Tolo opened a draw in his desk but paused at Felix’s question. He glanced at Daiyu and she gave a nod in return.

“Well… young master. I am but a humble merchant.” Said Tolo, pulling out a stack of papers. “Who also happens to have a close working relationship with the Onooka Clan. You could almost say I am a liaison for the Onooka Clan and their needs in the area.”

“These needs are...?” Said Felix.

“Oh, why whatever the great and powerful Onooka need, for I am forever their humble servant.” Said Tolo. “Which refines down to providing local information.”

“Wouldn’t the Clear Sky Sect be more adequate if they need information?”

“Young Master, even a normal clan needs to be able to obtain information through their own means. Information alone is almost a magic itself and to allow others to control it completely, well, it is not wise.”

I can see that. I bet most sects of any influence have similar arrangements. Thought Felix. He took a glance at Daiyu. And I bet controlling who knows what you know is extra important for assassins.

“I can certainly see the benefit of such an arrangement. Now, I really can’t help but wonder if I should be here.”

Tolo opened his mouth but then he closed it. He sent another look at Daiyu who took out her chalkboard.

“Felix and his sect have made some overtures with our clan that is more than other members of the Martial Alliance.” Wrote Daiyu. “Felix, in particular, has rendered a great service to our Sect and this small show of trust is allowable. Tolo, I would expect you to still be circumspect of other Alliance members and even Thousand Season Sect members who we have not certified.”

“Of course, Young Miss, I understand. Now, what information do you need?”

“A general report of the area first, as usual.” Wrote Daiyu. “We need to understand what we are getting into. For one, we encountered bandits on the way here that seemed a little out of place. I want to know why. Finally, we are here to investigate the state of the Endless Wilderness. That being our primary objective, I want you to focus on that.”

“Well, I have the normal report here Young Miss,” Said Tolo. He took a few of the papers from his stack and handed them over. “The three local families pretty much control the City and are only cowed by the City Lord himself. Normally he barely has anything to do but tensions have been unusually high and recently he has been mostly putting out fires. Most industries have operated under local guilds, except us merchants of course. The details of various ongoings are listed in that report as well as who has the most influence currently in each faction.”

Felix glanced through the paper over Daiyu’s shoulder and raised his eyebrow at some of the more sordid dealings listed on the paper.

Man, some of these people get around! I wonder if they know their exploits are known. I bet they wouldn’t be happy.

“That is just the tip of the titan.” Said Tolo, giving Felix a knowing look. “I haven’t heard anything about this bandit yet, though I am sure I will soon. It truly has been a strange time with issues cropping up all over. As for the Endless Wilderness, nothing of note has occurred but I will send out tendrils immediately and see what I can find. Perhaps there is something that has been overlooked.”

“You said there are unusually high tensions going on.” Said Felix, glancing back at the report in Daiyu’s hands. “Yet I see nothing here that would indicate that.”

“I am not sure either, young master.” Said Tolo. “In fact, it is the intensity of any recent incident but the number of them that have me concerned. Take the bandits you’ve encountered. Such things occur but their frequency has more than tripled in the last month. One of my informants believes he has a lead on the matter and in fact he should be contacting me soon.”

“Well,” wrote Daiyu, “This is very helpful, but we actually have another matter that you could help us with. We have some things to offload and some of my companions may be interested in purchasing some of your wares. Though our other two companions should remain ignorant of my sect’s arrangement. Please just say you are a friend of a family member if they question our relationship.”

“Of course, young miss.” Said Tolo, his chest puffing out. He turned to Felix. “Don’t you worry young Master, I have some of the finest wares you will find in the city. Now, wha-

The door slammed open, a harried-looking attendant rushing in.

“Master Tolo, I-“ He paused as he spotted the two guests. “Excuse me, I didn’t realize you were entertaining guests. Forgive my rudeness.”

“Out with it boy.” Said Tolo. “You may speak freely.”

“Our man was spotted at the outer district in the slums. I am not sure why he didn’t come to the drop point, but do you want one of us to go get him.”

Tolo’s fist slammed on the table and Felix jumped as the floor shook. His face turned red but he paused as Daiyu rapped on her board.

“Master Tolo, is this perhaps the informant that you believe had a lead?” Wrote Daiyu. “Felix and I shall go retrieve him.”

