Lao Da repressed an urge to slam his fist down on the makeshift table. When they’d set out from the north to escape the damnable spirit beasts, abandoning their small but comfortable sect compound, he’d assumed that taking this town would be easy. He’d dismissed the claims that it was a small city as the exaggerations of peasants who didn’t know better and merchants who wanted to drive up the prices of their goods. He’d been shocked when he found that it was indeed a small city.

He’d been less shocked to discover the sect attached to and rather obviously in charge of this burgeoning oasis of civilization far from the capital. When the sect’s representative had arrived, he’d found her to be no more powerful than himself. At or near peak core formation, but she’d also very obviously not been a true warrior. When he’d gotten aggressive, she’d spun some story about this being the domain of Judgment’s Gale. What a farce that had been. The man was nothing but a folk tale meant to soothe the nerves of the superstitious. The idea that such a man, if he even existed, would choose to come to this obscure place was laughable.

Talents like that did not establish sects in the hinterlands. They joined one of those impossibly powerful sects in the capital. Only the mediocre ventured to places like this, where their modest talents could provide them with modest but consistent luxuries. After all, that was what Lao Da had chosen to do when it became painfully clear to him just how outclassed he was by most of his peers in his original sect. No one had been forced to tell him that becoming an inner disciple would be the absolute pinnacle he could hope to achieve there. The lofty peaks of becoming a core disciple or even an elder were forever barred to him. He had seen it with clear eyes. There had been bitterness. Oh, there had been so much bitterness, at first, as his friends swiftly outpaced his turtle-like progress.

Yet, he couldn’t hang onto that anger, try though he might. Politics might have played a small part in his slow progress, but the sects were shockingly egalitarian. Some might be suppressed because they offended the wrong elder, as some might be elevated because of who they were related to, but it was surprisingly rare. As a rule, the talented rose while the rest were left to languish with scant attention paid them. It was harsh, but he never seen it as particularly malicious. At worst, those above him had simply seemed indifferent to his existence. So, he had asked to sever ties with the sect and was granted permission to do so.

There had been long years after that as he wandered, eventually coming to these remote climes. It had taken so much time to gather up followers from the cast-off sect disciples and wandering cultivators who found their way north, but he had done it. Pure ambition and hard work allowed him to overcome his lack of talent and found his own sect. He was no grand patriarch like those legendary figures in the capital, but he was the master of his tiny corner of creation. Life had been good. It had been enough. Then, those spirit beasts had to ruin everything. Centuries of work abandoned because anything else meant annihilation.

Like so many others, he had fled before those bloodthirsty creatures, but he had a plan. He lacked the resources to stand against the spirit beasts alone, but if he could co-opt a town with decent defenses, he and his followers could shore up those defenses. He’d found himself almost accidentally in charge of everyone who had fled south in desperation. It was no great honor or commentary on his talent. He’d simply been the most powerful cultivator at hand. Still, that should have been enough to capture this city.

Instead of a city, he’d found a veritable fortress. No mortals had built the walls around this place. He and his people had assaulted those walls over and over again, only to be rebuffed by layer after layer after layer of defensive and offensive formations. It was as if this sect he’d never even heard of had done nothing but focus on building walls and formations for the last two thousand years. And they seemed to have an endless supply of cores to fuel those formations. Even on those rare occasions when someone got close to the walls, they were confronted by cultivators and even some mortals who seemed ridiculously well-trained. He had half a mind to abandon this seemingly doomed venture in search of some easier to seize place.

Lao Da shook his head as something seemed to weigh down on him. He couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. As the pressure seemed to double and then double again, he straightened. It had been so long that he’d forgotten this feeling. There was at least one nascent soul cultivator nearby and doing nothing to hide their approach. He shook his head again. Even there were a nascent soul cultivator nearby, they wouldn’t care about this squabble over a mortal city. It was so far beneath them that he doubted they’d even bother to look down as they passed.

That hope was dashed as a spiritual sense washed over the area. It was a feather touch for a nascent soul cultivator. He knew very well that if a cultivator that powerful bore down with their spiritual sense, it could kill mortals and suppress weaker cultivators. The restraint was a good thing, but it also spoke of a kind of control that Lao Da had never possessed. The kind of control he would never possess. His climb up the mountain of cultivation had ended long ago. It had been little short of a miracle and taken a truly staggering investment of money and resources for him to reach the peak of core cultivation. He had felt it then. The truth. He would never break through again. Whatever it was that let someone reach the next stage was absent in him.

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It had clearly not been absent in the cultivator who was approaching. Loa Da’s mind seized for a moment. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what he could do against someone like that if they decided to interfere. He tried to reclaim his calm and sent out an order for all of the nearby cultivators who answered to him to assemble. They arrived swiftly, but he could see the fear in their eyes. They had felt that spiritual sense. The ones who didn’t know that it meant a nascent soul cultivator was approaching still understood that someone far, far more powerful was nearby.

