“He’s getting away! The Ruidian is fleeing! Oathbreaker!” Su Xiao roared.

But Alex had already tuned the incensed cultivator out, save a sense of how close the now furiously blinking yellow was, his focus squarely on the massive black pather about to disembowel one of the handful of female cultivators with a knack for livestock who had chosen to accompany them.

At the very back, helping to corral the livestock, and the weakest of their band.

Of course that would make her the chosen prey of the predator even now crashing into her with claws flashing in the shafts of dappled sunlight spearing through the thick canopy overhead, brilliant white teeth snapping for the poor girl’s jugular…

Before the shrieking girl was covered in blood.

Bullrush! Bullrush! Bullrush!

Adderstrike!

You have critically struck Spirit Puma!

Spirit Puma has suffered fatal wound!

You have absorbed the full potency of your kill!

Artificer skillcheck made!

Fangtian Ji has absorbed full potency of kill. Pristine Personal Qi requirements met. Fangtian Ji is now a Pristine Artifact, tier 1 Indestructability achieved! Lesser beast core has been fully absorbed!

And time seemed to flow as the girl’s terror flew off her in waves. Thoughts of the man who had claimed her heart, the child growing in her womb. Despair at oncoming death, wishing for nothing so much as to be back at her family farm.

Pristine terror turning to stunned confusion as the crimson spray of life and death near drowned her, holding back a scream to see the Ruidian madman who laughed in the face of Silvers, even when they pronounced his inevitable doom.

The bright blue eyes of a killer, who had just saved her from certain death.

Who was now about to be disemboweled by the stalking panther who’s obsidian eyes locked with her own, freezing her to terrified silence as the cat leaped for his prey.

Only for a streak of brilliant silver to flash through the air, and a confused panther’s decapitated head was spinning lazily through the air in a spray of crimson, the massive body crashing to the ground in a twitching heap.

Only a second later did she register the mad little smile he had flashed her, actually having the gall to wink.

Unified martial arts skillcheck made!

You have dodged Feline Pounce!

Silver Tier Pouch of holding allows instantaneous transfer of stored items. You have sheathed Indestructible Fangtian Ji. You have drawn Guandao.

Blackswan!

You have saved versus meridian strain.

You have decapitated Spirit Panther!

Artificer skillcheck made. Spirit Panther’s life force has fully saturated Pristine Guandao. Pristine Guandao has achieved Tier 1 Indestructibility!

Lesser Shadow Affinity detects 3 stalking Panthers. Spirit Panthers are targeting Fleeing Livestock

You have exchanged Indestructible Guandao for ko-naginata.

Bullrush! Bullrush!

Blackswan!

Within a matter of seconds, outraged cries for Alex’s capture or death became the frantic screams of dying livestock, the shouts of panicked cultivators, the disciplined roar of Silvers used to taking command, ordering all basic cultivators through the gate as fast as they could get their wagons and supplies while the sentinels and guardians of their caravan took care of the threat.

Words and commands and the movement of greens and light red pieces on the internal map of Alex’s mind as he became one with the forest, one with his art, an extension of the rustling leaves, the branches swaying under the weight of ruthless intent, the fierce storm of Qi cleaving massive skulls from powerfully muscled necks, tumbling free of shadowy death, striking hungry paws with razor sharp steel before silencing deadly roars forever with blades shattering hearts and cores, fusing potential and power and a pristine core’s perfect resonance into artifacts no foe below the heights of Gold could hope to shatter.

Even as bitter sharp teeth clamped and tore into muscle and bone, Alex surviving countless near misses, Dark Qi alone saving him from crippling injury as his Qi pool slowly waned, growing exhaustion from a day stretched far too long causing a single tiny lapse that nearly spelled his doom.

Lesser Shadow Perception fails to sense Stalking Alpha!

Stalking Alpha has critically hit Alex Hammer!

Indestructible Helmet saves from crushed skull!

Qi Infused Gorget saves against decapitation!

Your neck has been broken!

You have saved versus instant death.

You are embracing Dark Qi Metabolism!

Power Healing engaged!

Words and symbols flashing across Alex’s mind’s eye in a streak of light and meaning that was nothing but agony and confusion as crushing blackness and the deadly stench of rotting carrion and feline fury washed over him. A crunch and twist and a furious snap and Alex silently screamed through a crushed throat that obeyed him no longer.

