“It’s over, Ruidian. Time to reunite you with your master… so you may both burn in hell!” Dongfang Hong roared as Alex ignored the awful pain in his side, lurching away just in time to dodge the blast of fire and steel that had ruptured against the far arena wall, turned a good portion of the sands to glass.

Only he hadn’t dodged quite as well as he thought, he realized, the bottom half of his foot a bloody stump showing nothing but bits of flesh attached to shimmering bones.

Alex felt the cold sweat of inevitability break across his forehead and back even as he summoned forth a fresh indestructible fangtian ji, power-healing with all his might, knowing it would be too late when the smirking demon prince lazily twirled his killing blade.

Finally understanding the test before him, for the largest stakes he could imagine, and either outcome would be a bitter brew.

He could allow himself to fall, knowing his reward would be eternal torment, Shalu’s bitter laughter in the heavens above making it all too clear that his nemesis was savoring every moment of Alex’s despair. Or, he could send this now monster channeling the borrowed might of countless enemy soldiers crashing into the River of Souls with a Soul Cleave that would instantly strike the bastard prince dead. Yet the price of that maneuver would be the sacrifice of Alex’s greatest treasure of all, painfully aware that a gleefully laughing Shalu would then slam down near a dozen linked cards that would, by some insanely intricate fashion utterly beyond him, result countless Seanchen soldiers portalling not to the gates of Baidushi… but flooding into his own world seed instead. Somehow carried by the very gate Alex even now sense linked to Dongfang Hong’s soul. Because claiming Dongfang Hong’s life now, when he was under the influence of nearly a dozen of his enemy’s cards, would inextricably and irrevocably link them both for all time… and link Alex’s own world seed to Shalu’s portals forevermore.

Such an act would then give his enemy free reign to send countless Seanchen soldiers into his sanctuary, all of them eager to torture, pillage, and slaughter an entire world before their ultimate master consumed it utterly. It would be Shalu’s furious and absolute vengeance against the one who had dared to mark his decrepid flesh. The monster would happily drain Alex’s world utterly, til it was nothing but a shriveled prune of ash and ruined potential.

And were it not for Alex’s Nemesis card allowing him to pierce so many levels of misdirection and obfuscation, he would have absolutely no clue that such a twisted manifestation of Shalu’s own gating ability was possible, and his realm would already be doomed.

Plans within Plans.

Schemes within Schemes.

Shalu’s goal wasn’t defending their realm from Seanchen invaders, regardless of what Long Wang or Grandfather Justice planned. Shalus goal was claiming fresh virgin territory while the rest of his clan defended what they already had.

The territory Alex himself had forged from blood, sweat, tears, and countless struggles. And if Shalu could use their enemy’s own troops to secure victory on another front, and absolutely destroy Alex’s sanctuary while doing so… that would just be a couple extra feathers in their collective cap.

But Alex would be damned in hell before he ever allowed his nemesis to set foot in his realm. The only sanctuary that countless victims of divine malice, pettiness, and spite would ever find.

“Alex!”

“It’s too dangerous!” Alex cried in his mind as he stumbled back, hands a blur as his fangtian ji weaved through the air, knocking aside his foe’s killing blade half a dozen times before another blast of lethal Metal Qi tore through his side, blood spurting from a ruptured kidney as Alex lurched back once more. All too well aware that his foe was just playing with him at this point, trying to provoke Alex into desperate action… or determined to cut him into agonized pieces of quivering flesh if Alex dared hold back too long.

“You must let us fight before it’s too late! We’re all bound to the same Cards of fate, Alex! If you die, we all do!”

Alex froze with those words… horrified to realize that such was absolutely the truth.

His desperate desire to save Hao Chan and Yinzi both would only hasten their deaths, should he himself fall to Dongfang Hong’s wrath.

“Please!”

Alex froze, guarding his line with his fangtian ji but otherwise motionless, blinking back tears as this avatar of his ultimate nemesis roared and charged once more, realizing that, yes, he really was going to risk his disciples. The lives of women he loved. Knowing that he had no choice but to take that gamble if they were to have any hope of survival at all.

May WiFu have mercy on his soul if he was wrong.

Skillcheck against master demonic cultivator failed!

You have been disarmed. Literally!

Two additional Critical Wounds taken!

You’re now fleeing around the arena sands for your life!

You have successfully opened Western gate!

Your disciples have jumped through!

A single contemptuous flurry of his enemy’s blade, executed with such speed and power that Alex’s instincts screamed with primal terror when his weapon was flicked free of his grip with contemptuous ease.

