...Karma, Fate, Destiny, whatever you want to call them are all, really, once you start to strip away the crap people assign to them by mistake or ill design, aspects of the same thing. It would not be wrong to view them as a kind of fundamental force that works in both obvious and rather oblique ways. Like electromagnetism, or gravity… or cat memes. Trying to explain how it ‘works’ is more than frequently self-defeating, as we will get onto in a minute. First, I would like you all to consider, as a thought experiment, a seaside village.

It is filled with people, animals, buildings and so on, all doing people, animal and building things – and you, today, decide you want to cross the ocean. To do this you need a boat. To build that boat, you need knowledge to do so. You may also need other people to help build and crew it, to supply the materials and so on. But what is important is that the more people in the village that get involved, the more complex the whole thing becomes.

So, to get across the sea you have to build a boat. To do that you have to take apart the world you live in, and twist it accordingly. In this case, you must cut trees to make the boat. You must make canvas for the sails. You must grow food so you do not starve, or find some way to get it from others. You must know how to sail the boat you have built, either yourself, or with others. To cross the sea, you also have to go with the natural world. With the winds, the tides, you must know how they work together, know when to fight them, when to go with them. When you set out on your voyage you must know your boat, know how long it will last, and know how your choices will impact it. The longer you voyage, the more this will matter. The more damage the boat will take, irrespective of how good a sailor you are. Misjudge and no matter how excellent you are, how good your preparations, the boat will eventually founder. Be it during the first journey, or the thousandth.

So, how does this really relate to these three? Fate, Destiny, Karma? At its simplest level, ‘Destiny’ is the actions of building the boat, getting it crewed and so on. ‘Fate’ is whether you got across the ocean in the end. ‘Karma’ is everything messy that contributed to your status at the end, uncaring of whether you’re sitting on a sandy beach somewhere sipping strong alcohol or drowned.

But, if we want to pick at it a bit closer? Well, Fate would be that the timbers were rotten, the rope was weak, a sea monster just happened to be going your way. You cheated your crew, didn’t pay them, stuff like that. If everything is going unhindered, whether you succeed or fail is related to the sum of its parts. In a perfect world, these kind of things are not a bad analogy to Fate in this context. Destiny is the knowledge to build the boat, how your connections were in that village. Were you a rich or a poor man. Liked or hated. Karma… well Karma is the balance between Fate and Destiny it is the sum of the parts framing not just your endeavour, but the circumstances of the whole village from moment to moment.

I already see the wiser ones picking up on the key point there. ‘Unhindered'. Ours is a somewhat odd place in that regard, in that those at the top have ‘views’ about this. In another land however, maybe the one ruling the village doesn’t like water. Or you simply live in a land with really bad trees for boat building. Or maybe only specific people can get the good timber? Only specific people know when the sea monster will come, when the weather is good, and they are the ones dispensing that knowledge to the voyagers that they like? And most importantly, they are also the ones deliberately putting holes in the bottom of boats of people they don’t...

~Excerpt from ‘A treatise on the Mechanisms of Being.’

~Author unknown.

~ Ha Kai – Mysterious Cherry Tree Pagoda (with spring cherries) ~

Ha Kai watched his father stalk back and forth, occasionally stopping to poke at the spatial rift they were using to observe matters around the Yin Eclipse mountain range. The old man wasn’t angry as such. Not anymore. There was far too much death and destruction among the scions of families that had offended him in various ways over the untold years for him to be really angry now. However, he was definitely not happy with his inability to track down Di Ji over the past week.

“I can’t believe the little fate-thief can evade my arts!” the old man swore again.

Ha Kai groaned as his father, stopped pacing to prod the rift once more, with more venom than was perhaps strictly necessary. It flitted past a scene wreathed in thunder and cloud of a bunch of disciples from some sect... He thought it was the Red Sovereign Sect, were fleeing madly from some kind of very angry nine-headed serpent beast they had somehow disturbed.

“Father, the brat obviously has outside backing or some kind of high-level anti-scrying talisman he decided to use…”

“I know that, boy,” his father snapped.

“What I don’t... Ahh… Why I can’t even find his…” he trailed off, frowning.

Part of him reflected that if the old man had not deliberately stalled at that threshold, building up his accumulation for over an aeonspan and a half, he would already be a World Venerate approaching the same kind of realm as Meng Fu. And not be having this issue, perhaps this was also karma in its own way.

“It's possible someone... or something else got him already?” Lan Huang suggested from across the table they were sat at with the youth, Ha Leng.

“Maybe…” the old man scowled, still pacing. “I’ll have to make inquiries then. There are NO circumstances where I’m letting that walking treasure trove escape my grasp. Even if the little shit is dead, I’ll find a way to re-activate him or scry his soul. If he found some other vestige that has stuff like that…”

"Well he did have a run-in with that, whatever it was...and they used a lot of treasures in the process," he pointed out.

"We lost his trail immediately on teleport. Probably because he went underground. You said that that place is a dozen times worse than the surface?"

"Mmm... that's also true," Ha Tai sighed disconsolately. "Such an injustice though, to see that brat buried in that place with all those goodies with him."

"Also quite in keeping with the way the heavens of this era see justice for those outside their own pavilion gate," he scowled.

“Revered Ancestors, is it possible some of that stuff came from the Yerrek Pit?” Ha Leng piped up, reminding him that the latter half of that conversation had been via directed soul intent and so inaudible to the poor boy, it was so easy to forget these things.

It was also surprising as a question, to make that potential connection, even if he didn’t realise how pertinent it was given the realm of some of the things found there in its heyday. He was well-read for his age. He had also lost a touch of his existential terror, having been in their company for almost a week now.

“The Yerrek Pit... hmmm,” Lan Huang stroked his beard consideringly.

“I’ve heard… read… a lot of rumours about that place over the years,” Ha Leng said a bit awkwardly.

“Nah…” Kai cut in. “That place was mostly picked clean long ago during the last back and forth over the realm treaty negotiations….maybe something dropped out of a rift, but there are enough bloodshot eyes on that place that some other old thief or ghost would have gotten it before a brat like Di Ji ever got a look in.”

-Yes, picked clean by you and me, before the shit hit the imperial fan courtesy of the Seven Sovereigns misstep, he added in his own head with a wry smile.

“You say that,” Lan Huang muttered with a frown, “but…”

“True… he could just be ridiculously lucky,” his father agreed with a resigned sigh.

