“Alex...” Alex held a shuddering Hao Chan close as they gazed upon the smoking remains of their supplies caravan. Tons of seeds, produce, and livestock charred to ash.

And it meant nothing compared to the horror of the bodies they found. Some only half burned, gazing at the world with sightless eyes, faces locked in an eternal rictus of pain. And of others only tarry black smears or chunks of ash remained.

Alex squeezed his eyes shut as his eye stung with tears and the memory of a young kitsune’s desperate pain filled cries, struck with the final terrifying moments of a young woman’s life so viscerally, it was as if he had been there. Pain so sharp, it overwhelmed him now.

Then his eyes snapped open, suddenly understanding, as terror turned to desperate hope, despite his horrific pain.

Because for a moment, he had been that agonized girl. His mind flooded with Zhu Bi’s agonizing memories. Which could only mean…

“Alex, Hao Chan, come quick!”

A breathless Alex raced to Yinzi’s side. Squeezing his fists so tightly his fingernails left halfmoon marks upon his palms. He didn’t dare hope. He was terrified of pulling off the scab of his own numbness only to find nothing but despair. But the fierce look in Yinzi’s eyes as she pointed to the body that could only be Zhu Bi’s, eliciting an agonized cry a numb part of Alex was surprised to hear from his own lips…

before passing her hand through what had only been a suggestion of Shadow.

And then Alex felt it.

A tiny rustle between the leaves of a cluster of plants that held a precious secret.

“Alex, Zhu Bi cast a shadow-weave! You know what that means!”

Alex didn’t even bother answering, just slipped through the underbrush by the side of the traderoad as fast as he could… to see a sight that filled him with horror… and desperate hope.

Zhu Bi. Her body ravaged by burns far worse than anyone who had survived the ambush and made it back… worse even then the corpses that still had part of their features intact.

“Oh, no!” Hao Chan sobbed, before gazing back at Alex with tears flowing freely from her eyes. “Alex, I’m so...”

“Alex, looked!” Yinzi cried.

But Alex was already moving forward, unable to believe his eyes.

Because the charred body whose attire had been incinerated, whose flesh had not one inch that wasn’t covered in 4th degree burns, had just taken the shallowest of breaths.

And just as a desperate Alex pulled free the stopper to one of his few remaining red potions glittering like rubies in his hand, he could taste the laughter of his nemesis echoing in the ether.

A hideous bloated monster just as rotten as Hao Zei. Perhaps infinitely worse. A power that had grown ever more twisted and spiteful over countless lifetimes of power unchecked… who Alex now knew to be responsible for so much of the loss and suffering he had been forced to endure over countless lifetimes… wanting nothing more than to crush Alex’s spirit so bad he would never rise again.

“Alex, you have a potion of healing? Saint’s mercy, use it, she’s about to die!” Yinzi all but screamed.

Alex swallowed his suddenly parched throat, Not daring to move a muscle. He angrily shook his head, wanting to scream to the heavens, “It’s a trap,” he hissed. “Somehow, I know it’s a trap!”

“Alex!” Hao Chan sobbed. “Please, we’re running out of time!”

But Alex gave an angry, bitter shake of his head. No one knew better than him how powerful a draught the ruby potion in his hand was… or how terrible a tole they took from the person being force healed in seconds. Wonderful for forcing together a stab to the heart, or a sliced-open throat, fatal wounds that actually only required a minimal amount of flesh forcefully clamped with a single incision force mended.

But Zhu Bi’s flesh had been charred to the bone. Alex could only imagine the agony she would endure if the red flesh entered her system… force-healing the tiniest fraction of it before her already dying body expired from shock.

And how mocking would Shalu’s laughter be then.

Alex clenched his jaw shut when his desperate party invites went unanswered.

“Alex, please, do something!”

Alex flinched at the desperate plea he heard in Yinzi’s voice. “I can’t. The red prince’s potions are good for force healing injuries inflicted by killing blades, where the damage would be fatal from blood loss within minutes or seconds, but relatively little flesh is actually loss.” He swallowed, squeezing back tears. “But this isn’t a pinpoint thrust with spear or jian. Zhu Bi has been so badly burned that not an inch of flesh has been spared.” Alex swallowed. “I don’t… I think if I were to force her to drink it, the shock would kill her faster than she will right now, and that goddamned bastard Shalu will be laughing in the heavens as I kill my own descendant!”

Alex clenched his jaw, eyes flashing with the fury burning within. So filled with wrath even the girls who would marry him backed away, though Alex thought it was to give him space to grieve, more than fear.