Along with ripping open both of his forearms with great gaping wounds by blows so savage they had right through his Dark Qi vambraces.

Had his bones been anything less than Prismatic Tier forged on the very steps leading to the hall of the gods… Alex would have no arms at all.

You have saved versus shock!

Power Healing mitigates blood loss!

You have managed not to collapse in a fountain of your own blood!

Bullrush!

Alex gazed at the smirking Dongfang Hong with dismay.

“You were playing me, the whole time.”

The twisted amalgamation of bastard prince and bloated god roared with laughter. “You’re so predictable, you pathetic wretch. So used to half-step speed cultivators lacking the strength to take advantage of their own gifts! Seeking to use leverage in place of quickness in the bind. Predictable and pathetic!” His nemesis gazed back at Alex’s forearms, still spurting his lifeblood upon the arena sands.

“And now this ends, Alex Hammer. Once Baidushi falls to our enemies, Cui Zhe having proven her utter incompetence to protect her city, ZhengTu kingdom proving insufficient to the task of defending its own lands, it will be my sworn obligation to step in and plug the breach, to defend the Golden Empire in her time of greatest peril! The Emperor himself will then feat me with prizes and glory for stemming this corruption at its source, QuiJing Province being the least of my prizes as I am sworn in as the rightful king of YanTu nation in the emperor’s own court! A nation that will be expanded to include all the territories forming what will now be my protectorate!”

His eyes lit up with a hideous grin. “And when countless clues point to a combined Ruidian and kitsune effort to destroy this nation from within, that it was kitsune shadow arts alone responsible for the gates, the emperor himself will conduct a purge against your foul kind like no other, and it is I that will lead the crusade to cleanse this world of filth like yourself for all time!”

The vile abomination of corroded flesh laughed like the vindictive madman he was.

“How delightful it is to watch your lifeblood pool in the sands. But not until I slice open your throat, drowning you for an eternity in your own blood, denying even your ability to submit before me!”

Dongfang Hong’s plodding steps shook the sand. Slow, methodical, his gaze filled with malice and overweening contempt.

Alex flashed a desperate smile, even as he hunched over the ruins of his own arms, having no choice now but to tap into the wild swirling potency of death. Harnessing so many kills he had been directly and indirectly responsible for that day to do what a sudden lack of beast cores could not.

“But that’s just it, isn’t it? I have to submit, or you have to kill me. But if you can’t catch me...”

The demon’s mocking smile turned to killing fury, all pretext left as it moved so fast the air thundered with his passage. But a laughing Alex had already blinked away.

Disciples Hao Chan & Yinzi wish to join your raid party!

You’ve said yes!

Hao Chan is momentarily stunned by your pain.

Your disciples agree to your hastily contrived plan!

So many memories flashed through his soul when he felt warm concern turned to desperate anxiety as the pair of girls he would die for touched so many memories Alex was desperate to share, for their plan to work.

In that moment, helped by Hao Chan’s own impossibly sharp memory, he recalled with exquisite clarity Dongfang Hong’s original saturnine features before they had been bloated with monstrous power, the handsomeness only slightly marred by the malice of his smile. Most of all he recalled how similar he looked to Xian Hong as much as he did Shalu. Both Xian Hong… and her brother.

Because amber eyes made it clear he wasn’t any more a pureblood than Xian herself was. Than a fair number of the Red Prince’s court was.

And even if he had fallen so far as to commune with Alex’s most hated foe, commune so deeply Alex suspected only rebirth as a broken mortal awaited Dongfang Hong when this life was done, it was a price the Red Prince was more than willing to pay for monstrous power in this final life of twisted glory. And the connection between god and host was one that an impossibly malevolent Shalu was also willing to accept, if it would help destroy the mortal that had dared declare vendetta against him.

The only one who had caused that bloated monster pain in countless millennia.

A wide-eyed Alex understood then, the malice behind Dongfang Hong’s smile. Inhuman perception and intelligence filling like liquid a vessel capable of mortal thoughts, passions, and motivations. A force shaped by its vessel as much as it shaped the vessel in turn.

Which meant it could savor the vessel’s ultimate strength. His ability to strike at Alex directly, no matter how many cards and codices normally barred their crossing blades, Alex’s divine nemesis able to use to exquisite effect the shell of the Gold tier cultivator Dongfang Hong might have become, had his foundation not been shattered and twisted into eternal Silver so long ago.