“—Remember, the Jade Gate Court has annoyed enough people over the years that despite being a pillar of the current heavens, they have to make their own luck now,” he felt compelled to point out.

“Hah. Yes,” said one of the principal reasons for that, puffing up slightly at the happy memories.

“…”

The rift, still doing its own thing in the background, rippled ominously, provoking his old man to stop and give it another slightly aggrieved thump. It swirled and shifted its view again; this time showing a group of nine disciples in blue and red robes cowering in a cave shelter in a valley. One that was being ravaged by what looked awfully close to tribulation lightning focused on a withered tree at its heart that was conspicuously missing a branch.

“Uhh… Revered Ancestors?” Ha Leng spoke up again.

All three turned to look at the boy who was adjusting quite well to his current circumstances. Sometimes he felt his father had actually forgotten the boy was there, or that he was as junior a member of the cultivation world as it was possible to find without snagging an actual mortal off the street. Fortunately, both of them were keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn’t have some kind of nervous breakdown. Despite having adjusted quite well, he still had the odd… moment.

“My talisman…” he held it out…

“What about it?” Lan Huang asked, taking it pensively.

“Well, when you hit the rift just now it updated,” Ha Leng looked uneasy. “Well, you... you should see this?”

Lan Huang, who was already looking at it with a furrowed brow mused… “Interesting, what do you make of this, Ancestor Kai?”

He took the proffered talisman and sank his Dao Intent into it, unpicking the information within it. The update to the arrays was quite forceful and all-encompassing. The degree to which it adjusted things was well in excess of the normal understanding of such matters that the heavens would willingly afford to anyone born in this world.

To him, on the other hand, despite being still a Dao Ascendant, his grasp of these forces was comparable to some World Venerates, courtesy of having seen them shift in person, and experienced life before and after. As to the art that had done it…

“Father? Can you find someone? The girl at the top of the list,” he tossed the talisman to his old man, who snagged it out of the air without looking.

After staring at it pensively for a few moments, his old man made a disgusted sound and shook his head. “Well, that’s not at all ominous.”

“Regarding this Lin Ling?” he mused, fighting the impulse to tug his beard.

“Yes…” his father replied, still shaking his head. “In her regard, it’s a waste of time. She is fate locked somehow, or the talisman itself is. It’s still broadcasting outward to their array, but nothing is able to get in that exists within the constraints of this world.”

“How do you mean?” Lan Huang asked, not bothering to hide the naked curiosity in his tone.

“Hmmmmm,” his old man frowned, still considering the talisman, turning it over in his hands. “It comes from two different sources, firstly the array mechanism that’s linked to these is also above my realm, or effectively above my understanding, which is to say that it’s the work of a peak World Venerate or a Celestial Venerate. On the other end, however, that girl’s talisman is hidden by darkness.”

Seeing Lan Huang and Ha Leng still looking confused, Ha Tai sighed and shook his head.

“That result is utterly anomalous for what that Kong Di and the Kong clan's 8th Envoy Protector have done to these. That child’s talisman fell into one of the deep places beneath the mountain and got found by something best left undisturbed, the echo is faint, but it’s something that has been touched by the ‘Dividing Dark’ that cages the deep places beneath the Yin Eclipse mountains.”

“Ohh,” Lan Huang frowned… “I can see the connection to a grand augury array…?”

“Faugh!” The old man spat on the ground. “That is because they are using Blue Morality Cult’s Fate Seeking Divine Art to scry the ‘worth’ of the souls connected to the talismans.”

“Oh…” Lan Huang frowned, understanding a bit of what that meant.

“Which is like using a Dao forged axe to prune a mortal’s horticulture,” he elaborated, about as impressed with that as his old man.

-Even though shamelessness is an affliction that only grows with old age, there should be limits…

“Em... Revered Ancestors? What does that mean?” Ha Leng asked cautiously, bobbing his head again.

He took the opportunity to answer that before his father could. “It means that some old ghost is looking to commit robbery through sideways means.”

His father spat theatrically again and glowered, adding. “It’s one thing entirely for me to say I’ll hunt down that Di Ji… it’s quite another to do… to do…”

Ha Tai waved the talisman around in a disgusted fashion. “People say I have a bad reputation, but this is just abhorrent. It's subverting stuff that shouldn’t be touched. Without caring about the consequences.”

His old man gave a deep look at Ha Leng. “At your realm, boy, you don’t need to know details… It’s dangerous outside of places like this to poke at the fundamentals before you know what you’re looking at. You wouldn’t like the response and those old villains that like to think themselves a bit smart in the Imperial Court would notice you.”

“Father… you are just scaring the boy now,” he pointed out with a sigh.

“Good!” His father growled, with uncharacteristic seriousness. “He should be scared.”

“…”

Ha Leng looked at them, rather like a small animal that had just been told that not only does death exist but that it was thoroughly shameless.

“What my father says is true,” he conceded. “Though it is important to know that there is nothing wrong in fearing this either. It is not the kind of thing you should seek any deep grasp over or contention with until you are preparing to break through to Dao Immortal…”

“Or Dao Lord,” Lan Huang, agreed.

“I-I… sorry for asking.” Ha Leng wilted a bit.

“Not at all, just… erm…” he paused, trying to think what options were available. “Well, maybe I’ll give you a talisman so you don’t have to worry about miss-thinking.”

“Mm…miss-thinking!?!” Ha Leng went a bit wide-eyed at that and he winced mentally, cursing that he didn’t interact with anywhere near enough juniors.

“Don’t worry about it, my old man here has a few worthless trinkets that can help,” he added.

“Ah… okay… thank you, Revered Ancestors, this disciple is unworthy.” Ha Leng saluted them both, making him feel a bit bad for that nudge with his intent.

“Oh ho, ho, ho, oho…” his father gave a weirdly jovial laugh, the praise was clearly getting to him.

It reminded him that in the previous heavens his father had had that personality cult. Part of his intense dislike of the Din clan was their role in making ancestral veneration more limited for those not bowing to the Blue Morality.

“Umm… also, Honoured Ancestors,” Ha Leng went on… “I… erm… I know those three names.”

“You do?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“Umm… yes, actually,” Lan Huang said. “These three were with us before Di Ji ambushed me and somehow dissociated me with the puppet.”