“That is completely unnecessary Young Miss.” Said Tolo, his anger gone in a flash. “I am ashamed to say but my man once suffered from… a pill problem. I thought he had gotten past it but if he is in the slums, well it seems my trust was misplaced yet again. Just stay here and enjoy some food brought by my attendant. I will deal with him personally.”

“No, that is alright.” Wrote Daiyu, rising from her seat. “Felix and I will go investigate. Give me a description and we will find him easily enough.”

Tolo hesitated but nodded slowly.

----Break----

Xue stood on the roof of Tolo’s building as Felix and watched Felix and Daiyu leave.

To help or not, that is the question… No… as long as I trim the thorns, he should be fine. Elder Shen was right, he does need to know what actual combat is like. The blood…

She took a step, her invisible form moving to a higher vantage point of the spire on a talisman workshop. Her eyes spotted a man who began tailing them, hidden from even Daiyu’s senses.

An essence condenser is following them now. The look on his face, his movements… They aren’t just planning to gather information then? What a lucky little merchant that Tolo is. If these two hadn’t shown up, he would die today. Well, it will be good to see what the little heiress can do.

Xue flitted across the rooftops after the pair as they went further and further to the edge of town. Halfway there, she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as a red-faced Yang Mei and Cixi met them. To her core realm senses, they reeked of heavy perfume.

I will have to figure out where they picked that up. I know I’ve smelled it before, but I can’t place it.

The four below her stopped to talk before they continued together. She followed them till the buildings began to show the poverty of the area. Then her head snapped toward a window across the street from the alley their group was entering. The slightest of frowns touched her lips and she moved again.

Her steps took her silently into another window of the room and she stopped to stare at a man watching the four below. On the street, his clothing would signify him as a rogue cultivator. The peak essence condensing cultivation she could now detect made that slightly unusual.

This really is overkill to take out one merchant. Who is this group and what set them off? Such organizations should be more willing to cut their tail. What could possible…

The man began to walk toward the window, his stride turning smoke like, but then he halted mid-step. He spun, a blade out with its edges aflame.

“Reveal yourself,” said the man.

His eyes tried to find what set him off but Xue remained hidden from his view. She watched on dispassionately.

Sharp senses as well. I better keep this quiet so as not to disturb those below. Annoying.

Then she moved, brushing the man’s blade aside to appear right before him. His form seemed to turn to smoke but then his panic movements stopped. Xue was now at his back, holding him aloft by the neck and her other hand plunged into his dantian. Not a drop of blood splattered from the frozen wound. Then she retracted her arm and the bloodsicles that clung to her white hand fell to fill the room with tinkling sounds.

Casually, she spun the man to face her and saw the despair in his eyes. It was soon masked by endless hatred.

It doesn’t look like I’ll get much from him. Maybe I should have… Well, not like I have time for this. I need to protect Felix.

She whipped her arm, breaking the man’s spine. She stored the corpse and paused only a moment to inspect the man’s belongings.

What’s this? Orders to deal with the merchant? Like I thought.

She blinked and then stored the letters as well as the rest of the man’s belongings. Her eyes scanned the rest of the room before she picked the still frozen blood crystals from the floor and stored them as well. Then she was gone.

----Break----

Felix and the three girls finally spotted the man Tolo had described in a place that was far past the point of being a slum. The man stood down an alleyway between two rather large but clearly abandoned buildings. His breathing was labored yet as soon they entered the alley, he looked up, his face covered in fear.

Something is wrong here. Holy shit, that’s blood on his clothes.

Then the man turned and fled.

Yep.

“Do we chase him?” Said Yang Mei.

“I’m not sure.” Said Felix. He looked at Daiyu but she seemed distracted and ignored the man completely.

“He certainly doesn’t look like he wants to talk to us.” Said Yang Mei. “I admit, I don’t know the best way to collect information but maybe we can go ask some local informant instead of chasing down people. Maybe the city guards?”

“I sincerely doubt that the city guards would help us where the city officials failed.” Said Cixi. “They surely have a better information network than our muddling attempts. So, if they can’t or won’t help us, I don’t see us having much of a chance.”

“No offense Cixi,” said Yang Mei. “but the people at the top don’t know everything from my experience. Merchants and city lords include. The assassination of the Kingdom’s royal family should be evidence enough of that.”

“Well, obviously they can’t be aware of all evil people else they would kill them.” Snapped Cixi.

“Oh, please.” Said Yang Mei, “You can’t be that naïve.”

