Pef missed his glove. This was a fact, and an understatement of highest grade. Some advice would have been really helpful, right now.

'Violence is always the answer, right?' he hummed inward when confronted with a proverbial Gordian knot of moral values.

For this small world he was supposed to solve eluded his solutions, for a simple yet effective reason. People were hard to change, institutions even more so, especially in a short time frame. And the problems didn't end here.

"We have 81 slaves of finest quality here, pure virgins brought from the far reaches of the Aether Isles!" the merchant yelled, praising his merchandise, a group of teenagers bound with adamantium chains, their faces filled with dried tears and empty eyes.

"The Sacred Tetrarchy claims preemptive rights! These 81 virgin hearts will fuel the Demon Blood Seal for another decade." a Sacrifice Priest from the Tetrarchy demanded, while waving his skull-scepter mencingly.

People in the market drew back, as to avoid angering the Sacred priest.

"The Metacount Breeze disputes the claim! This fresh blood should be rightfully attributed for the worship of the mighty Wind Gods! A new blessing would ensure constant winds for a decade and thus increase trade value for the entire continent." another personage shouted, waving his large feathered scepter. The Breeze represented the major consortiums and trade companies in the world, and were not a small force at all.

Pef almost snorted at the last claim. The Four Winds would not bless anyone here, being rather incapacitated right now. Trade was highly dependent on favorable wind currents linking the disparate floating islands though. As for the other claim...

He already had 2 Void clones keeping watch on the Tetrarchy Citadel and their quite real Demon Seal. He couldn't be certain what exactly was sealed inside that imprisoning array, but seeing that virgin sacrifices were truly required to keep the seal strong, it didn't bode well.

Inside this dantian, the three remaining advisors didn't offer much help.

'Break the seal, and just kill whatever comes out!' the Heart Ruler argued in simple terms.

'Rebuild and control the Prison Seal yourself.' Icefire said with confidence.

'Think twice before you break the balance.' the Parasol Seed added in the least helpful words.

With a sigh, Pef sent a Void clone to break the chains and free the slaves, simply because he could. In a second, the freed slaved were already returned to their homes, with an adamantium sword in hand and a mortal sword method in their minds. Once these people reached the third Sword Unity or even the second, nobody in this world would be able to enslave them again.

'This is the Way' he muttered in a low voice, already acting to implement the decision, and willing to bear the consequences.

Stepping beside the Demon Seal, he began subsuming the Formations of the Seal, one array after another. Exactly 81000 arrays later, the Seal was decoupled from the control of the Tetrarchy and contracted inside his palm.

Not surprinsigly, the Seal assumed the shape of a grinning skull, the size of an orange, folded over thousands of times in different layers and dimensions.

'And now for my peace of mind, let's sneak a peak inside.' Pef said softly, gently adding another array to glance inside the prison.

A field of bleached bones and broken weapons showed up in Pef's mind, and a second later a black ghostly creature took shape in this field, looking like a 6-armed man with a broken horn in the middle of his forehead.

'A Primordial Fiend!' he realized with a start, instantly linking the missing horn with the one he had looted from the Imperial Vault.

"What do you want?" the creature asked in a wailing voice, sounding rather desperate.

"Cooking or Wine Dao insights mostly. Tea Dao in the second tier. Formation Dao thirdly..." Pef answered after a second of thought.

The Fiend managed to lose his fierce composure for a moment, before starting to laugh in painful coughs. "From the oldest days of my capture in this helllish prison, I've never met someone like you, child. As for your wants... Not the deepest secrets of Creation, not even enhancing your bloodline or conquering the heavens?"

Pef blinked, then shook his head. Would asking for such things really work? Perhaps minutely, if the North Wind guy was any clue. Not that it helped him that much in the end.

Searching through his storage rings, he took out a few samples of his own work, food, wine and desserts, which he then covered inside another array and transfered them inside the prison.

His inner Avatars were already hard at work in decrypting and exploring the complex prison seal, even finding the dedicated channels to add organic biomass as a sacrifice, and other unused ports to insert spirit crystals or other energy rich sources.

There was even a port to insert qi directly, if the prison warden was strong enough.

Still, despite the complexity and power of the Seal reaching Tier 11, it was of lower quality and strength than both the Taoseal and the Violet Boundary of the Pagoda, as those didn't really need outside imput for stability or duration.

Pef was quite sure he might learn and understand all of the Prison Formations, in time, even without the help of his glove.

Already he could see his Formation Dao grow slightly, almost gaining another percent. This strange venture was proving profitable already.