“Yes, Honoured Ancestors,” Ha Leng nodded in agreement. “They are all herb hunters from the Hunter Pavilion in West Flower Picking. The younger blonde-haired one is Lin Ling, from the Lin clan, the pretty dark-haired one is Kun Juni, from the Kun clan and the brown-haired boy is Han Shu, from the Han family, who have some association to the Military Authority in the town and are, erm... from the indigen— er… Yin Eclipse People.”

-So they were the ones we watched fleeing before…

He blinked in surprise, putting names to faces. Really, he supposed he should have made that jump quicker, but a lot had happened in a week.

“Ohh…” his father nodded consideringly. “Those brats that were running away?”

“Yes, Honoured Ancestor,” Ha Leng replied.

“They were pretty good… very resourceful, good seedlings even,” His father mused, speaking as much to himself as to them.

“So they found some vestige then when they fled into the caves?” he mused, pondering what might have occurred after the appearance of the ‘horror’.

“Or something found them,” his father grimaced. “That battle has shaken up a lot. When things calm down I might have to go take a poke about myself.”

Ha Tai turned once more to the rift, considering it pensively, spinning the talisman between his fingers—

*crack*

Abruptly, the talisman shattered into pieces and several bright fragments of jade swirled up into the air, becoming the core of a formation.

It unpacked itself strangely in the ground floor of the pagoda they were currently in. Layer after layer rapidly stacking up until thirty-three different formations were rotating in a fat cylinder to one side. As one they all snapped together with a faint chime, forming an impossibly complex compressed array. Finally, another, very different array swirled out of the ether around it and connected the whole thing into the arrays around the rift.

As they watched, slowly it shifted and its field of view focused up and out, towards the Great Mount itself. Then it flowed forwards, focusing on it and a shadowy crevasse on the mountain’s slope, between two emergent peaks on its western face.

“They should be there,” His father muttered.

“Hmm... Can you check the list for two other entries?” Lan Huang, who had been looking distant and drumming his fingers on the table, asked.

“Oh?” His father frowned.

“The two who fell with the puppet. Jun Arai and Jun Sana,” Lan Huang said.

“OH!” his father snapped his fingers. “Of course, they fell with the puppet, so wherever they are should be the last known location of it.”

-Jun Sana? He frowned, wondering why that name was oddly familiar.

“Well, yes,” Lan Huang said, clearly not having been concerned about the puppet he thought wryly.

“Hmmm… they are on the list,” his father said pensively, “But… that’s weird… their location is listed as ODR-S, even though their talismans are with the other two.”

“ODR-S?” he asked, trying to remember how those things worked.

“Out of Dimensional Range – Severed,” Ha Tai said absently, poking at the formation linked to the viewing screen.

It twisted and blurred, showing a cliff in cloud and a ridgeline with a green forest below. A sinkhole with a waterfall pouring into it was just about visible through the mist. His old man swept the view down and it plunged into the sinkhole and revealed a pool and a colony of sickly green white mushrooms.

“Interesting…” he mused, idly rubbing his beard between his fingers, still trying to work out why she seemed familiar.

-Ah… abruptly he matched the name and face to a young woman sitting next to the Ling girl, gawking at the scroll he had given to that scion from the Lu clan in the Myriad Petals teahouse.

-Small worlds, small worlds… he sighed, her talent had been quite good for one so young and she had had a keen aptitude for new things.

“Umm Revered Ancestor, how does that work? If their talismans are with the rest of the group?” Ha Leng asked, confused.

“If their connection to the talismans has been severed, what is their score?” he asked.

“+91,210 and +82,810,” his father said checking. “It’s a Modelled Divination, so that is a score calculated by the array based on what it could divine about the last few days of their progress and some other fairly complex extrapolations. What were they up there to do again?”

“Cleaning out valleys of rare and dangerous high-grade herbs,” Lan Huang added.

“Then that score isn’t out of the realm of possibility if you knew what you were doing…” his father mused. “Ah… yes… if I look back through the other three, their scores are all in the same realm. The modelled deviation in their scores in the array are actually preserved in the update history. Sloppy but I guess they were in a hurry.”

-Or never expected the foremost formations expert in the entire Azure Starfield below Dao Venerate in two aeonspans to poke around at it, he thought with a snigger.

“What does the 'S' stand for?” Ha Leng asked.

“Severed,” Lan Huang answered absently. “It means the soul bound connection, by blood probably given their realm, unless someone bound it on their behalf who was over Nascent Soul, has been broken.”

“What are those mushrooms?” Ha Leng asked.

“Uggh, 'Eldritch Moon Mushrooms',” his father grimaced. “And no puppet, most likely they and it ended up in an anomaly that has since closed up. It’s been a week or two since then at least. Still, death in an anomaly will be a lot kinder than dying to those things.”

As they watched, the screen shifted back up and he got a proper look at the twisting skies above the great mount as they made their way back towards its original viewpoint.

“What’s going on with the weather up there?” he mused, pointing up into the sky of the projected image.

“Hmmm,” his father stroked his own chin, narrowing his eyes. “My instinct says that there has been too much mucking about with the balance of the world. There are almost 17,000 entries on that talisman’s link array and they are growing every few minutes. That whole region has always had a rather dubious relationship with ‘our’ Heavens in any case. It was already sketchy in the previous era.

“I-in the previous era?” Ha Leng gawked.

“The Shen dynasty,” his father said absently. “In this one, it really doesn’t like the Blue Morality.”

“…”

“So the mountain or something there is rejecting the incursion of our world’s fate to this degree?” Lan Huang said, suddenly looking a bit queasy, as he might, given he had been wandering around in there unknowing.

“Probably, yes,” Ha Tai replied pensively. “But there is something else building behind it as well.”

Staring at the thunder shaking the sky and the twisting spatial instabilities again, he searched for whatever his old man had noticed.

“Oh…” his tone became a bit strangled, because once you looked for it… it was hard not to see it.

“You see it?” His old man nodded appreciatively. “Good eyes, boy.”

“What the fates is that,” he hissed, trying not to grasp the arm of his chair as he traced the rippling tide of karmic inevitability that was slowly suffusing the depths of the storm.“Up-strike, and Under-shadow,” his old man said simply.

“Up-strike?” Ha Leng asked, sounding confused.