To be flipped through the air, landing in a crumpled heap.

Knowing he was in horrific peril. That he should be dead.

And if he failed to restore his spine and heart before his foe devoured him alive…

You have failed to access World Seed Interface! Agony transcends Focus!

Power Healing successfully engaged! Rate of healing = 60 Pounds of flesh fully regenerated per hour.

And Alex heard it then, the snarling cough of an enraged Alpha, beyond furious as it glared at the brightly colored creature who had dared to butcher so many of its kind. A two legged predator that the Alpha would torment before devouring whole. Retribution for the depredations human kind had inflicted over the waxing and waning of the moon, butchering their kits, wittling the alpha’s once mighty pack down to nothing but the fiercest, fastest, and deadliest of them all.

1/12 of 1 Pound fully regenerated. Vitality check made. Spine reconnected. Nerves restored. Move at will!

And never had Alex felt so terrified as the beast, dark furious eyes somehow sensing Alex beginning to recover, charged in for a kill.

And he would never know if his single oversight would have led to his ugly demise, a mockery of all past glory and triumph, if he had been alone, raising up his spear as the giant panther’s body ruptured in mid leap, the air vibrating with the furious explosion of Earth Qi erupting from Zha Shi’s staff.

For long moments, the hard-eyed giant of a cultivator just stared at a desperately vulnerable Alex who now switched to Aerobic Respiration, choking in a wheezing breath and screaming with sudden horrific pain as his entire nervous system spasmed with the change.

Before giving an angry shake of his head.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, fool. You’re nothing but trouble. Thinking you could take on a whole pack.” Zha Shi chuckled mirthlessly. “You wouldn’t believe how furious Su Xiao is with you, stealing kill after kill with your mastery of specialized internal Qi techniques that only the most elite soldiers should know. And you better believe you’re going to be teaching Xiao and I both your secrets, before we’re through with you.”

And sparing time only to tear free a greater beast core with a massive Silver Giant’s strength before gutting the remains and storing meat and priceless spirit hide in what must have been a high grade storage space of his own, Zha Shi plucked Alex up and headed for the gate, an exhausted Alex not even bothering with the futility of resistance, merely power healing as much as he could before they both jumped through.

His struggles finally catching up with him, was all an exhausted Alex could do not to slip completely into a daze.

Even after all he’d been through, countless battles and what he was now increasingly certain was two weeks of nonstop intense tutoring and training as half his mind forged indestructible tristate cords of order and chaos, Dark and Light Qi, creation and destruction, each and every one of his now seven cords of such sublime potency that not a single additional iota of power could be forced into any of those cords.

Madness to a degree that even the gods above would envy, or so his bemused mentor had informed him during at least one of his many fever dreams since the moment of their forging.

And even if he had been lost in a state just a hairsbreadth from oblivion forging his final Divine Bronze Cord, a state that anyone else might have considered comatose slumber, he had been the farthest thing from actually resting.

Forging his own soul in the crucible of conflict, forging the girls he would one day claim as his Jade Queens upon the board of fate, instilling within their own souls a path to perfection that was both in utter opposition to, and just a mirror reflection, of his own.

An equation inverted as reality itself was warped and twisted under the will of a would-be god, forging the addition of a single unexpected variable as a new path was forged.

And not once had Alex dared to sleep since the moment he and his chosen disciples had dared their paths. Even as he forged them in the fires of fiercest struggle, the crucible of conflict that had become his own, honing their martial skill as he fed them inconceivable amounts of his own potency.

Power that should have destroyed them all.

Still lost in a dazed reverie as a giant carried him through a mystic portal and the golden light of his own world’s sun touched his dazed brow, he understood that at last.

He had filled WiFu’s daughter and the woman he would die for with so much power they should both have been instantly sublimated, and an entire complex reduced to shattered rubble.

And how that would have pleased a madly cackling Shalu when WiFu’s disciple’s biggest gamble failed spectacularly.

Instead, Alex had slammed down a card with blood-soaked hands upon the board of fate.

A card he neither remembered forging, nor claiming, nor even the markings upon its face. Only WiFu’s mad grin, so like Alex’s own.

So like the jester and fool.