“What do you mean naïve? Just because someone doesn’t bend over backward at every issue or injustice doesn’t mean they are not trying.” Said Cixi.

“Sounds like self-justification to me. I don’t care about their thoughts but their actions. When is the last time that anyone ever made a real effort to help those at the bottom above their own interest?”

“It isn’t as simple as you make it out to be. The maintenance of power alone engenders a large application of power to maintain it. Even in the scenario where you have a monopoly on power, for example, the support of an individual of disproportionate strength to other cultivators, you still have numerous cultural and economic forces to navigate. People don’t just fall in line.”

“… you lost me at engenders. What does that mean?”

Before the now red-faced Cixi could open her mouth, Daiyu raised a hand in warning. The two girls stopped and watched her move the hand to her mask in a gesture of silence. They shared an incredulous look and Felix sent Daiyu a raised eyebrow in question. Daiyu signed for silence again and strode to the wall on one side of the alley. She put her ear to it.

What is she listening to? We’ve somehow come to one of the quieter places in the city. The building is obviously abandoned and I can’t even hear anything. Though maybe at her level you start noticing even an insect. Man, that would get annoying. I mean, that’s not going to stop me from gaining god damn superpowers.

Daiyu blurred, retreating two meters from the wall in absolute silence. They followed her movements to find her standing in a sword stance, her sword pulled back in a two-handed grip with the tip pointed where her ear had been. Then she lunged. The distance evaporated and her sword sunk into the solid stone wall without even making a sound. The other three flinched as they heard a gurgling sound through the wall.

Daiyu stepped back and pulled her sword out easily. The tightness of the cut wiped the sword bare except for the tip that glistened with fresh blood.

Holy shit, she just killed some innocent squatter! I should have known after the bandits she was crazy.

Then the walls to the left and right of the blood slicked hole broke apart as two figures burst through. The one to the left made the hole with his body, crushed rock still visible on his bear-like proportions. The other figure was bare but the smoldering debris and his smoking dao sword showed his means of egress. He directed a furious look toward the hole.

“You little shits-“said the man

Then Daiyu was upon the swordsman. His rage-filled look changed to curses and his sword lit with flames. It sputtered as Daiyu neared, both of their blades becoming blurs, filling the alley with the sound of clashing metal.

Felix tried to ignore all that as a bear-sized man strode toward them. The man paused to stare at the bloody hole, his expression flickered between rage and apprehension. His eyes transfixed as blood began to dribble down the wall. Felix, Yang Mei, and Cixi spread out even as the man took a step back.

“Xuel, You asshole! They are only essence gathering and she’s a damn Onooka. Get your sorry ass over here and help me kill this bitch!” said the swordsmen, falling silent as he had to dodge another of Daiyu’s sword strikes that seemed to bend around his own sword. The man backed up, one hand clutching his now bleeding neck as he still fought. “Move, you muscle brained idiot!”

Xuel moved but Yang Mei intercepted him, moving with a grace that belied her physique. Her foot was suddenly above the man, coming down like an axe. The man shifted to intercept the blow but he frowned as his hands made contact with her foot. His stance shifted again, on hand guiding the blow as his other reached toward her. Then Felix’s Ragnorok strike hit the man’s neck from behind.

The man almost collapsed to one knee. He tried to stand to attack Yang Mei again but then his hands shot out to the sides. They grasped the flaming chakras Cixi had just sent at him, muscle tensing as he crushed them into clouds of sparks.

Before he could recover, he was again assaulted by another axe-like kick aimed at his head. He diverted Yang Mei again with similar ease, yet she flowed with his redirection, an elbow strike slamming into the man’s solar plexus. Both of their faces snarled in pain as her elbow clashed with a weak point of a higher rank body cultivator. His recovery and reaction were still faster and only another attack by Cixi prevented him from responding.

What am I doing? Multitask man!

Felix desperately tried to keep preparing the second Ragnorok strike and forced himself into motion. His form flowed around the fight with [Shifting Sands], his sword out. As the man twisted with another of Yang Mei’s blows, Felix moved in. He was at the man’s back a moment later, feet planted as firmly as possible with [Heaven’s Fulcrum] and his body screamed as he activated a simple horizontal chop using [Sword of the Titan].

Oh Shit!

The man spun further with Yang Mei’s previous blow, tossing her into a wall even as he turned to face Felix. The powerful chop was met with both hands. Felix’s groaned as he felt his bones creak even as [Heaven’s fulcrum] and [Roots of the Earth] caused the stone floor beneath them to shatter.

