"An end to illusion..." Ebon Dirge shook his head as he looked down at the boy's corpse. "He was determined to be an annoying bastard to the very last, wasn't he."

The ancient devil could not help but think he missed something important in the stream of babble that accompanied River's demise. While the screed sounded like baseless drivel, it wasn't a likely coincidence that the boy had chosen the number seven to fixate on. He knew what memories the kid had pilfered, and he had nipped that back door before that seven-pointed crown had turned up.

Additionally, there was one very compelling reason for Dirge to take some stock in the kid's insane mutterings: his constructed image of Mister Black, the kindly old man with a flowing white beard, had been dispelled by force. The devil did not transform back to his true form of his own volition; the kid had broken the spell with his own comprehension, somehow.

That event, coupled with the brat's final words of an end to illusion, made him believe more was going on here. The prospect was exciting.

Dirge sighed as he examined the boy's corpse. A new Sanguine-thread Lotus, eight-petaled and fleshy, had sprouted from River's chest. The seed had been there in his heart, dormant since the day it was embedded there in the flesh. This was the devil's first bit of insurance. The seed could have been triggered at any point he felt like moving on, as it was now.

Had the boy grown strong enough, it would have become an opportunity, a tonic. This was the double-edge of its implantation, one meant to infiltrate past whatever defenses destiny might employ and test the result. Nothing had stopped Dirge from triggering its growth in the end, so it appeared such a tainted gift could be useful if calculated in advance.

Above the devil's head, a large black book appeared. The Codex of Sin. The cover cracked open a hair's breadth and sucked two pages -- one black and one red -- from the boy's body. This had been the second assurance Dirge had invoked: those pages were manifestations of the laws of a Paragon. They gave the boy the ability to manipulate magical forces well before he had entered Meridian Opening and empowered those magics. Without them, most of the techniques that were imparted would not have been so easily invoked.

Those pages did not belong to River, though, and represented powers of cultivation beyond this plane, not only beyond him. Even most Divine experts wouldn't be able to force the pages to do something Dirge did not want. If the situation were to backfire, they would cause untold destruction... and trigger another contingency the devil had arranged even before his imprisonment.

The devil that was here now wouldn't exist anymore, but another Ebon Dirge would awaken in another plane and know that meddling with destiny was too dangerous a path.

That contingency might still be necessary. Dirge made a grasping gesture in the corpse's direction and the boy's soul flew out as a tendril of red mist that the devil inhaled through his nose and mouth. The plethora of souls from the massacre at the Dragon's Den had restored his to stability after painstaking and length refinement, but this was the finishing touch and the moment where this first experiment reached its final test.

Inside Dirge's sea of consciousness, a flame sprouted. It was real yet unreal, flickering between substance and illusion as it hovered there in the dark. The devil delicately wove a strand of divine sense to probe it.

Time froze, and a vision emerged, sapped of all color. Dirge was now there at the beginning, looking down at a beaten boy crawling through the grass. The devil could not move because he did not exist, relegated to the role of an observer. Was this a glimpse of how things would have gone without his interference?

The bandit thugs left the crawling boy behind. With great effort, he made it to the pond and the lotus, where he grasped the plant and it twisted and contorted, willingly joining with River's flesh.

What was this? There had been no careful conversion of power, no external force guiding the energy into the boy. The lotus had given itself to the kid this time.

Dirge was curious, but the vision was not accommodating. He could use none of his own methods to see the details, seemingly limited to the perception of a mere mortal as he was locked in the vision.

The scene blurred for a moment, time leaping forward to the return of the bandits. The boy had another round of fisticuffs with the men and, now stronger than them, triumphed. The men yielded, and one brought out a pot of healing salve. They explained that they had been worried they'd been too rough with him before and had picked it up before returning.

Although River's distaste and resentment for the Dragon's Den had not vanished, there was a certain comedy in the situation when the fresh bottle of salve they had brought for them had, in turn, been something they needed to use. The two men -- couriers who visited the region often who did not operate out of the local base -- made fast friends with the kid and gave him some pointers. They also tried to convince him that their boss wasn't all that bad a guy.