But that also meant it was vulnerable to Dongfang Hong’s ultimate weakness as well.

A weakness Alex had been terrified of exploiting, having no doubt, absolutely no doubt, that did the emperor ever discover Alex’s true power, his inquisitors would be ordered to kill Alex in the blink of an eye.

Alex couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly, even as he channeled the tiniest fraction of the excess potency roaring through him into the most desperate power healing of his life as the monstrous warrior that had managed to corner him despite his desperate Alex’s Bullrushing around the arena, showcasing the true deadly might of what Dongfang Hong had once been on the battlefield, lifted his killing blade once more.

“This ends now, Ruidian.”

A panting Alex, miming any other cultivator that would have been harried to exhaustion by now, tried not to flinch at the reflection of his own tormented soul shrieking in eternal flames that he could see in the monster’s gaze.

“I know,” Alex said. “This ends the only way it can.”

The arena suddenly filled with the sound of enchanted steel crashing against Gold tier artifacts, battering against Dongang Hong’s carapace like the most furious summer storm as Water, Steel, and Liquid Darkness pounded against the Red Prince’s form, sending the monster down to one knee when pristine lightning exploded into his side as well, thanks to a pair of furiously intent disciples striking from shadows and the eye of the storm.

Yet as remarkable as the onslaught was, no matter the whispered prayers and desperate exclamations of the crowd, as if desperate for a miraculous save like what happened in stories rarely heard beyond a caravanner’s fireside tales, it wasn’t quite enough to take down their foe. Yet by some miracle it was enough for Finesse and Quickness far beyond Alex’s own to allow Yinzi and Hao Chan to at least keep the fearsome monster in a perilous stalemate as each attempted to weave past the other, or yank their mutual weapons of destruction off-line. And it was only countless hours spent honing their skills together and a shared party interface that kept Hao Chan and Yinzi from becoming entangled in their own offensive onslaught, so masterful was Dongfang Hong at masterfully controlling the pace of the engagement, effortlessly weaving past their furious onslaught.

For endless breathless moments, Alex readied himself for what his finishing move had to be, until the inevitable happened.

A single mistake that left his Hao Chan the slightest bit off balance.

But it was enough for the roaring monster eager to destroy them all to seize the moment, slamming into Hao Chan and sending her flying through the air as his blade whipped through a desperately flanking Yinzi’s abdomen, cleaving through her entrails with a single swipe.

“Yinzi!”

Jidihu’s scream shivered through Alex’s soul almost as furiously as the pain that near crippled him, as the young kitsune girl, never looking more terrified or vulnerable than she did right then, froze in dismay, staring in shock at her disembowelment, Dongfang Hong laughing as he took advantage of all too human folly.

“And here it ends, Alex Hammer! You think I don’t know the cards you have in play? The very card you used to strike at me? Fool! With her death, so falleth you!”

Even as he fought against the most profound agony imaginable, fighting to keep both their entrails firmly inside them, that’s when Alex sensed it, the desperate chance he had been looking for.

Knowing he might well be playing the fool, the absolute idiot, in fact, rushing headlong right into a trap.

But if his hunch was right… it didn’t matter.

With countless millions of Baidushian lives on the line, not to mention the life of his disciple that he’d do whatever he had to do in order to protect… it was time to act.

Right this moment, when his chortling enemy was plunging his blade deep into a shuddering Yinzi’s entrails.

No matter the agony blazing through his own abdomen as well.

Pain Shalu and Dongfang Hong clearly meant to cripple him.

If only the fool knew how much Alex had already suffered.

And how far he was willing to go, for the sake of his friends.

Bullrush!

Bullrush!

Quickness check failed!

Your foe senses you coming!

Partial disembowelment hinders your ability to dodge!

You have been critically struck by Vorpal Changdao!

Your bowels have been cleaved in half!

The demon spun around, wild eyes delighting in the look of agony upon Alex’s face, now just inches from its own.

“Fool! Did you really not think I would sense you coming?” He said to the backdrop of Yinzi’s desperate scream. “Of course I did! And what better shield against your bitch of an accomplice than your mangled Bod—“

Adderstrike!

The possessed prince looked lost between contempt and amusement when Alex’s hand landed ineffectually against divinely strengthened bones far beyond what any Gold cultivator without access to the most corrupt or divine cultivation techniques imaginable could hope to achieve.

Bones fit to hold even the temple that was Shalu’s invading mind firmly inviolate to any physical blow.

