced, the staircase of memory conjuring images, a chain was entered into his mind. A tether that Long felt writhe within, violently bringing all the trauma he held to be painted in the surrounding ink.

“Recall, dog,” laughed Long. “That you’re but the bird, and no phoenix. Where you’re to tread cannot be flown with talentless wings.”

A fathomless scene grew around them, and the density of Qi this memory bore even in shadow had Cheng Rao recoil. “You are an aberration,” he growled, and regained his composure with a forwards stride. Some great fan of paper was drawn into his hand, inscribed with a pattern of serpents coiled around a central taijutu.

The scene only grew, and Long laughed as Cheng Rao’s head dashed from side to side. From monster to monster, and to the encroaching shadow of gold that was eroding the azure field.

A cycle of [Seasons] was reflected in spectrum. Intolerable heat that embodied [Summer], that then stretched to a despair-bringing [Autumn]. The herald of endings, with an insight that had Cheng Rao’s serpents hiss under the strain.

Yet suddenly, they struck. Three yawning maws.

Long grunted as his jian clinched against the second serpent, a cross guard all that held its fangs at bay. This was mirrored in twinned outlines at his south and west, for his [Spirit Carp] deflect their own serpents with blocks of their own.

Scaled maws risen to combat what came.

But here danced feathers upon them, ribbons attached to two clawed limbs. Manes trailed from the [Spirit Carps’] outlines, and these golden hairs masked the base of imposing, gnarled horns that protruded above their snouts.

His jian screeched as Long was forced back a step, his arm reeling. The impact was of such a strength that he coughed up a spurt of blood, grimacing as it came again.

[Golden Demon Crosses the Stars].

Where other techniques might demand a suffusion of Qi to perform, or some tithe from a cultivator’s [Dantian], Long’s own was an order. He commanded the ambient Qi to aid him, and with a breath he arrived five strides to Cheng Rao’s rear.

“A disciple of the Cloudy Serpent Sect could not be undone by such [Prowess], bug,” growled Cheng Rao. He unfurled his body, setting into a stance that had the fan extended at the tip of his arm. “Prepare-”

The weapon fell to tatters, and the inscribed serpents with it.

“You dare!” laughed Long.

“You dare!” cried Cheng Rao at the same moment.

All three of his serpents blurred to his rear, and fanned their swaying trunks so that the man appeared to hold a scaled splay of plumage.

Long’s [Spirit Carp] returned with the same grace, set at his back. He turned the jian over in his hand, regarding the man ahead. The memory had descended into [Winter], and an illusory snow fell about them.

And fell, and fell.

Cheng Rao’s palm struck Long in the gut, and he blew back ten strides. Blood burst from his mouth, and a true pain clawed his insides as a rib punctured him from within. “This daoist could never disobey,” he said. “Yet, alive is an interpretation. The minds of true serpents cannot be guessed, and for this lowly disciple to try is insult. Only your mouth is required for apology, Yongwu Long, and limbless you might begin your kowtow.”

The pain as Long lifted his sword-arm was excruciating. “The tie to your Sect weakens you,” he smirked, tasting the blood upon his teeth.

“An honourless dog cannot understand.”

“Better a dog than a withered serpent,” spat Long.

Again Cheng Rao appeared with a palm.

[Golden Demon Repels the Heavens].

A dagger each, four of Rao’s fingers tore into Long’s shoulder before his swordwork had him appear to the man’s right. His jian swung, and in this moment their [Spirit Beasts] tore by to clash in the surrounding space.

The Qi flocked to Long, devoured as though he were a being of Gu. Yet it nourished him, and met no end upon entering his [Dantian]. He felt his bones mend, and his skin knit together, repairing the organs within by their grace.

Long grew faster as the exchange continued. From the first set of his technique to the tenth, each a masterful revolution that had his jian sing.

Each strike, however, Cheng Rao rebuffed. His palms appeared swifter than light itself, thrusting things, expertly driven. Yet the rust of disuse was evident upon them, as here clashed a man that had rested on his laurels. Able to purge the minds of others before anything might be settled by strength of arm.

“Who are you to do this?” raged Cheng Rao, frustrated and beaten. “You command the Qi, you ignore the [Dao], even the Heavens seem to obey you! No middling [Core Formation] cultivator might do this!”

“You’ve not discovered it yet?” retorted Long, nearing his end. In a sudden step, he flashed back. “Why, I am your grandfather!”

[Golden Demon Inverts the Skies]

All of the accumulated Qi that Long laid claim to then swarmed. The golden shadow around Cheng Rao’s illusion surged, and in the skies above… both carp morphed.

What outlines had held about them turned flesh, and a trueness of golden scales transformed each [Spirit Carp] into the form of an indomitable dragon. Twinned gouts of flame roared from their throats, engulfing all three of the serpents within.

Cheng Rao’s skin reddened, purpled, and ashed in turn. No whole process, but a spread from neck to scalp that left him horrifically scarred across most of his face. He faltered, and gasped, crashing, suffocating, screaming broken words. His fingers knew not whether to claw at his throat or clutch his [Dantian], for behind two of the great serpents were incinerated into wisps.

The disciple fell then, broken and half-crippled.

“The [Hundred Immunities Fruit] still lacks, doesn’t it, grandson?” mused Long. “The poison that is your hostile Qi took much to absorb.”

Cheng Rao gurgled out blood, spilling it to the rapidly disappearing floor. “Cur…”

Long drove his jian into the man’s shoulder, plunging it into the earth below. “Hold a moment,” he laughed, and pressed two fingers on Rao’s forehead. His [Dao of Fortune] burrowed then like a worm, spurting further blood from the man.

Little to reap. How the Cloudy Serpent Sect has fallen from grace. Disappointing.

“You’re a poor harvest, Rao. No use to my cultivation, but…” Long continued, trailing. “Yes. I’ve only crippled your path of [Body], and that of [Harmony]. For you, it would only take around a decade to mend. An expert at waiting shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

“Finish it, dog,” came the growl. “This daoist-”

“Shit does not smell sweeter the longer it stands,” warned Long. “More words will not arrive you to your destination quicker. No.”

The impaled cultivator squirmed. A testament to his [Resilience], for many who had their cultivation severed, their [Spirit Beasts] slain, would be unable to breathe let alone move. In this, Long saw promise, and studied him only a minute longer.

“This daoist has brought shame on his Sect. Finish it, if you hold any honor!”

“Hush. You’re of use yet for your bag of snakes. The second [Hundred Immunities Fruit] stands with Gao Fu, yes? And if ever, he’s a cur in need of motivation. I’d advise you seek him out next,” said Long, and unceremoniously cracked his foot into Cheng Rao’s face. “When you wake, that is.”

His [Spirit Carp] both impressed a mote of mirth, and wove throughout the air as they returned to their natural forms. Natural, for now. But their prior feelings rose shortly after, an impression of haste, and one targeted at the [Demon Scar] ahead.

Long retrieved his jian from Cheng Rao, and smiled to see that the useless serpent’s illusion had not impeded the surrounding army. As they had gained much ground against the [Demons]. Indeed, they had pressed to a distance only one hundred paces from the true destination.

To the [Splinter], and all that lay beyond.