River didn't give up on his grudge, but he did decide to give the men a chance to prove themselves. Before long they had to leave, off to another delivery, but they promised to return and make good on their claims.

River returned to the clan. Taking inspiration from his experience with the bandits, he practiced the moves they had shown him in his yard. Elder Cloud just so happened to walk by as he did this, and the old warrior saw this training and took a liking to the boy. He made an on-the-spot determination that he'd found a worthy successor to groom, far better than the disappointing scions of his own bloodline.

Entering the warrior camp with the Elder's own recommendation, things for River went smoothly. Although Soaring Wave remained an annoyance, Blue Ripple was instrumental in smoothing things over so River could integrate well and feel like a part of the clan.

All was well as River trained and made his first foray into the Primeval Forest, but some days after his return an incident occurred when Blue Ripple went missing. Distraught and still wary of others in the clan, he turned to the only source of outside help he could think of: the bandit couriers, who just so happened to be in town for a delivery that very day.

River's story stoked a suspicion that the couriers had, and together they made their way to the local outpost. The two bandits had delivered parcels there before, but the place was inadequate for lodging so they'd never seen the inside. This time they insisted on entering, providing a distraction while the boy snuck around and discovered the truth: Blue Ripple was held there, awaiting Elder Wave's arrival.

Together, the young men and the couriers broke free from the outpost and fled north to the Dragon's Den. Burying his grievances with some difficulty, River joined the others in making a case to Brave Dragon that the Flowing Water outpost was engaged in illicit trafficking, procuring young men and women for Elder Wave's amusement.

Brave Dragon, sensing River's thinly veiled hostility towards him and impulsive as ever, challenged the boy to an arm-wrestling match. Against all odds, River won the match, and in their conversation afterward the situation with Sweet Nectar cleared up: the girl had a unique constitution, but she was not used as a cultivation furnace. She was instead referred back to Brave Dragon's former sect as a talent to nurture. The bandit chieftain was rewarded for the referral with resources to rebuild his injured foundation, while the girl and her family were rushed out of Flowing Water to avoid any complications.

It was then that River had to own up to his overactive imagination. Besides the occasional kind smile and small talk, there was nothing between him and Sweet Nectar. The whole scenario was a daydream he indulged in to distract himself from the mundanity of his former existence.

With the misunderstanding now water under the bridge, River decided to make things up to Brave Dragon. The two swore brotherhood on the spot to the astonishment of all. Together with Blue Ripple and an entire battalion of bandits, they descended on the Flowing Water outpost and dealt with the villains running the operation there... without resorting to a massacre of the nearby town.

Upon visiting Flowing Water, Brave Dragon's bespectacled majordomo saw to the root of the corruption: Elders Wave and Pearl, whose activities had ranged across the Den's entire territory once all was uncovered. The elders were executed and their bloodlines fell into disgrace, but River felt pity for Soaring Wave.

His former tormentor, in truth, had it as bad as any. Elder Wave had turned his eye to his own nephew in the aftermath of Blue Ripple's escape. It was only through the timely arrival of the River and the others that he was spared worse. With his family disgraced and his own status destroyed, the young man was on the verge of a precipitous decision. Welcomed into the care of healthier influences, he soon recovered and would become River's number one supporter in the clan.

River approached his strange new brother Brave Dragon and made a proposal: drop the label of bandit, go legitimate, and found a warrior's school to bring prosperity to the region. Offering an alternative to the nepotistic and petty clan system, talents could emerge for them to develop together. The Primeval Forest, a cornucopia of resources ripe for the taking, could become the foundation on which everybody could grow stronger together.

It was at this point that Dirge could only shake his head. This was what the boy had been meant to do? The scenario was sickeningly saccharine, although the implications did fascinate the ancient devil. Was there always such a confluence of happenstance that turned peril into profit for those with destiny?

The scenes continued, showing the foundation of the Dragon River School. Strong River and Brave Dragon were its pillars, an odd couple to say the least. Brave Dragon told River about his former affiliation with a school outside the region. He explained how, on a mission to temper himself, his foundation had been nearly destroyed. The bandits and he had saved each other, and he became something of their mascot. His blocked route of cultivation was then reopened when the referral of Sweet Nectar had earned him the resources to mend his foundation.