But he wasn’t quite out of moves yet. “This round isn’t over, you bastard!” Alex screamed at the heavens. “You have not won, you will not win! Never again!”

You have successfully closed 3 gates! Cuboid structure removed. Pyramidal structure securing Gold tier enemy wujen remains.

You have summoned 3 fresh gates!

You have pulled free Soul Link card!

You have placed Soul Link card upon 5th generation decendant: Yinzi!

You have stabilized negative cascade being suffered by target!

Damage suffered is within your passive healing parameters!

You have saved versus: Excruciating Agony!

Note. Bronze Tier Soul Link card trumped by Gold Tier Torment’s Bite!

General Shalu’s multigenerational card placed with the express purpose of using misfortune to destroy all your descendants trumps Bronze Tier Soul Link!

You are unable to absorb original Critical Burns.

You have managed to overcome secondary strictures! You may claim all injuries resulting from previous injuries suffered.

Alex let the messages wash over him as his world became one of unending pain.

And he couldn’t help but flash a bitter smile.

Because the burning agony he felt mirrored so perfectly the fire in his veins when cancer was robbing of the last vestiges of serenity and dignity during the final agonizing weeks of his first life, his every last hour a torment that not even massive doses of opioids could completely abate.

Not on the bad nights, at least.

Not when it felt like his very soul was on fire.

As it did now.

“You think this will break me, you fat bastard? You think I’ll surrender my blood to the likes of you?” Alex roared, glaring at the heavens even as his eyes teared with pain, howling with the fury of a dragon as he roared at the skies above. “Mark my words, Shalu! This is nothing compared to the pain I will one day give to you! I will tear open your bloated body, rip out your heart, and claim your soul!”

Alex laughed through his pain as the heavens darkened with leaden grey clouds appearing out of nowhere, midday turning dim as dusk as torrential rains poured down upon the endless forest below, drenching the flames mad wujen and soldiers had left behind. A laughter that only grew when he could sense the furious howls buried by the thundering skies in the heavens above, catching just a glimpse of a certain foul general’s furious glare, the divine monster unable to hide the growing fear Alex could sense gnawing at the corpulent bastard like a tumor all its own.

A tumor Alex would happily let grow, to one day consume the monster entirely. A sweet counterpoint to the pounds of flesh Alex had delightfully extracted with the forging of his first Divine tier Silver cable. The first of many, Alex hoped, his smile growing wider through his furious pain, before he shook all distractions away, already knowing what his next move had to be.

“Seneschal Dong Xiao greets the Child of The Heavens. What is your command... my lord!”

Alex flashed a grim smile at an even more dissarayed looking Dong Xiao, who could be seen through the gate leading back home, standing over the body of several fallen reds who must have thought the man an easy mark. Before being proven irrevocably wrong.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine,” Alex assured, even as he felt the smoking flesh of his cheek and the rest of his body regenerate as fast as fresh wounds popped up, all his attention on the horribly disfigured and burned body he held so protectively in his arms, Hao Chan and Yinzi swallowing back tears as they gazed on.

Alex smiled in the dim early morning light. Having endured what felt like agony without end, the two girls by his side refusing to leave him, standing vigil by his side as he endured. And every moment he had suffered he had also felt a fierce vindication. Because unlike the pointless suffering leading to an ignoble death in his first life, this time his suffering meant something. This time there was a precious life he just might be able to save.

“I would have come hours ago,” he said in a ragged voice. “But I dared not enter before...”

His seneschal immediately bowed. “I understand, my lord.” Intent eyes far wiser than any Silver tier seneschal met his own. “Are you able to step through?”

Alex swallowed, heart hammering. “Yes. The card will deactivate the moment I enter my world. Because it is my world, not theirs. That means that we’ll have a window of only minutes or perhaps seconds to heal her.” Alex’s heart swelled as he gazed at the charred girl in his arms. “It is a miracle she held on for so many hours, even with my card in play. Just a novice in my art, and still...”

“I understand, my lord.”

Alex swallowed the painful lump in his throat, and stepped through his gate, bridging the gap between a world filled with gods that despised his very existence, and the universe he had forged as his own.

Trembling arms gently lifted his descendant into Seneschal Dong Xiao’s arms. The healer immediately placed her on the pallet surrounded by incense and complex weavings of spiritual energy that were utterly beyond Alex as the Silver tier healer immediately began to work.

And how it broke his heart to see Zhu Bi let loose the piteous cry of an animal in torment, Alex no longer able to eat her pain.