“It’s similar to grounding bolts in lightning storms. The world knows when tribulations come, moments before they arrive. Normally it’s… very, very short as a period of time... But the bigger the tribulation, the more energy has to gather. It’s nothing to do with Fate, or Destiny, or ‘heaven’. It’s related to the very nature of the realm plane. It’s like you flinching before you see a punch coming. How do you think the bolts know where to land?”

“An Under-shadow and an Up-strike on this scale…?” he asked, managing just about to not let the true depths of his nervousness creep into his voice.

“The last one of these I saw was when Meng Fu crossed one of her World Venerate thresholds outside the world, in the previous heavens. That Up-strike eclipsed the rotation axis of the world plane itself.”

“These?” Lan Huang said. “There was something special about Meng Fu’s tribulation?”

“Yes. She doesn’t cultivate just a spiritual law. Her strength comes from the Hong Meng, it was never born of this world. She possesses a God Physique, with a… Sovereign’s Symbol. Remember who her grandfather is?”

“Oh…” he realised his hands were clammy. “Divine Sage Vast Obscurity.”

“Indeed,” his father sighed.

“It’s not Meng Fu breaking through to Celestial Venerate, is it?” he felt compelled to ask. “She wouldn’t be so… wouldn’t do it in the world? I know that the Seven Sovereigns School has just taken a bit of a beating, but for her to decide to retaliate like that…?”

“While I agree, she is THAT petty when it comes to people breaking her things, she is not that close to that threshold,” his father said dryly. “No, this is something else. Something different... The reaction is too diffuse, the intention to set against it… too vague.”

His father considered the rift and the uneasy feeling for a moment longer before sighing… “While it’s fun to speculate, it’s far more plausible that those idiots in the Astrology Bureau have accidentally touched upon the echo of this place descending into the world. That would also explain why the 'Inevitable Dark’ and the ‘Dividing Dark’ and ‘Dreaming Dark’ from below are also rising.”

“Umm?” Ha Leng asked... “What are these ‘Dark’ that you keep mentioning?

His old man eyed the youth dubiously and shook his head, leaving the question unanswered, which was fair… and prominently eminently sensible. He had refused to answer him when he asked all those years ago as well – and he had already been at the peak of Dao Ascension at that point.

~ Meng Fu & Cao Liang – Thankless Sword Recovery in Yin Eclipse ~

Meng Fu burnt away the last of the luminous pink and green mushrooms that were trying to claim her sword and hauled the parasol wood blade out of the rock where it was lodged. Ancestor Cao was busy keeping the hoard of hook bats at bay.

“We’re done here,” she said with a weary sigh, wiping her forehead in the humidity.

-I forgot how annoying the ‘enforcement of climate’ that comes with the ‘Dividing Intent’ that exists in this place is, she grumbled to herself.

She was glad her clothing was loose and not that prone to draping in suggestive ways. Not that she had any issue with revealing clothing; however, in her current form, her presence would only be magnified by wearing damp clothing that accented her figure. As her intent was already fully suppressed, if she pushed it away even more, her presence actually would start to exert its natural charm and distract her disciple again, which would be embarrassing.

Looking up at the rock slab in the middle of this cavern, she admired her disciple’s skilful use of the ‘Sky Slaughtering’ formation. For his realm, he was doing admirably in the face of a very unfavourable opponent.

The hook bat swarm was mostly just circling above it now, occasionally sending down a few of their number to strike with remarkable accuracy at the small points of potential weakness in the formation when they thought it worth the risk. Their ability to keep the formation at bay like this was within her own expectations but had certainly surprised Liang. She hadn’t told him that was why she had suggested it, the stalemate was convenient for the sword recovery even if it was causing him a headache.

“What do we do about them, Teacher?” Cao Liang hissed out between slicing a few more to ribbons with the formation. “They are quite persistent.”

“The thunder has pushed them in here. Normally they roost in the higher ridges,” she explained.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, as if the landscape wished to emphasize that point directly.

She could taste the changing atmosphere from the power of the storm overhead. Involuntarily, she also looked at the cavern floor that actually concerned her more. The Dark was rising below, being drawn upwards by something.

-What did you idiots do, she thought, casting her mind back to the last communique from Meng Yang concerning the ‘trial’ and its ‘talismans’.

“Something is going against the world's laws?” Cao Liang asked, also looking beyond the swarm.

“No… not as such,” she mused, wondering how it was possible to explain this in a way that wouldn’t disturb him unduly.

-Is there a second intent? Hunting… above?

She narrowed her eyes and peered upwards. Here, in this place, it was tricky for her to look outwards, but it was still just about doable thanks to the suppression caring less about looking out from within. It was almost like something beyond the eclipse point was trying to focus on their realm plane.

-Is it related to the Kong clan? Don’t tell me that that boy Dun Fang is going to come back?

That thought nearly made her reach for her mother’s talisman, but she resisted in the end. The aura didn’t feel… focused enough… rather it felt like…

“No… this is probably coming from outside our realm plane,” she said at last. “Nor is it unheard of for the mountain to have such extreme weather.”

“I see…” Cao Liang said, clearly knowing her well enough to know that she was not being entirely truthful.

-A pox on smart disciples, she thought wryly, not really meaning it.

“It’s not at a truly dangerous level yet,” she added. “But its appearance now is a nuisance. We have two more swords still to get.”

-It is truly a nuisance, she complained inwardly, regarding the latter point in particular.

Teleporting out underneath it would be bothersome and she had no desire to have to walk back from the eclipse point of the great world after getting dumped outside by a random spatial collapse. She had felt a few of those off to the west already – unlucky trial participants in all likelihood. It was not a nice end – travelling outside the realm wall before you reached Dao Immortal was an absolute death sentence.

“We go for the one close to the foothills of the Great Mount?” Cao Liang asked.

“Yes. The last thing we need is a parasol wood forest up here. The absolute last thing,” she agreed.

“What about the one that has vanished while we were dealing with this one?” Cao Liang added, looking off to the west.

“I’ll deal with that one last,” she said dryly.

It was hard to say she was annoyed at that, actually. Rather, she was surprised that it had taken as long as it had for someone to act so opportunistically. Probably her presence, of which no secret had been made, had kept the more amateur thieves in their place she supposed. If someone other than her had come here, she might have expected more than one to get nabbed.

“How did they even manage it?” Cao Liang asked as he directed the formation to repel a few more bats.