With Brave Dragon's old connections, everything went more or less according to plan with the Dragon River School. The founders would soon be surpassed by the following generation, but none forgot the role they played in making it all possible.

Both men would eventually pass in their old age, assured that they had created something lasting. The next generation faced an unprecedented crisis when the Primeval Forest awoke, but with the resources at their disposal the school was able to subdue the demon and turn it into their guardian. With that kind of strength behind them, expanding beyond the Central Grasslands was no longer a fantasy. They would form bonds not only with the Balar Trading Company but with the mysterious Ascendance Academy in the distant South.

Within a millennium, the school would even produce Path Attunement experts and then... immortals who ascended to a different sky, bringing their legends and legacy with them.

It was at this point that the monochrome dreamscape burst into flames around Dirge, transforming into ashes that spun around him before splitting into two streams that flowed off into the distance. The devil could discern two recipients that the flow reached.

The first was a familiar figure: Blue Ripple, now the Swordsman Blue, roaming the deserts of the West. The man burned with the light of truth, and his cultivation had reached the Foundation Building stage. Soon, his path would lead him to return to the land of his birth, but his road extended far beyond.

The second was a young boy in the distant North. His hair was a peculiar mix of red and blond strands, while his eyes were a striking violet color. Only nine years old, he tended to his pale and sickly mother, but that life was about to change. The boy's destiny was a blazing bonfire compared to River's candle.

The last of the vision's energy then dispersed, returning Dirge to the real world. The flow of time resumed as the devil sought to make some conclusions in the unexpected vision's wake.

First of all, the Eye of Heaven's Fortune was not as informative as Dirge would have liked it to be. He had interpreted River's purpose to be the overthrow of the Dragon's Den and had done his best in furtherance of that design.

It was going to be difficult to ascertain a destiny's flow. Dirge's understanding of the situation had been colored by filtering the cacophony of thoughts and feelings River had. The boy's worst lies had been to himself, building a fantasy world where the girl Sweet Nectar had been his beloved and where Brave Dragon would have to pay for her destruction.

Dirge felt a small surge of embarrassment at the realization that he had run with the scenario at its face value. Combing the memories of the villagers of Flowing Water would have been enough to dispel that misapprehension, but he had been so preoccupied with other matters that it hadn't occurred to him to double-check. None of the clansmen whose memories he looked into had the details, but that was hardly surprising given River's status as a pariah. Overlooking the villagers who weren't clansmen, though, was an avoidable mistake.

With his soul returned to a complete if still weak form, Dirge no longer had nagging worries to distract him from such a thing. It was nonetheless a lesson. Because of his misjudgment, the entire course of what should have been had been distorted beyond recognition, so much that some force seemed to be stepping in to make corrections. That the corrections did not include him was a relief, but he should have planned better rather than coasting on luck.

But now came the next step: finding a new target. Dirge felt that Swordsman Blue and the violet-eyed boy were still more than he could handle, so he discarded the thought of pursuing either.

During the decade while he repaired his soul, Dirge had still been paying attention and had learned enough details about this world to have an idea of where he could go.

The North and West were both overseen by sects with Path Attunement experts and immortal legacies. That might still be biting off more than he could chew, and so they were out of consideration this time.

The South was a bit less developed, but it held the local branch of the Immortal Ascendance Academy. Dirge knew they existed here, as the common tongue was the same one the academy brought to every world they visited, but since the branches were usually guarded by at least one descended immortal, visiting there might be even more dangerous than the other regions.

That left the East, a disunified hodgepodge of states and sects forever locked in conflict. The cultivators were weaker there, but not as destitute as those in the Central Grasslands were. The constant warfare would no doubt present opportunities for heroes to rise, and that seemed the perfect place to tinker.

The immortal specter rose into the sky and flew off into the East, leaving behind a corpse and a bevy of terrified maidens. He did not lift a finger to aid them, for he was no saint or hero.

Besides, if any of them had the destiny to leave such a perilous situation alive and intact, he would have seen it.