Lao Da turned his gaze upward over the small city. There was a moment where his mind seized again, although this time it was because he was certain a goddess had descended from the heavens. It was only several long moments later that he managed to turn his gaze to one of the other figures who occupied what had to be a qi platform. The sight of that man made Lao Da’s insides go cold. It wasn’t just the icy expression on the man’s face, although that would have been enough. It was the very blue robes. Blue robes like all of those impossible stories about Judgment’s Gale that he had dismissed out of hand as pure fiction.

Every plan fled from Lao Da’s mind. There was no plan for this. There could be no plan for something like this. It was impossible. It was absurd. And it was happening. Even as he tried to grapple with the reality before him, Judgment’s Gale was descending toward him. Lao Da vaguely noted that two of the people he’d sent to discourage visitors were floating limply in the qi platform’s wake. Three of the others were leading the way with varying shades of terror on their faces. Of Wu He, there was no sign at all. Lao Da’s thoughts raced. Did that fool offend this nascent soul cultivator? Are we all about die to one terrible act of retribution? No. No, I have to get out in front of this, thought Lao Da desperately. Perhaps if I beg forgiveness, he’ll spare us.

Lao Da strode out to the front of his hastily and uselessly assembled supporters. He swiftly bowed and prayed that it was a person and not death that descended on them. He didn’t lift his head as he heard several pairs of feet land on the ground. There was an eerie moment of silence as nothing happened, and then he heard an unfamiliar man’s voice.

“Is this the one?”

“Yes,” said Yeoh Diwei.

Her voice sounded hoarse, as though she’d been screaming or crying.

“Very well. Join the rest of the bandits.”

The word bandit was enough to send Lao Da’s heart racing. He had heard the stories of how this apparently real man treated bandits. They were stories that always ended in blood. He had to do something and do it now. He straightened to look at Judgment’s Gale and immediately wished he hadn’t. There was nothing to find in the man’s face. Not even the slenderest of cracks where pity or forgiveness might leak through. Lao Da went to speak, but not a sound escaped his lips.

“Kneel,” said Judgment’s Gale.

A pressure unlike anything Lao Da had ever felt before pressed down on him. It felt like his very soul would crack beneath that weight. He slammed to his knees. He forced himself to turn his head left and then right. It wasn’t just him. It was everyone. Everyone as far as he could see had been forced to the ground. Some were on their knees. Many were sprawled flat. It looked like more than a few had been rendered unconscious. So much power, thought Lao Da. How can he have this much power? Even for a nascent soul cultivator, this kind of strength seemed extreme. The worst part of it was that it didn’t even look to have strained the man.

“Do not speak,” commanded Judgment’s Gale. “None of you have words that I wish to hear. Instead, you will listen. You have tried to take that which is mine. You have failed, which was inevitable. Even if you had managed to breach these walls, you would have found this place protected.”

The man glanced upward. Lao Da followed his gaze to see another woman descending toward them. He felt… He felt nothing from her. Nothing at all. She landed next to Judgment’s Gale and briefly embraced him. Then, she turned to look at the woman who so resembled a goddess. The new woman merely inclined her head as she spoke.

“Lai Dongmei. It has been some time.”

The goddess offered a deep, almost reverent bow and said, “Alchemy’s Handmaiden. It is, as always, an honor to see you.”

Alchemy’s Handmaiden, thought Lao Da. It only took a moment before he understood how futile, how utterly, horrendously futile this had been from the start. He hadn’t merely attacked a town belonging to Judgment’s Gale. He had apparently assaulted the current home of a cultivator who had stepped directly from myth. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. He needed to say something, anything, that might avert the cataclysm that was about to grind him into paste. Yet, the words turned to ash in his mouth when Judgment’s Gale focused on him.

“Your lives are forfeit. To be spent at my discretion. You will withdraw to—” the man looked around for a moment and pointed to empty patch of nearby land. “There. You will remain there until I feel like dealing with you. If you attempt to flee. You will be hunted and returned. If you attempt to fight. You will be suppressed. Do not permit yourselves the fantasy of a swift death. You will not be allowed to die here. If you make yourself troublesome, however, you will be made to suffer.”

The pressure on Lao Da did not immediately relent, and he wondered if that meant that Judgment’s Gale had changed his mind. It was only when that pressure finally lifted that Lao Da took in a gasping breath. Part of him wanted to flee immediately, but the rest of him was certain that he did not want to test that man’s resolve. Nor did he wish to discover what a man like that would consider an appropriate level of suffering. There was only one sane choice to make. He would comply.