Before monstrous eyes widened with horror, when his conjoined enemy finally understood.

“Checkmate,” Alex whispered as Shalu’s grip on his mangled form froze.

Because it didn't matter how many generations of True Bloods diluted the lines of the original Ruidian invaders, even to the point that various clans could now cultivate so well that the emperor itself recognized their own right to rule.

The crystalline structures of their souls would forever have a single flaw they could do nothing to mitigate.

Only endure.

Which meant that when a corrupt and bloated excuse for a god chose the ruler of YanTu nation as his pawn within the Golden Realms, the monster had unknowingly embraced his limitations as well.

Master Matrix has detected one active slave node.

Active slave node Alpha Nemesis One has been successfully accessed.

Full compliance protocols have been initiated.

"Alpha Nemesis One! Autonomy has been revoked! Kneel before your master!"

The sands roared with a crash as the Red Prince collapsed to his armored knees while a storm of lightning crackled and blazed against the heavens.

Locking gazes with the horrified Dongfang Hong, Alex could sense so clearly the furious uproar occurring at that very moment, in the heavenly halls far above.

“That a mortal would dare to chain my kin is an unforgivable abomination!” Zheng Yi’s words were the crash of lightning and the rumble of a storm like no other, now threatening to wash all of Baidushi away.

“He must be struck dead this very instant!” Long Wang roared. “The rules of the game no longer apply to one as foul and corrupt as he!”

Yet the sands at Alex’s feet seemed to sizzle with WiFu’s laughter. “Indeed. The rules of the game shouldn’t apply to a so-called ally who has invested every single one of his cards not towards defeating our enemy, but to allowing countless hundreds of thousands of our opponent’s pieces to flood the heart of our territory.”

He shook his head and tisked at the sight of a wild-eyed Shalu, covered in wrinkly folds of pockmarked flesh and seeping wounds, crashing to his own knees before the gaming table, eyes wide in a silent scream. “Nearly a dozen cards invested in our own defeat? Really, brother. What were you thinking? If you were so eager to play for the opposing team, you should have just said so from the start!”

Then in the blink of an eye, before a still stunned Alex could utter any further commands, Dongfang Hong vanished, along with the outraged howls of the gods above.

A stunned Alex’s ears rang with five furious roars as all five Deep Golds glared Alex’s way with absolute killing fury.

Alex forced himself to laugh, coughing up blood. “Sure, assholes. Line me in your sights. Please, fire my way. Break the terms of the oaths binding your master to the fight he so clearly lost, and watch your foundations, and his, crumble to dust.” Alex forced a smile. “In fact, I hope you assholes do just that. It will be good to see your cores crumple. Because even if you manage to survive that, you sure as hell won’t be getting out of this arena alive.”

Alex noted several score slack-jawed viewers watching the fight still from behind protective barriers leading to his own realm that they had chosen not to enter, though they had happily made use of their ability to protect themselves from the hot-eyed wujen just a barrier or two away.

“This isn’t over, Ruidian!” One of the wujen declared, his voice echoing through the coliseum with all the weight and power of a Gold. “Baidushi will fall, and it’s your kind that will take the blame.” The pale-faced man with red-rimmed eyes flashed a cruel smile. “It will be good to see you and all those like you burned at the stake for daring to defy the natural order! In fact, it will be my great pleasure to dedicate the next hundred years to leading countless purges, with the emperors future blessing!”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Hao Chan snapped. “If you think my father won’t hear the truth of what happened here, then you’re even more of a fool than Dongfang Hong!”

the wujen’s eyes widened with fanatical fury.

“She’s right,” Alex hissed through his pain. “By the terms of our oathbound duel, Dongfang Hong can strike at neither myself or my associates, directly or by proxy. Which means you stirring up any genocidal pogroms against me or mine will instantly cripple your master’s foundation, and perhaps yours as well.” Alex said with a grimace to hide the hideous pain he felt as he desperately strove to recover from the massive wounds he had suffered, grateful only that it was just a fraction as bad as when Li Jaw Long had utterly obliterated everything below his waist. Now he just had a massive cleaving wound that hadn’t quite been deep enough to slice through his prismatic spine, which meant that all he needed to do was let the bifurcated parts of his abdomen reseal themselves while he fought not to scream his head off.

He forced himself to smile at five pairs of eyes glaring with absolute killing intent, no matter the blood trickling from a lip he had bitten right through as he shuddered and spasmed with pain.