“More than likely some brat from one of the clans with outside influence brought a ‘Seizing Destiny’ talisman from their parent influence and thought to chance their arm. That, or someone... one of their old ancestors perhaps, put them up to it – assuring them that they could be kept safe enough while their back influence tried to leverage some favour from us for its return.”

“Would that work?” Cao Liang asked dubiously.

He paid for his momentary distraction with a wince as another barrage of hook bats shelled the formation’s weaker points with expert timing.

She just laughed. “Probably they think it will in their own heads. The delusion of having powerful backers is a terrible thing.”

“…”

Cao Liang just shook his head as he caught a bat that had slipped through, crushing it, before vanishing a dozen others in a puff of blue fire.

“That said—” she stared at the sword again, passing another pulse of qi through it to make sure the lure of the Eldritch Spore Plague on the far side of the cavern wasn’t also trying to grasp it. “—had I realised where the attack originated from I would certainly have stopped them sending the formation out directly and instead used one of mother’s bestowed arts on the thing directly.”

“Euhh…?” Cao Liang winced, which she found amusing “Wouldn’t that have been—?”

“—overkill?” she finished his question with a snigger. “Not at all. But it would have saved me a trek. Not to mention the light show would have been even better than the one we made as is. It’s been almost an aeonspan and a half since someone used a Heavenly Venerate art on this place. That last one is why there’s such a straight channel between this subcontinent and the northern continent”

“I see...” Cao Liang said a bit weakly.

“Ufufu!” she uttered a nasty chuckle. “This whole thing is going to make those old bastards in the Imperial Court weep before I’m done with the fallout! And if some brat has thought to pocket one of my treasure swords and dares to abscond to the central continent using mendacious means? They will find their destiny very ‘lacking’ by the time I’m done with them.”

Looking up at the hoard of several hundred thousand hook bats, she gave an experimental stretch and pulled the other four parasol wood swords out of her spatial dimension.

“First. Let’s clear out these, it would be nice to get the sixth one before the weather closes in.”

Cao Liang cancelled his own formation and dove for cover in a very un-ancestral fashion, pre-empting what was about to manifest.

With an inhalation, she let the symbol that was nominally her spirit root make a connection with the five swords. They swept outwards around her, becoming shrouded in white fire as her ‘Soul Flame’, at the heart of her ‘World Source’, also linked up with the qi. The suppression receded just a hair as her Mortal Physique exerted its own prestige against the suppression here. Her realm, functionally held at the peak of the Immortal Realm while she let her spiritual cultivation take a front seat, surged upwards taking her to the peak of Dao Immortal. The suppression on a Physique was only half that exerted on a purely spiritual foundation.

Rock buckled and warped around her as her ‘Vast Obscurity Dao Source’ manifested through her ‘Soul Flame’ and her ‘Mortal Truth’ started to make the air shimmer as it pushed back against the limits of this place, seeking its acknowledgement.

The hook bats howled in challenge and drove down as one sky blotting swarm. They had their own prestige after all and recognised a fellow traveller from distant shores. Smiling, she called out her innate art, letting the little red gold bird stretch its wings in her cupped hands before it took flight to meet the hook bats.

{Vast. Expanse. Savage. Corona.}

~ ‘Tian’ Cang Di (and tagalongs) – Inner Valleys of Yin Eclipse ~

Cang Di grimly pulled his spear out of the corpse of the giant armoured monkey creature and, wiping the blood off it, looked around wearily.

-Thank you, teacher, for tormenting me with that training before coming here, he thought wryly.

The battle between their ‘group’ and the beast had nearly demolished this valley and had, he reflected, pushed almost everyone here, including himself, well beyond their comfort zone.

Thanks to the fairly horrible ‘acclimatization’ that his Teacher, Ancestor Bronze of the Shu Pavilion, had inflicted on him, the suppression was thankfully not beyond his expectations. His Teacher had also made him read far too many texts from his personal collection on this place and even walk through a few of his own memories of it from previous eras. Still, it was one thing to experience that training, and quite another to struggle against it like this on a daily basis.

-And the worst part is that compared to below… this is nothing, he thought a little less wryly.

All around him, others were scrambling out of cover, putting down their weapons or just sitting there, blank faced, staring at the devastation.

-Coming back here to prepare for my Dao Immortal breakthrough might actually be a smart idea… Assuming, of course, I survive the trip into the depths to recover that revered sect benefactor’s mortal remains that we are exploiting this event to facilitate.

Sighing, he pushed those thoughts away and, taking his spear, started to pry open the great beast’s chest to get at the core.

Thankfully, that process, while messy, didn’t take long and soon he had a large, fist-sized crystalline sphere clasped in his hand. Turning it over and examining it carefully, he found that it was, rather shockingly, a thirteen-star ranked beast…

-A Dao Lord realm beast?

He stared back at its slumped form, expression still holding traces of the furious desperation with which it had fought them. Glad he could pass off the trembling in his limbs as exertion, he bowed to it.

“Truly you did not deserve to die by our hands…” he muttered, by way of apology, because it was also an entirely needless fight, caused by overeager disciples who had read a lot about suppression he supposed, but failed to heed the caveats.

Outside of this place, it would have been a formidable opponent he could never have bested. A Dao Lord spirit beast was comparable to a Dao Sovereign cultivator. Their group would have collapsed at the first blow, talismans and treasures or no. Its arts had contained traces of multiple refined laws, and its physical body was exceptionally durable.

In truth, without him, the group he was leading would have died as well, even though the beast was injured when they engaged it. It was only thanks to his spear, a relic from an ancient vestige on the western continent, home of a long-forgotten refinement clan, which had barely been able to overcome the implicit realm difference, that he had been able to injure it decisively in the end.

With a vexed sigh, he stored the core before any of the surviving perpetrators of the whole mess, or the less trustworthy elements of his own ad-hoc group, saw the ‘prize’ and got ideas above their circumstances.

~Contribution Update: +20,000 points.

The talisman chimed in his head. Taking it out, he watched it flicker up again. It had gone up a mere 6,000 points for slaying the beast itself, which in the circumstances was embarrassing for all concerned.

-Pathetic… that your life was worth so little, he lamented, wondering if it might be able to live on in some way, as a weapon spirit or a guardian beast.

If there was justice, it was that the other group in this valley, partial perpetrators of trying to drag his own scattered band into this mess, had largely perished under the miscalculation of their action. Talismans and treasures got you a certain distance in this land, Ancestor Bronze had warned, but relying on them was… inadvisable. At the end of the day, suppression or no, you had to answer with your own abilities.