A card trumping reality itself as a Jade Path worthy of Jupiter itself was forged. Sheer pearlescent compression sealing inconceivably destructive forces within every cell of every organ of Yinzi and Hao Chan’s bodies as they danced with Alex in the crucible of peril they dared to embrace, bone shattering kicks and organ rupturing strikes melding into the pounding hammers of their own indomitable resolve, all three of them lost in states between agony and bliss, transcendence and dream, embracing power, peril, and growth that no mortal soul could envision or endure in the cold clear light of lucid dawn.

So they had been lost together, in madness and dream, for weeks on end.

Coming too only when Alex’s seventh cord had reached transcendent perfection, and his revelations had reached a cusp. Come to an end.

Jidihu had been no fool.

There had been a reason why she had waited till that fateful morning to severe their connection.

Any sooner, and the results would have been catastrophic.

But the loss of her only daughter’s shadow was not something Alex thought she would ever forgive.

Alex chuckled softly. Now intimately sensing the connection to the two Jade Queens he was so fiercely proud of, never having disbanded their party, sensing that they were lost in oblivion’s caress. A sleep of exhaustion both deep, profound, and healing.

Sleep he yearned for even now, as he collapsed upon the lush verdant foliage outside of his manor, eyes gently drifting closed… before being abruptly jolted awake by an unforgiving foot.

“Don’t think you get to rest so easily, you bloodthirsty kill-stealing murderous bastard!” Hissed an exceedingly irate Su Xiao, who must have taken another sip of his potion or embraced a special technique, because it seemed that his shattered jaw was clearly on the mend. But the bones were clearly still sore, eyes tearing up as he spoke.

And Alex was far too exhausted to goad him, and perhaps a bit less lost in the mad lucid daze he suspected his entire day had been, far closer to WiFu’s mercurial temperament than his own. Or perhaps it truly had been his own. Thoughts wandering madly as the warm light caressed his eyelids once more and powerful arms hoisted him up perhaps more gently than a grumbling Su Xiao cared for.

“It never gets old, looking at this place. Made of solid gold and marble and a king’s fortune in priceless works of art within. It’s like we’re living in a dream,” said Zha Shi as he quickly made his way to the manor, leaving the care of the wagons and the surviving livestock to the others with a single shouted order and wave, and even Alex could sense the awe and reverence he felt, gazing upon the palace they rapidly approached.

Su Xiao snorted. “It’s a place to forget our troubles, after our entire mission came crashing down on our heads.”

Zha Shi sighed. “Yup. All parties with the slightest vice or inclination towards corruption with any access to levers of power were quickly corrupted. The less powerful stalwarts were found dead under mysterious circumstances, and the truly powerful uncommitted were left prudently alone until Dongfang Hong laid his final pieces upon the board, the Headmaster himself now the Red Prince’s pawn. He’s clearly done this before, and were it not for Elder Wu having discovered the key to this magical realm…”

“I know. I know! Don’t say it,” Su Xiao snapped. “I didn’t like our odds of getting out the other way any more than you. When our lady hears about this…” He hissed, widened eyes now glaring at Alex, the razor sharp edge of his blade against Alex’s cheek.

“Look at his eyes, Zha. He understands. He understands every word we’re saying!”

“Master! I sense the threat! We come at once!”

“At ease, seneschal,” Alex whispered as steel caressed his beast core choker before pricking the underside of his jaw.

“What did you say, spy?” snarled Su Xiao.

Alex snorted. “Spy? Not just a murderer, thief, and beast kill jumper, now I’m a spy? Really, Su Xiao, it seems to me that the one who was spying was you. And clearly you’re not very good at it, because for all intents and purposes, Dongfang Hong now owns Risen Phoenix Academy!”

Su Xiao trembled with choking fury.

Alex calmed his own seething rage, only then sensing his imminent peril. But it wasn’t malice his Spirit Qi picked up on from Su Xiao, but sheer, unadulterated humiliation. Rage at a mission failed.

“At ease, inspector. You’re not the first to be outplayed by his quarry. Even WiFu has been outfoxed a time or two.”

Two sharp inhalations as four eyes glared into Alex’s own. Ruthless discipline masking sharp fury and fear both.

“How the hell do you know our Cant, Ruidian?”

Alex shivered under the weight of Zha Shi’s words. Realizing he had understood every word of murmurs older even than Thieves Cant and Handsign.