He didn’t even realize he himself had cried out until Hao Chan gently held him tight.

“Please, Child of the Heavens,” the healer spared Alex a single desperate glance, and Alex immeidately understood.

Zhu Bi was still in dire peril, and the last thing he needed was an anxious Alex distracting him.

Alex clenched his jaw, and jerked a nod. His heart roiling with such dread that he couldn’t even take comfort in the beautiful palace he had forged out of desperation and wonder, just a double handful of weeks ago. “Are the bastards gone?”

But even as he said the words, he sensed the truth of it, his sense of the world acting like an exquisitely rendered interface where he could sense all the pieces on the board.

The hundreds of light blues who had sworn themselves to him… and the handful of glaring reds that had holed themselves off in one wing of the palace, a cluster of blues just beyond, and several weakly blinking ones trapped with the reds.

Alex clenched his fist, heart pounding with fury rekindled.

An outlet for the desperate worry tormenting even now, nerves still blazing with hours of constant pain, Shalu’s mocking laughter echoing through his skull even now.

“Alex, what’s wrong?” Yinzi’s worried voice didn’t even register when Alex summoned forth a shimmering gate after closing the three he no longer needed in the world behind, now glimpsing a scene that made him see red.

A dozen hard-eyed men wearing the crimson armor of Dongfang Hong’s crack troops, glaring down the hallway they had barricaded with wujen wards, furniture, and the bodies of several fallen students, the largest of the dozen giving a satisfied nod as he gripped the shaft of his guandao, the heavy blade covered in the dried blood of his foes.

The Silver Giant roared down the passageway Alex could sense held over a score of students and instructors from Royal Phoenix Academy. “We have captured a half dozen of your woman! You will give us free passage out of this place, if you want to see even one of these girls alive!”

“The only reason why we have held back from skinning all of you fools alive is because those girls are whole and unharmed. The minute you start killing them is the minute we swear an oath to show you all why ZhengTu’s inspectors have been feared by spies and traitors for a thousand years! You will scream with torments that will make even WiFu bow his head in admiration when your spirits flee the mortal realms so desperately you fools will never reincarnate again!” swore none other than a furious Su Xiao, the hotblooded speed cultivator who had suspected Alex of the darkest crimes not that long ago, and Zhu Bi’s cousin as well. Alex could only imagine the desperate fury coursing through his veins, and he had absolutely no doubt that Su Xiao meant every word he said.

Alex flashed a bleak smile as he took in every pertinent detail of the chamber beyond and the position of every piece on the board.

Noting the slight limp as the Silver Giant turned and glared at the men behind him, six carrying bruised and bloody girls, either sobbing with pain or vacant-eyed with exhaustion and despair. But what he said next invited a fresh bevvy of desperate sobs.

“Ren Fan, those fools don’t think we’re serious. Grab that one there and cut off her hand!” He flashed a cold smile. “That will put those youling fools in their place!”

The leader of the band of desperate men flashed a cold smile when none other than Su Lin, one of the two girls Alex had saved what now felt a lifetime ago, cried out in mortal terror.

“Leave her alone you ugly pig!” Bibi screamed, “Or I swear you’ll—“ The girl’s words broke off with a cry when she was offhandedly backhanded by the soldier holding her, making a terrified Bibi scream all the louder when the coldly laughing soldiers began tearing off her clothes, a single mutilated arm clearly not the only thing on their minds, and the Silver Giant overseeing clearly approved.

Before his eyes widened with alarm and Bibi’s screams grew in pitch, when she was suddenly drenched in her enemy’s blood.

Qi Perception check made! You spot no retributive strike amulets on infantry soldiers!

Find Weakness skillcheck made!

You have successfully decapitated three of your opponents!

Experience earned!

And in the blink of an eye a roaring Alex had bullrushed into the chamber through his gate, his fangtian ji slicing through flesh and bone as easily as air.

And before his opponents could do more than blink in surprise, death came for them as inevitably as a roaring flood crashing down a ravine, all the desperate soldiers attempting to escape retribution soon drowning in their own blood as inevitably as flotsam torn free of ancient banks by the flooding river in a storm.

A storm that crackled with lighting and wrath, skulls cleaved in the blink of an eye, Tier 1 Silver Quickness and Finesse synergizing perfectly with a dragon’s Strength and growing mastery over an elite martial form channeling steel and storm and Qi as a whole in a powerful assault that blasted through all resistance like waves pounding a rickety ship to splinters, washing the occupants of that chamber in a sea of blood as Alex’s ji spike blasted through the closest red’s skull before his weapon weaved under a desperately thrust guandao to slice open the silver giant’s thighs as if the man’s steel armor and Iron Core body cultivation technique held no more power than dry wood before the half-moon axe heads whipping about at inconceivable speeds, blasting through all resistance as the man collapsed to his knees with a cry.

