It was a bit of a laughable situation, all things considered. He hadn’t expected it— not in the slightest, even though he probably should have— and in that way, it took him off guard. In his defense though— standing in a rain-soaked alley, raindrops pattering against puddles around him, and brick walls, and the five men who stood around him— why would someone who can’t be killed need to worry about assasination?

He leaned back against the wall behind him, folding up his umbrella and tucking down his cloak’s hood, letting the rain cascade down his face and soak into his hair. “So. It’s nice to meet you all.” The obviously not muggers didn’t even shift at his words, just making sure that they had all their exits covered. “If you wouldn’t mind though, you’re blocking the way. If you would be so kind…”

A moment of silence, not quite indecision but something close enough to it. Then, the first one— Shedding, like all of them were— moved forward, pulling a dagger out of a sheath on his waist. “The Mistress sends her regards.”

He blinked— then— swaying to the side and letting the dagger scratch against the bricks behind him, grinned. “Really?” They were being so cliche about it! “I don’t suppose this would be one Qin Guxi, my favorite least favorite petty tyrant?” He jumped, backflipping off the wall to avoid the next blow in a move that was very obviously something a mere mortal shouldn’t have been able to accomplish. On instinct, too, which… oh well. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dodge there.”

The assassin gave him an incredulous look, then pulled out a talisman that positively burned with power and—

Mingtian snapped it out of the assassin’s hands. “Using formations against me? Really?”They clearly didn’t know who they were dealing with. Well, of course they didn’t, that was kinda the whole point of going incognito, but still… this was just sad. What was a third-step talisman supposed to do, tickle him? Maybe if they were five Immortal Ascension cultivators he’d be at some risk, suppressed by the realm as he was, but as they were? It was just pathetic.

It made him feel kind of bad about killing them. That, and unlike the people he fought against in the Celestial Realm they wouldn’t just reincarnate from nothing and meander back to bother him again in a millennia or two.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sighing, he deflected the third frantic swipe with his fist, plucking the dagger out of the stunned assassin’s hand before he could even figure out what was going on. “How about we just talk this out? We’ll both go home, and you can…” hm, it was a classic morality question. If he killed these assassins, which were clearly killers for hire, morally depraved enough to work for Guxi, then he would probably save future lives who couldn’t defend themselves. Except if he killed them, then he was taking upon himself the burden of immediate violence in pursuit of some nebulous future less violence. He could judge that, but no judgement was perfect. There was a reason the cultivators of the Celestial Realm called themselves Immortal Sovereigns

— he knew he was no god. Also, in the legalist terms of things, to kill them here would probably break the rules of East Saffron, which—

“What are you waiting for!” Luckily— or unluckily, but certainly conveniently— the assassin made the choice for him. “All of you, kill him!” And then the five of them lunged at him in unison.

He sighed, and—

A sweep of his hand turned them from alive to dead as his spiritual pressure crushed them to the ground. What a pain… if in the Celestial Realm violence had been purposeless, then here, that purpose… he stared at his hand— clean of blood, but stained nonetheless. He’d been enjoying his evening, too— the pettiness of the politics ground on him, but he’d enjoyed their existence, the burden of purpose that everyone seemed to move with…

Yet, this was the inevitable consequence of that, wasn’t it? One couldn’t throw a stone into a still lake without expecting at least some ripples….

The rain still fell, mixing with the mangled corpses blood— so much blood— and staining the puddles a deepling scarlet. It brought back memories, of the Jade Continent and what it was like for a young cultivator trying to grow beneath the stifling dominion of the Abyssal Skies sect, wherein talent was not something to be praised but feared, and actual drive? Something to be crushed.

They feared change. Understandably, a bit… but stay the same for too many endless eons, and even the closest thing to divinity could learn to hope for a bit of novelty.

He was here, after all, wasn’t he?