Looking up to the slope, where the remnants of the band who had congregated around him mostly cowered, he waved an arm to tell them it was safe to stop hiding.

“That… sucked,” he glanced over at one of the few who had not run to ‘safety’, Liling Mei, an Ancient Immortal from the Dewdrop Sage Sect who was with a disparate group from the Shen clan that had joined up with him the previous day.

“We are alive,” he said with a wry laugh.

“We are,” she sighed, pulling a chakram out of the beast’s arm where it was lodged and wiping the blood off it. “Well fought, Senior Cang.”

“It seems most of your bunch are alive,” he mused, watching them scramble down.

“They are hardly my flock,” she sighed. “I am here because Shen Biyu’s mother invited me.”

“I am here because the Shu Pavilion Elders’ Hall dislike losing face,” he grumbled.

That was partially true… it was the formal reason why if anyone cared to dig, in any case. There were enough from the Shu clan from other influences like the Dusk Sky Pagoda or the Wise Gate of Supreme Law that really, the Pavilion could have just sent some second string disciples, which they had, but the Elder Hall was… political.

“A vile fight…” he looked over to see Yan Fei, a Golden Immortal from the Four Peacocks Court, had also come in to collect his swords, two of which were lodged in the left leg.

They both nodded, watching the less able or less invested parties come in as well.

Four Peacocks Court.

Dewdrop Sage Sect.

Verdant Flowers Valley.

Imperial School.

Nine Auspicious Moons.

Shen clan.

Bai clan.

Qing clan.

Jade Gate Court.

It was a fairly explosive mix of the lost and the terrified, formed of disciples of disparate sects after this storm had swept through the valleys, forcing people off the ridges and into what shelter they could find.

Many had landed in these places by accident, he gathered, thanks to the phenomenal pull of the land alignments in these valleys. It seemed to have an intent that warped anything that tried to overcome it. His own geomantic divination art was like a plaything in its grasp, and he had long since stopped relying on it to guide him forwards.

The result was that many groups’ rather inadvisable teleportation attempts had failed, scattering them into the depths of this place rather than the much safer ‘Higher Valleys’. Others had been forced to use lifesaving talismans and charms to escape disasters in a vein with what they had just overcome in this valley.

“Sir Cang Di!” A young woman, Shen Biyu, came forward, followed by a few other disciples from various sects with links to the Shen clan.

-How funny, he thought.

-I can only think of these people as children, even though they are of the same ‘generation’. Some of their grandparents are younger than me, he muttered to himself.

Shen Biyu for example was barely... fifty?

A peak Immortal talent yes, someone from an influential clan that any sect on the Western Shu continent would be very happy to welcome, but still just a child in the grand scheme of things.

-Seems a lot of their influences have really underestimated this place, he thought with some resigned amusement, watching those who came after her staring this way and that, crumpled talismans clutched in muddy hands.

-Though not the Shen clan…

Behind Shen Biyu two more recognisable faces appeared, looking annoyed, and headed over to collect arrows. Kang Erwei, a Quasi-Ancient Immortal from the Cherished Autumn Pagoda, a sect that the Shen clan had strong links to… and Mingluo Lanying, a peak Golden Immortal of the Nine Auspicious Moons.

“This place makes the Argent Devouring Caves look like my mother’s herb garden,” Kang Erwei grumbled.

He nearly added that it made his own teacher nervous, but bit back that comment at the last moment. There was no need to really break the mood of this lot in that fashion after all.

“Don’t dash off like that!” Mingluo chastised Shen Biyu, quietly.

“Yes, while Miss Shen’s eye is certainly exceptional, this place is not to be taken lightly!” a bearded youth wearing grey and green garb agreed, having just caught up.

He was a local Herb Hunter from Blue Water City, one who had some connections to the Shen clan he supposed. His instincts were good, and his land knowledge was certainly exceptional, though he had his job cut out for him with the way everyone was running about.

-Certainly, he is much better than the trio who came with some of the Shu Pavilion's junior disciples who had also come here of their own volition, he judged.

“Well fought Sir Tian!” another figure had also made it down the slope after them.

-And so the tinderbox appears, he thought with resignation, noting the dour looks from the other Nine Moons and Dedrop Sage disciples closing in as the Golden Immortal from the Din clan caught up.

{Shatterpoint}

Re-initialising his divination art, he considered the youth, who had introduced himself as Din Ouyeng, and his companions. The problem though, was that while ‘Din Ouyeng’ was a Golden Immortal, he was from a huge clan and a huge sect and Ouyeng was a common enough name on the central continent that he had no impression of him, nor it seemed had anyone else here. He was part of the Jade Gate Court, though… so, of course, he would be ‘Sir Tian’.

-Only they could make a title like that, that they were actually responsible for in part, sound like an insult, he thought rolling his eyes inwardly.

The pair with him were nervous and subdued, as well they might be; a girl and a boy at Golden Core – minnows among minnows in the current company where most of the ‘seniors’ were at least Golden Immortals. How the pair, who seemed to be from the Ling and Ha clans had fallen in with a Golden Immortal from the Din clan was anyone’s guess.

The story they had given – that they had been betrayed by their guides and abandoned up here after the guides colluded with some local experts to kill their companions, was… sadly credible though.

The suppression provided for some extra vulnerability to those at their realm; vulnerabilities many had discounted to their cost, it was turning out.

They had asked him if he could avenge the death of their senior brother, Din Yao and another comrade. They had also been asking others in the group if they would help, though without any real success. Were he not here, he suspected that Mingluo Lanying or Liling Mei might already have left Din Ouyeng dead in a gully somewhere, such was the antipathy regarding the Jade Gate Court ever since the events around Di Ji.

While he certainly had some sympathy for their plight, he had not promised anything either.

Such betrayals were happening all over, the survivors coming together in desperation only to be opportunistically betrayed all over again; that was just the danger inherent in a trial like this. The whole thing was as much a test of the character of a generation as it was anything else. It also didn’t help that he had some niggling doubts about their story. His own talent with geomancy was not widely known, and there had definitely been, if not lies… obfuscation in the words of Din Ouyeng, regarding his companions and their fate.

“What realm was this great beast?” Din Ouyeng asked, looking at it with interest. “The—”

*KRUMP*

A dull thud reverberated through the whole valley, cutting off Din Ouyeng, probably before he could ask about the core or something else innocently awkward.