A language WiFu had first taught his disciple, the part of him that hadn’t gone to sleep dreaming mad dreams of power and Divine Ascension, well over a thousand years ago.

The life of an eager apprentice finding fierce pleasure in escaping terminal illness and living his life to the fullest working beside a true friend. A father figure Alex had revered and honored until the day he had married the beautiful kitsune girl who had stolen his heart, and WiFu became his father in law in truth.

Happy joyous years, Alex with his Biochemical Mastery and impeccable sense of smell, somehow Watson to WiFu’s Holmes, and what wild and wonderful adventures they had shared, foiling so many enemies, bringing so many powerful clans low.

Until Zheng Yi and his clan had turned Alex’s dreams to ashes and awful tears. Leaving him to howl and wail over the cold ashes of everything he had ever loved.

He and WiFu had embraced one last mission then, wreaking such vengeance upon the monsters that had dared to strike them that their foes screamed in purgatory to this day.

The day the gods themselves began to fear what they had wrought.

A flash of memory gone as soon as it came, for all that it left Alex shaken, too exhausted to fight back bitter tears for a life he had never quite lived.

His tears, it seemed, had thrown the pair off, gazing at Alex with looks of frustrated confusion, then exchanging a glance with eachother.

“Come on, brother,” said Zha Shi. “The sooner this burden is in Elder Ru’s lap, the better.”

But Su Xiao’s only response was a hiss when half a dozen wickedly sharp guandao and fangtian ji were aimed for their heads.

Six massive guards wearing steel lamellar glowing with subtle enchantments, faces protected by steel masks with fanged caricatures, and perfectly identical poses made them seem more automaton than human.

But the deep Silver potency radiating from them couldn’t be denied.

And strangely, the always deferential Dong Xiao now radiated a deadly potency in his seneschal’s robes that made him the most intimidating figure of all.

“You will unhand the man in your possession, and you will do so now.”

A single sentence was all he said, but the fearsome aura Alex now sensed radiating from his seneschal made both inspectors hiss and take a knee, for all that Alex himself was utterly unaffected.

And between one eye blink and the next, Alex was several feet away from the pair of confused-looking inspectors, though their stares became more disbelieving, more incredulous as they continued to gaze at the still utterly dazed Alex and the seneschal peering down at him with such concern.

“Master, you are not well!”

“I feel fine. Injuries fully healed,” Alex slurred.

His seneschal nodded. “Physically, yes, but your Spirit Qi is resonating with fatigue. Your ah… how do you put it? Neural Network is presently impaired, and I’m not entirely sure even Eternal Fox can repair your neural pattern, should too many synaptic links be lost.”

Alex froze at those words. “Shit. This is why I need a bone strengthening technique. To protect the noggin. If that Alpha Spirit Panther had managed to crack my skull, there’s not that much Eternal Fox can do, once the brain is mush.” He gave an unexpected yawn. “I knew I was pushing myself too hard.”

“Indeed, Master,” said his seneschal, now holding him like a babe. “Fortunately for us both, proper rest should see you fully healed without the need for any more exotic treatment. Come now, best we put you to bed.” The man turned and glared at the pair of Silvers gazing at Alex with expressions quite similar to how his father had once looked when Alex had built a coin castle out of his priceless gold doubloon collection. “What would you have us do with these two, Master?”

The pair exchanged anxious looks at that, white knuckles tightly gripping weapons they didn’t dare unsheathe before half a dozen enchanted guandao and fangtian ji. Alex and his seneschal might have been speaking American English of a thousand years ago and a world away, but the deadly judgment in Dong Xiao’s gaze would have been clearly understood by any man looking his way.

“Nothing,” Alex said. “They’re inspectors doing a job everyone judges, but damn few people could do any better.” Alex grinned. “And to be fair, I did cut down a good handful of assholes today. So, our Kitsune friend had every right to be suspicious of my bloody armor, I suppose.”

“Assholes, my lord?”

“Dongfang Hong’s men. You know, considered red under all circumstances, not to be allowed through the gates, even if they take the oath?”

“Ah, yes. Of course, my lord.”

Alex frowned, his last sentence in a dialect they all understood. “And if you would be so good as to escort us all to Elder Ru’s quarters, I have a promise to keep.”