Not even a moment to catch my breath, huh?

Keeping with his luck, the distant onlookers began to close in almost immediately after he finished off the last of the previous group. The two onlookers appeared a short distance away, neither moving as they sized him up with differing expressions. Both had brown hair, though the weaker girl’s was a lot shorter than her shrewd-eyed companion’s, and a lot darker.

Jason glared at the black robes that fell within his sight. Every time somebody wearing those clothes had shown up, they’d given him a headache. At the sixth level of Integration, this girl was far stronger than any of the other ones that he’d faced up until now. He didn’t like the unwavering look in her eyes, which gave the impression that she held the conviction to act upon her beliefs without hesitation.

The moment that the newcomers stopped to stare at him, he decided that he had to strike first if he wanted to win the inevitable fight. Curious how the black-robed girl would react, he conjured a Life-Severing Spear about two metres long and hurled it between the two. The ground imploded in a roughly circular shape, which left crushed earth in a waist-deep pit with a diameter of nearly twenty metres.

Just as he’d figured, the stronger of the two was forced to avoid the attack, which she did after grabbing hold of her companion. The counterattack was immediate. A scarlet snake came to life on each of the inner court disciple’s arms, as the short-haired girl pounced forward with nervous yet determined eyes. She didn’t get far, however, as her companion surprised everyone present by conjuring a large hand of dark red energy and abruptly slicing her in half at the waist.

What the…?

Jason gave the girl a wary look. “Why kill your friend?”

“To get your attention.”

Typical.

“So that’s why you saved her from my attack.” He summoned another spear of crimson energy above his upraised hand. “A scumbag move, just as I’d expect from one of you psychos.” He threw it at her, an intimidating flash of light.

She blocked it with another large hand formed of dense inner essence, which faded away amidst the windstorm that the impact brought on.

“I do not wish to fight!”

“That’s what a lot of your buddies have been saying, but that’s only because they couldn’t beat me, right? Aren’t you the same?”

She tried to convince him otherwise, but he wasn’t a moron. It was more likely that she was scheming to kill him, than just trying to talk.

He ordered Brud to hurl his last two barrels, and readied himself for a perilous fight. He wasn’t dying today, and he wasn’t falling for this girl’s tricks.

Time to see how strong I really am.

Later that night, Jason lay awake in his bundle of blankets as he stared up at the leaves of the surrounding trees. He couldn’t stop thinking about the girl from earlier, the one he’d nearly fought to the death. According to her, she was one of the highest ranking disciples in the entire sect. Unlike most of her peers, she wasn’t born and raised there, but had been kidnapped from her home village after it was destroyed by the sect.

Her hatred for her own organization was real, that much he could tell. After playing mind games with ancient cultivators in that hellish pocket-dimension, spotting genuine emotion in a fifteen-year-old girl wasn’t outside of his capabilities.

Sersa. What kind of life have you led?

Aside from Actius and the chained woman, he’d hardly interacted with anybody but Brud in the past several months, and that was only recently. The deceitful boy was a scumbag through and through, so their conversations tended to be one-sided directions, short and to the point.

Did I seriously enjoy that talk?

He sighed as he recalled the agreement that they’d come to. She disclosed the locations of hundreds of camps and a couple of ‘war parties,’ which was the apparent term for an army of the sect. She was in charge of capturing him, and promised to override any productive suggestions from her subordinates in the area in order to prevent his capture. She wouldn’t be able to cooperate with him for long, just up until her superior returned to the area, though she promised to warn him of the great elder’s return in advance so that he wouldn’t die under the thumb of a Genesis-staged cultivator.

I can’t deal with someone like that. His fight with Sersa had shown him the extent of his capabilities. Let alone the Genesis stage, anybody above the seventh level of Integration could pose a serious threat to him.

I need to get stronger. He looked over at his unwilling companion. Brud had passed out from exhaustion and stress within minutes of settling down for the night. I guess I’ll have to strengthen him up a bit too. He thought about the map in his spatial bag, all of the marked spots where he would hunt in the coming days. With so many disciples in the area, it wouldn’t be a problem to see Brud progress up to the later levels of Profound Entry within just a few weeks.