Turning in the direction it had come from, he hissed under his breath as a sweltering wave of smothering, obscuring, yang-rich intent rolled across the valley, making trees shiver and the ambient temperature surge.

Moments later a series of continuous booms, caused by rapidly expanding fundamental particles of air and water tearing apart if he was any judge, split the returning quiet. The mist and low cloud above them was physically lifted outwards under the pressure wave—

“DOWN!” he roared, dropping to the ground even as others were looking around in bewilderment.

*—————*

There was an absence of sound.

The pressure wave had already arrived before sound did – a white wall of dispersing humidity leading the edge of the explosion.

Cloud far above them roiled outwards.

The heat spreading through the air was now noticeably pulling the irritatingly humid temperature, akin to a bathhouse sauna favoured by mortals, toward something close to being stood in a stream of boiling vapour.

As he watched, faint streamers of yang qi flitted through the sky above, streaking outwards like a flock of scattering birds. There was a profundity to it that eluded even his senses, but it made his geomancy art, much tortured in this land already, shiver with inauspicious vibes.

With an exhalation, the world fell still and he pushed himself up. That had been less worrying than—

Beyond the far ridgeline, a colossal swarm of hook bats swept up into the twisting mists that were dropping back down. They howled and screamed as they fled some other threat, risking the shockwaves of thunder and the vicious lightning that was already crackling along the edge of the clouds above where the blast wave brushed it—

Hundreds of bolts tore down in the blink of an eye, afforded convenient targets as the swarm flew everywhere, uncaring as they tried to escape something behind them.

Staring up at them, he felt a bit of cold sweat on the back of his neck. The scattering swarm itself numbered in the tens of thousands and many of the bats were genuinely unfathomable. While his senses were limited, everywhere he looked he could see bats that ‘looked’ like Golden Core critters, but were in fact giving him very disturbing vibes akin to ten and eleven-star qi beasts – Ancient Immortal qi beasts – and there were far, far too many of them for comfort.

Screaming in rage and fear, they twisted this way and that…and then almost as one swept across the ridgeline and down into their valley.

Cursing, he gripped his spear and lashed out with a wave of Martial Intent that forced a few of the weaker bats away and made them screech and divert course away from their group.

Nearby, others with the capability also copied him, scattering some—

Two talismans burst amid them, scattering blue fire everywhere in shining bursts of petals.

Abruptly a bat, about the size of a small dog, who might as well have been invisible to his qi sense, tore out of the heart of the swarm, dropping down at them like a meteorite.

Just as he was preparing a Dao Sovereign grade metal talisman, a breathtakingly beautiful young woman with glowing golden tresses and draped in a plain, if very stylish white robe plummeted down from the ridgeline the bats had just swept over. Along with her, she dragged another young man, who looked faintly terrified at whatever had just happened.

As he watched, stunned by this sudden development, she landed in the middle of the valley, generating enough force as she did that the shockwave shattered trees around her and actually cratered the ground at her point of impact.

“W-what?” one of the Immortals who had taken cover near him gawked.

The bats swirled away and the one leading a wing of the swarm to attack him hissed and twisted away, flapping frantically to gain height.

“Liang… if you scream like a girl it ruins your image,” the beauty said with a sigh. “At least the fate-thrashed bats got the hint.”

“Miss Fu…” the youth coughed, straightening his robe, “I think…”

As everyone was still picking themselves up the woman lazily swept out a hand and the sword she was carrying blurred around her, briefly becoming five swords before flowing back together to become one in her grasp once more.

As he watched, the half sweep they made upwards sent a spiral of golden-white fire skyward. The bats desperately evaded and circled away, fortunate ones screaming in fury as their compatriots were turned into afterimages by the fire.

“Tcch,” The beauty raised her hand a second time and… he shivered suddenly.

The swarm recoiled under that simple gesture and turned rapidly towards the rising slopes of East Fury Peaks.

Pushing himself up, supporting himself with his spear, he watched warily as the two approached. “Greetings Dao Brother, Dao Sister…? I am Daoist Cang Di of the Shu Pavilion…”

Nearby, the others also hurriedly scrambled up, the juniors just looking dazed or elated to have been saved in such a manner, however the seniors with experience, like Liling Mei, Mingluo Lanying and Yan Fei just looked wary.

-Neither of these two are simple, he thought with an inner grimace, renewing ‘Shatterpoint’, his divination art, in his mind’s eye.

The beauty swept her gaze over the group in a vaguely disinterested manner and then turned back to him. “Hong Fu, and this is Cao Liang”

He could almost hear the swooning behind him.

Her abrupt manner was not rude, but it was still brisk to the point of being a bit stand-offish, perhaps understandable given her looks and the attention she must receive.

-And she didn’t give an influence, he noted, which was somewhat odd.

It was at the stage out here where most people yelled out their influence now – usually before even introducing themselves. That was more of a shield against robbery and malpractice at the moment than one's cultivation level, what with the suppression up here. Anyone who didn’t give it was either certain it wouldn’t matter – or strong enough to not fear any cultivator in here. Considering the gesture she had made, this was likely a case of the latter.

“We are martial siblings from the 'Beautiful Sky’s Walking Society',” the youth gave a slight bow, while looking at the girl out of the corner of his eye, he thought. That, along with their names hadn’t been a lie, neither was bothering to obscure their aura from him either.

“Mmmmm… yes,” she nodded blandly.

Cang Di schooled himself, resisting her implicit intent, which was almost at the level of…

-Now why did I think of her… that is ancient history, as much as the tale is still circulated somewhat perversely in this generation.

He also passed over the weird school name, that was what it was, and asked politely: “Do the Dao Sister and Dao Brother know what caused the swarm to be so disturbed?”

“Mmmmm it was a bit surprising,” Daughter of Heaven Hong Fu replied, looking around at the wider group now, sporting an alluring smile. “I guess whatever made that explosion a few moments ago. Maybe they tried to hide in a cave and whatever was already there disagreed with their life choices?”

“Erm… little Martial Sister, while you are undoubtedly a Saintess to our generation… a beauty beyond compare… shouldn’t you still be a bit more respectful?”

One of the cultivators, not someone from Shen Biyu’s group, but a disciple from the Argent Hall of all influences, had managed to muster themselves and interjected with a remarkable mix of pomposity and borderline obsequious lechery.