The unexpected force behind Felix’s blow barely hurt the man yet it ruined his battle flow, and he was unable to block Cixi’s next wave of fire rings reaching his eyes. Then Yang Mei’s heel landed on Xuel's shoulder, bringing him to his knees, followed by Felix’s second Ragnarök crashing down on the kneeling man’s head. The force caused blood to flow and pushed him face-first into the ground.

They all moved in to take advantage, but Felix was there first, his foot landing almost gentle on the back of the man’s head. Then he activated [Seismic Step]. The man twitched as his face and the stone beneath it both gave a little. Yet the man named Xuel still tried to move. So, Felix activated it again and again.

The man’s attempts to rise were prevented as both Yang Mei’ and Cixi bashed him down and undermined his movements. Then the man’s skull finally gave way, adding bone and brain matter to the growing pool of blood.

Felix froze and stared down at the corpse, his foot literally inside the dead man’s head.

A human skull shouldn’t… oh god that’s my first kill… Ow.

Felix blinked, the pain echoing through his bones finally registering. He absently pulled his foot out of the mess and tried not to wince at the wet suction sound. He couldn’t help massaging his foot that felt like it was barely held together, the pain making the gore that still stuck to his foot seem unimportant.

Fucking body cultivators. My body really wasn’t meant to take that kind of strain yet.

Still standing on one foot, he looked down the alley to see the other fight had ended. The swordsman was disarmed, almost literally, with his hand still holding his dao sword thrown several meters away. The end of Daiyu’s sword was parked at the man’s throat, her arm cocked to move at a moment’s notice.

Felix gingerly set down his foot and couldn’t help but flinch as he put pressure on it. He exchanged looks with the other girls.

Wow, Yang Mei looks worse than me. I didn’t even know bruises could turn that color. They exchanged blows so fast. Cixi just looks… introspective? Damn, she’s handling this better than me. Shut up voices!

He took a shuddering breath and limped toward their new prisoner. He stopped a few feet away and meet Daiyu’s eyes, at least Felix assumed he had.

Damn mask!

“So, Daiyu. Did you spare him for questioning?” said Felix.

She nodded and tilted her head at her other arm. He realized it lay limp at her side.

Broken? Well, she can’t write and hold him prisoner, I guess. Is that blood dripping from her fingers?

“Are you going to be alright while I ask?”

She returned that now-familiar cock of her head and a slow nod.

“Well, that’s something at least.” Said Felix. He faced their captive. “I guess I’ll be asking the questions then. Why did you attack us?”

“Attacked you?” Said the man, a grimace on his face. “Didn’t you attack us first?”

“Fair enough,” said Felix. “But you were following us with a superior force. Not really hard to put two and two together.

“What can I say, the city lord wanted to know what you four were doing?”

Uh oh. We need to leave. Thought Felix, backing up a few steps.

“Don’t believe him Felix.” Said Cixi, finally walking over to join them. “If he really worked for the City Lord, we would have city forces coming down on us by now. If the City Lord did this so he could have plausible deniability, then the men he would have chosen wouldn’t be the ones who could betray him like this. In fact, his techniques are ones that are more common to the Empire. Though that doesn’t make any sense.”

The man shrugged.

“Impressive. I truly can’t hide from your eyes', fairy. Yes, we know some techniques from the Empire, but we actually work for the Kingdom.”

“No, they don’t. He doesn’t at least.” Said Cixi. They all looked toward her, as the man’s surprised expression showed the truth of his statement. “Trust me, he doesn’t. It seems he really does work for the Empire if that last vain attempt of misdirection was anything to go by. Impressive resolve to keep up that charade.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait, why is he so calm… He has reinforcements of some kind.”

“Don’t worry.” Said the man, anger bleeding into his voice. “IF you four surrender now, my superior will be more merciful. He’ll want to capture you alive after all. Don’t think you can escape, he is only a step from reaching the Core realm. You won’t be able to overwhelm him like you did that idiot Xuel.”

“You do realize that if he is so strong and hasn’t shown up yet, then he is likely not coming.” Said Felix.

The man paled, then he tried to move backward. His body stopped midway, jerking as Daiyu’s sword pierced his spine. Then her sword slashed out the side of his neck and his nearly headless corpse fell to the floor.