Ten thousand. That was the number of outer court disciples Jason figured it would take for him to reach the Integration stage. Depending on how many inner court and core disciples he managed to refine, he could lower that number to three, maybe four thousand. At that point, he’d most likely be able to take on a cultivator at the first level of the Genesis stage.

Thinking about how much work lay ahead of him, he slowly drifted off into a comfortable sleep.

Andrus failed to hold in a grimace as he slipped through the back door to the Staggered Feline, a small ale house in an out of the way district of Neo-Nia, the most renowned and revered city in all the world.

This was a place that he’d normally never visit, not with the obnoxious clamour that poured out from the building’s cracked windows and the handful of scantily clad women that boldly partitioned passersby to patronize their establishment. Even if it was located in one of the lesser districts, the streets were still teeming with thousands of people, with dozens of silhouettes flashing throughout the city skyline. Still, this was no place for someone of his status.

He was a direct disciple of Lord Halvin, leader of the Blackstar Sect and Overseer of the Winterlands. His master was by far the most powerful person on Nia. Andrus wasn’t an ordinary person, and so had to maintain a noble, almost regal image in front of the public, at least that’s what he strove to do. The Staggered Feline was a lowly place where the city’s rabble gathered, one unfit to host five of the most influential people of the time.

He ignored the serving girl that let him in with averted eyes and an astonished, stuttered greeting. Though she was only a few years younger than him, her cultivation was merely at the later levels of the Genesis stage, a rarity in most major cities, let alone this one.

Why does it have to be here?

He rushed through the clamorous kitchens and into a great hall, though nobody noticed thanks to the concealment arrayment that he’d cast on the way in. At least that’s what should have happened. Instead, his arrayment was cancelled out by another that he hadn’t noticed, and every eye turned in his direction the moment that he strode into the room.

The raucous environment stilled like leaves in the wake of a sudden gale. Naked dancers rushed to regain their modesty, as the men stopped tossing spirit coins at their feet. Everyone knelt down and kept their eyes glued to the floor, their voices sounding in near unison with the customary call.

“Praise Master Andrus.”

He spoke up after an awkward pause. “Tell no one that you’ve seen me here.”

He waved them off and took an empowered step, which brought him to the other end of the room in an instant.

Actius… He subdued his rage on account of the occasion. As if summoned by his thoughts, his cousin’s voice rang throughout his mind, clear as day.

I told you. No arrayments in here.

He hurried down a winding staircase of yellow stone.

But you can?

Just so that everyone elses’ are cancelled out. We can’t have any unwanted guests showing up to ruin big day, can we?

Andrus ended the mental link as he arrived at the end of the long, dingy hallway that the stairs had led to, which was lit with torchlight rather than spirit stones.

Staring at the simple oaken door before him, he suppressed a smirk lest Actius sense it from the next room over.

He’d already told their master that Actius and Dana planned to marry in secret, which was one of the things that they had sworn off on doing when they had first become disciples of the Blackstar Sect. Gifted as Actius was, nobody could prevent their master from finding who he wished, going where he pleased, or doing as he saw fit. Based on the expression that the serene old man had worn upon hearing the news, Andrus wouldn’t be surprised if the old man suddenly appeared at a crucial moment in the ceremony to prevent the union.

He’d better come. It wouldn’t reflect well upon the sect if its disciples openly broke one of its known rules.

He opened the door and walked into a disgracefully plain room where the walls, floor, and ceiling shared the same cheap, grainy wood. There was nothing inside save for the people that he was closest to.

“I thought you were going to stay outside forever,” Actius remarked as he fixed a wrinkle in the folds of Dana’s robe. They both wore ordinary garments of low-quality cotton.

“Why did you insist on such a basic ceremony? Even peasants would look down on this.”

“We can’t afford to let Master find out,” said Dana, who flashed a perfect smile and spoke as if asking a favour. “I know you’ve never been one for simplicity, but I hope you can put up with it for just a bit.”

His face went lax. “I’m here, aren’t I?”