"...And now the reason for your strange request becomes clear, human. You follow the path of the Creation Gods of old, even including layered Formations into your Dao Fruits as a binding agent. What are you even doing in this low realm, instead of calling for an Emissary to move into the High Heavens?" the Primordial Fiend asked as his ghostly shape became slightly more solid, as if gaining more reality from the menu delived by Pef.

"The Emissary system was discontinued after the Tree Wars, when the World Tree fell. Aspirants need to be able to pass through Dao Barriers with their own power, or through other benefits for the High Houses. I suspect they intend to maintain system stability by reducing the number of disturbing factors, such as new arrivals." our hero explained in a clear voice.

"... I wonder if the last guy succeeded? He was quite demanding for Blood Sacrifice rituals and the means to drain the drain bloodlines via some dagger." the Fiend mused thoughtfully, while probably probing Pef's knowledge about certain facts of the past.

Pef sighed inward, as he realized one of the mysteries he contacted earlier, namely the so-called Butcher of Kunlun and his sacrifice spree. His sacrificial dagger had remained with the General, and likely provoked the Mercy Seat to act so aggressively.

Even the link with the methods of the Tetrarchy became more clear, possibly a trial of the Four Winds before they managed to Ascend one of them into Tier 11 and secured dominon over the Middle Heavens for the next Wind in line.

"Do you mean Daiost North Wind? He did Ascend into Iron Realm." Pef said with a faint smile.

"That wasn't the last one, but the second to last. North Wind did have some kind of tower artifact to control minds...I'd guess he only sacrificed an entire Province to fuel his Ascension, if those sacrifices slit their veins voluntarily. The last one was called Daoist Spring Rain and created this Tetrarchy organization, while claiming to be a part of the Imperial Council and Duke of Kunlun." the Fiend said with a cruel tone.

"That one...probably failed. The Spring Rain Province was destroyed in a huge fight between the Butcher of Kunlun and the Bronze General Shen." Pef explained while sending over a bowl of Silver Cookies, baked with Royal honey.

The Fiend gently bit into one cookie, and remained still, as if lost to the world in contemplation. "Not even the Creation Fiend, Pangu, made anything like this...I can feel myself become in touch with the Laws. Your gift is unique, little brother." he spoke in slow words, and far more respectul than before.

Pef checked carefully, noting than the Fiend's forehead had begun to slowly heal the broken horn. "So, got any insights for this young cook? I won't be a poor prison warden, if you also help." he deftly argued to impress the imprisoned Fiend.

The Fiend finished the first cookie, then placed the bowl at this side. "I can do even better, little brother. I will preach the Dao as I learned from the Great Pangu himself. This way, you may eventually enter the Creation River and even have hopes to enter the Steel Realm like Pangu did."

Pef sat down, and sipped a bit of enlightement tea. "Go on" he asked once he was mentally prepared.

In carefully crafted Words, imprinted on the fabric of the world in golden symbols, the Fiend began to preach "In the Beginning there was only Chaos, and from this Chaos came the Void and Existence, both equal yet different. As Existence grew, it gave rise to Order and Creation. These concepts were lifeless yet thinking, what we now call Dao Paths or Currents. Even as Creation grew into being from dust to suns and worlds, the Void grew even faster, as if a river transforms into a sea. Soon the Void expanded so much that it couldn't sustain itself as a single entity, and broke up into blobs or bubbles, each of those also filled with Existence. And here Order gained proeminence, forcing all Creation to obey Laws, everything from how large stars could grow, to how they formed into large crowns of spinning suns, to dust binding dust to each other into primordial creatures, like Pangu or myself, and even the Layers of Dao that became Formations..."

The ontology soon became so complex that Pef couldn't follow it with his brain, so he fell back from his conscious mind and opened his heart to the Dao. Even though the Words kept coming, they ignored Time and simple things like logic or science. Pef found himself only able to float in the current of Words, with thousands of Dao Paths growing in parralel inside his soul.

But perhaps the highest miracle of this lesson was not Pef's enlightenment, but what happened inside his soul. The Parasol Seed which had aspected into a Sword Soul by some lucky accident, also began to grow, first into a tiny sapling, then larger and taller, passing through multiple dimensions to connect with all of Pef's aspects and Avatars, binding them into a single tree.

Then the Parasol Tree kept growing, extending outwards and linking with the remains of the crystalline transport stem of the Four Winds, absorbing its functions and the myriad of worlds inside, drawing them inside Pef's inner world.

Before the sermon finished, Pef was already floating inside the Creation River, while his inner screen began to expand in width to incorporate more and more Daos, while percentages spun faster and faster, like a column of thirsty trucks guzzling gas. The faint glint of a mirror began to cover Pef's heart, perhaps a sign of something else going on.

Then, a fluke of a vortex inside the Creation River caught Pef and flung him out before he could drain the entire river into himself, into a new realm.