“No, wait! Who are—“ Words cut off when Alex wound his fangtian ji about the shaft of his foes’ weapon, effortlessly wrenching it free of powerful hands clenching air with surprise before spasming with death’s shocking call. Confused eyes blinked in dizzy confusion as Alex’s fangtian ji flashed through the air with deadly finality.

The soldier’s world spun around and around before the Silver Giant’s head crashed to the ground, luxurious gold-veined marble died crimson as he and a half dozen other invaders bled their last upon the ground.

“No please, we surrender, we surrender!” shrieked the remaining soldiers, lurching back from their sobbing panicked captives, their faces no less desperate than the girls they only now freed.

And much to their surprise, Alex jerked a tight hard nod. All of them gazing in wide-eyed wonder when a massive forest of giant hardwood trees and dark leafy undergrowth suddenly appeared, the sharp scents of pine, honeysuckle, and countless wildflowers permeated the air, earthy loam cutting through the stench of blood.

“Run through that gate and you will have one hour’s grace before I hunt you all down and claim your souls. Or you can stay, and die like the dogs you are.”

And so quickly the surviving soldiers flinched and cried out as if Alex were striking them, Alex tossed the decapitated heads, several still blinking, through the gate, compelling all the panicked, shrieking soldiers to flee, Alex tossing the remains of his kills a half second later, before closing the gate and taking a deep, ragged breath, gazing down at a half-dozen blood-spattered girls who strangely enough, looked as terrified of him as they had the soldiers who had captured them.

Alex cleared his throat. “Are you alright?” he said, pretending they weren’t all covered in blood.

“Of course they’re not alright,” snapped Lady Chun An as she immediately rushed in to gather a sobbing girl in her arms. “You just butchered a half dozen men before their eyes, and they’re covered with their captors’ blood!”

Alex winced. “I mean, yeah. There is that, I guess.”

A dry chuckle permeated the air as Elder Ru made himself known, giving Alex a strangely fond clap on his shoulders. “A rather impressive feat, I think. And if my senses do not deceive me, the boy has actually broken through to Silver!”

Chun An rolled her eyes. “Of course he did, Grandfather. How could he not blossom in the crucible of conflict we all find ourselves in? We’re lucky even to be alive.”

The elder nodded. “And no one profits from catastrophic change quite so well as the fox. Assuming he survives the transition, of course.”

And before Alex could respond to that, Su Xiao raced in, hand on the hilt of his changdao, the deadly kitsune speed cultivator glaring at the room as a whole, most particularly Alex. “Room covered in blood, bodies nowhere to be found. Why am I not surprised to see you at the heart of it?”

Alex smirked. “Funny how that happens, isn’t it?”

At which point the giant inspector Zha Shi came in a second later, hard professional glare easing to a satisfied smile as he quietly took in the room. “Our enemies fled or dead, and the young recruit here managed to do it without losing a single friendly. Glare all you like, Su Xiao, but I think the boy here would make a fine inspector.”

“Killer, you mean.”

“That too.”

Zha Shi gave Alex his patented good cop grin. “Mind telling us exactly what happened here, Alex?”

Alex met the inspector’s gaze, not giving an inch. “Not much to tell. Su Xiao did a good job of distracting them and riling them up. All their attention was focused on the corridor and the girl they were about to violate and mutilate. None of them were expecting the back wall to disappear, and by the time they looked up and turned around, a half dozen of them had already lost their head.”

Alex squeezed the shaft of his bloodsoaked weapon with fierce satisfaction. “One of the advantages of Silver tier speed, and being strong enough to flick this around like the lightest of jians, is that you can do a lot in the seconds an opponent is caught off guard. And if there’s one thing fangtian ji’s are good at, it’s dismemberment. Then it was just a matter of giving them a way out before any crazy last-stand ideas popped in their heads, since the ones I left alive were the ones with girls in their hands.” Alex shrugged. “They ran like the cowards they are. And since they left the girls, they get to live. At least for another hour or so.”

Su Xiao scowled. “Bloodthirsty.”

Zha Shi’s grin grew. “I don’t know… I kind of like him.”

Alex held the irate Su Xiao’s gaze for long seconds. “I found Zhu Bi.”