“Young Noble Cang is from the Shu Pavilion and a Light of—”

-Talk about trying to curry favour via stupid means. Are they actually trying to drop me in a hole?

“—Thank you for the assist in dealing with that mutate hook bat swarm, Dao Sister Hong Fu,” he said quickly, cutting off the idiot. Both ‘Hong Fu’ and ‘Cao Liang’ gave him a strange feeling as well – like he was in front of his old ancestors, in fact.

“We had just overcome a particularly difficult battle…. To fight so many immediately after—” he gestured behind, at the corpse of the monkey demon “—would have been very difficult.”

“Think nothing of it,” the youth Cao Liang replied, rolling his eyes. “This is a dangerous land to wander in if you are inexperienced. We see you need some time to rest, so we will take our leave.”

Saintess Hong Fu nodded and without further preamble turned and walked off in the direction of the northern exit to the valley, where it led directly into the deeper interior, looking for all the world like she was out on a summer stroll to pick flowers. The other youth, Cao Liang, also gave them a rather dubious look as a whole before walking quickly to catch up with her.

-Well that went better than I had any right to expect, he sighed.

"You’re a credit to your school, young lad,” the voice of the youth echoed in his mind. “Tell Tian Kai Bao that Cao Liang sends his regards and congratulates the Four Peaks Inheritance Hall, your talent does the Hall and your Senior Brothers and Sister credit… Oh… and try not to die up here."

Before he could formulate a response, both had vanished into the steaming forest without a trace.

Cang Di felt the sweat on his neck that had nothing to do with the humidity.

-Scary, absolutely scary, a part of him thought, watching the trees where they had vanished.

To speak of his senior martial brother, the inheriting disciple of Ancestor Iron, Kai Bao in that manner suggested a certain familiarity beyond the normal, especially when you knew that Kai Bo was a Dao Ascendant student of Ancestor Iron… and then there was the mention of Senior Martial Sister Aoxu, who had been in seclusion for most of his lifetime…

He exhaled softly and gave himself a shake.

Their foundations were… the youth had been ostensibly at Immortal based on his ‘Intent’, but didn’t act like it, while Saintess Fu had been ostensibly at the peak of Ancient Immortal… However, both had had a faint edge to what they presented that told him, through experience of interacting with a lot of people who hid their cultivations for various reasons in the Shu Pavilion, that that was just what they were showing outwardly.

“They were a bit rude?” one of the youths behind Shen Biyu huffed.

“Ahh… someone like Saintess Fu can be as rude as she likes.”

“Mmhm yeah… did we have such a beauty in our generation?”

“Indeed…” someone else chipped in.

“And to be wandering around like that… isn’t it a bit much? Young Noble Cang even saved them?”

Turning to look at those behind him, he gave them a pointed glare, under which most of them wilted. He wasn’t the only one either.

“Everyone has their own style,” he said a bit more forcefully.

Suppression or no, he was still at the peak of Ancient Immortal and had almost a realm and a half not to mention thousands of years on any of them in terms of experience.

“Idiots,” Yan Fei muttered, to which he nodded in agreement.

“What influence do you think they were really from?” Mingluo Lanying murmured quietly to Liling Mei, who just shrugged.

“Not our business,” he interjected in passing, which made Liling Mei nod in agreement.

“So, which way do we go?” Liling Mei asked, waving absently for Shen Biyu and the others from that group to gather themselves up.

Sighing, he looked around at the various exits, pondering just that question. Heading after the pair they had just met was probably not a good idea, and there was no point in backtracking or going where they had just come from, which only left two routes really.

“I think we go up the right side of the valley, cross through the gap up ahead,” he said at last, pointing through the mists to what looked like a distant access.

“Ehh? But won't that take us really close to those dangerous places?” someone muttered from the back.

“…”

Liling Mei just rolled her eyes at the volunteered comment, which had originated from the Imperial School group. He resisted laughing, barely. The sense of entitlement and double-think among some of them was almost at the level of a Dao Path in its own right. The reality was that most of them were tagging along with him, or with Shen Biyu or with Yan Fei and were free to leave at any time.

It was somewhat ironic that they were now complaining that it might lead them a bit too close to the Great Mount, though. That hadn’t bothered any of them before they got into these valleys and started getting thrice daily attacks by qi beasts with cultivation that could level towns or devastate small sects in minutes if lifted out of this place.

Looking again in the direction the pair had left, another suspicious thought emerged in his mind, that he tried to squash quickly... The innermost of the sword impact points was in that vague direction. Sect Master Shu Tian had given him a map of those and a warning to just let the Seven Sovereigns do their thing.

-Was that ‘Saintess Fu…’!?!

-Did a terrifying Fairy Goddess, someone that stands at the very peak of Eastern Azure, someone from Vast Obscurity Grove's most elite echelon – that can make even the Shu Heavenly clan step smartly off the path – just saunter by that casually?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yan Fei also looking after her with a slightly worried… no, relieved… expression. The Four Peacocks Court was a Huang influence and geographically close to Meng City. If anyone else was qualified to make that suspicion, it was probably him. Meng City was informally known as the ‘Graveyard of Young Masters’ for a reason.

He resisted the urge to look at where the other sword impact point near here should be in relation to where they were. The Seven Sovereigns had as deep a pool of talent as the Shu Pavilion, Meng Fu would not be the only one out here recovering those weapons.

-And the thing about their being martial siblings from the ‘Beautiful Sky’s Walking Society’ wasn’t a lie, or even an obfuscated truth as far as I could tell…

With a sigh, he pushed those thoughts from his head.

They were going in a different direction, anyway. The access point his old ancestor had entrusted the location of to him was still a day’s hike away. That was the last known location of that honoured benefactor, Mu Shansu, the sworn brother of the sect’s second master. The place where their ill-fated expedition had entered the darkness, never to return.

At that point, he would have to consider what to do with this group. It was probably too dangerous to take them into the underworld based on what he had been told about it. Some of them he might trust to walk behind him into the gloom, but others… he was edgy enough about some of them already. Particularly the bunch associated with the Ha clan and the Din clan.

He considered Din Ouyeng again as they walked onwards, trying to work out what was bothering him about their story. Behind him, the rest started wittering again about the three scores on the talismans, complaining at how it was upstaging ‘him’ just loud enough for him, and the other seniors, to hear.