With those words, the kitsune’s bitter glower turned to an expression of desperate hope. “Is she...”

Alex swallowed. “She’s alive. But barely, Zha Shi. I did all I could but...” Alex clenched his fists, his gut roiling with dread. “Dong Xiao is treating her now. He wanted space, so I’ll give him all the space in the world.”

Su Xiao gazed at Alex for long moments, ire instantly fading, his countenance showing a vulnerability, and gratitude, Alex had never expected to see, before the inspector bowed his head. “You have my gratitude, Alex Hammer.”

Alex smiled. “She’s like a little sister to me,” he confessed, and it was true. In all the world and a sea of all too often haunting memories, Zhu Bi was the only relative he had found in this life, now forced to accept that she was far more precious to him when he had been holding her tenderly in his arms, eating her pain for an entire night before the gate between worlds could be safely opened once more. Holding her as preciously as his twin sisters he had never been able to save from a drunk driver, a lifetime ago. He would have gone to hell and back if he had been anything but a broken fifteen year old at the time of their death. Now, though… now he had the strength to fight for those he loved, and he would not shirk from facing down any foe that would think to tear them free of his life once more.

Su Xiao looked pointedly at Alex’s clenched, trembling fist upon the shaft of his polearm. Had he not infused the power of a spirit beast into making it indestructible, it would have surely snapped under his grip. “Is it true?”

Three words that hung in the air as Yinzi and Hao Chan slipped in the room, each of them comforting a sobbing girl, as others came and led the survivors away.

Alex sighed and nodded. “I think… I think maybe it is.”

Zha Shi smiled, eyes twinkling with barely concealed mirth. “Well there you have it, kung fu brother. A new ancestor for you to honor and revere. I can just imagine you praying before your aunty’s shrine. ‘Dear ancient elder, I pray you will forgive this cub his flaws and give me guidance in the days ahead. Just please spare my jaw this time around. It’s still clicking from the last time I mouthed off, revered elder.’”

Su Xiao’s gazed turned flinty. “Not funny, Zha.”

Alex smirked. “Actually it’s hilarious. And if you ever want to learn the trick of healing well enough that your jaw never clicks no matter how good you get socked… I’d be happy to teach you. Cub.”

Zha Shi roared with laughter at that, and even Alex couldn’t help grinning at the glare Su Xiao gave both of them, before the kitsune’s gaze grew thoughtful. “Can you really teach me that?”

Alex nodded. “I can teach both of you. And I’m pretty sure you can at least learn the basics without it interfering with any of your body cultivation techniques. Best of all, there’s a perfect copy of the cultivation manual holding all my secrets in this very library. But if you’re interested in learning the secrets of immortality and the deeper mysteries of my art, you’re going to have to put certain disciplines aside.”

The room suddenly grew quiet as the pair’s bemused expressions froze. Alex winced inside, only then recalling how sharp most cultivator’s ears truly were, and that, comforting aside, very few had left the chambers as Elder Ru and his granddaughter interviewed them.

“Alex?”

He turned to the classmate who had spoken, smiling as a half dozen emotions flickered across her face. Fear, gratitude, distaste and awe just a few of them. “Yes, BiBi?”

She grimaced and lowered her gaze. “I know we don’t exactly see eye to eye...”

“And I did sort of splash you with your captor’s blood.”

“Bastard had it coming,” she said with sudden heat.

Alex nodded. “That he did.”

She bit her lip, gazing up at him, pretty despite her bruises and the blood spattered across her cheeks. “Is it true?”

Alex smirked. “Is what true?”

Her gaze hardened. “Alex...”

“Yes. It is.”

She blinked. “So you really are a—“

Alex moved so fast she didn’t even have a chance to blink, before his finger touched her lips. “Let’s not even go there. Okay, Bibi?”

She paled and swallowed, quickly jerking a nod.

Alex smiled and stepped back. “Of course, you’re more than welcome to check out whatever book you like at the library. Whatever helps your cultivation base.”

“So long as we approve it,” Lady Chun An, who wasn’t even looking his way as she wiped the blood off a trembling girl’s cheeks, snapped. “Our lovely ‘host’ has a lot more than your standard Bronze tomes in his library. And for all that some of them might give you wondrous insights, having somehow transported the entire collection of restricted tomes into his collection complicates things considerably.”

Bibi paled and bowed. “Of course, Lady Chun An.”

Elder Ru chuckled softly, but the querry he sent Alex’s way went unheard as panic roared through his soul.

“Child of the Heavens, please come at once!”