Because even if his foe hadn’t said the words, kneeling at Alex’s command definitely counted as defeat in his book. Even if his foe had fled in the blink of an eye to escape absolute submission. And Alex was both awed and horrified to think that there was a prince out there who was subject to his every whim.

But if Dongfang Hong told even a soul about just how vulnerable he now was to Alex, there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that the emperor would have both their heads within an hour of said confession.

No matter how desperately Alex tried to hide.

The five Deep Golds continued to glare at Alex with furious killing intent, before the one directly facing him barked with laughter. “That might be true if you had actually won, fool. But as far as we’re concerned, as far as our master is concerned… the fight’s still ongoing! No limitation was put on duration, whatsoever! Which means that until Dongfang Hong formally yields before you, your words have no more weight than a virgin’s screams! And you may rest assured, maggot, that my men and I will obliterate you long before you can ever sully our master with your tainted presence again!”

“That’s bullshit!” Hao Chan screamed. “Your pathetic coward of a master lost! He lost so bad he had to scurry away like a frightened rat with his tail between his legs!”

The five Wujen turned their killing gazes to the remaining spectators looking their way in horrified dismay. “Know this as well, worms. The first one of you who dares to impinge upon the character of our prince will be the first we burn alive. Along with every surviving member of your soon-to-be extinguished family line.” The cold-eyed monster then turned, flashing Alex a mocking smile. “Baidushi’s walls will be overrun within the hour, its ten million citizens in slave collars before the week is out! And this college will fall soon after. All thanks to you, Disciple of the Fox, interfering in things you utterly fail to comprehend. Good luck surviving the siege, fool!”

With a final mocking laugh, five talismans were snapped in unison, all of Dongfang Hong’s elite wujen vanishing in puffs of shadow and smoke less than a minute after their master.

“So that’s how Jaw Jaw got out of my trap. Divine, even borrowed divine power tied into consumable artifacts, will trump Gold or Jade, every time.” Alex whispered, tasting Shalu’s caustic bile in the air for long seconds after the wujen had vanished.

“Yinzi!”

Alex couldn’t help but reveal a tired grin as a sobbing Jidihu swept her daughter into her arms. “Show mommy where you were hurt, darling.” Her words were both anxious and urgent, holding a silvery potion brimming with potency in her hand.

Yinzi, still trembling upon the arena sands smelling of blood, death, and foulest ritual gazed at her mother with a whimper, too tiny hands lifting from the vicious rent that had torn through armor worthy of a princess… only to reveal a wound already scabbed over, with just the tiniest trace of blood.

Her mother gave a shuddering sigh, matching Alex’s own relieved smile.

Before he coughed a surprised gobbet of blood.

“Alex, you’re still bleeding!” Hao Chan said in a panicked whisper.

Alex frowned, surprised to find himself so dizzy… before he cursed with dismay, seeing the awful rent on his abdomen that still refused to close.

Soul Link has successfully claimed Mortal Injuries suffered by your disciples!

Rank 13 Eternal Fox is being opposed by Rank UNDEFINED Divine Vengeance.

Excess potency has been fully depleted.

You have FAILED to heal Divine Retribution!

Hao Chan’s eyes widened in horrified dismay. “Alex, what do those weird messages mean?”

Yet before Alex could even answer, awful words echoed through the air as a final cloak was pierced.

Alex’s agony turned to fury, recognizing that that vile spite-filled voice of Hao Zei, the corrupt merchant that had caused him and Hao Chan such grief. Responsible for the corrupting of so many innocent souls. A monster Alex despised just as much as he did Shalu.

“Those Seanchen fools are going through the portal! Now complete the sacrifice, and they are ours for all time!”

Alex quickly dispelled all the gates before lurching toward the arena tunnels...before collapsing with a groan.

“Alex, you’re being an idiot!” Hao Chan hissed as the crowd above grew increasingly restless, gazing down at them with everything from words of adulation to furious accusations to everything in between.

Alex paid no head to any of it, all his focus on what mattered.

“Hao Zei! Hao Zei is in the servants tunnels below!” Alex hissed as he crumpled into an agonized ball. “That bloated bastard is about to sacrifice who knows how many souls, in the same damned chamber he used before. The same tunnels Jidihu checked so damned thoroughly. How?”

“I think you know how, disciple,” said darkest shadow, coalescing into a worried-looking Jidihu, solemnly handing Alex a potion.

Alex greedily drunk it, before wincing with dismay, when it did absolutely nothing to speed up his healing, now panting as if he was running an uphill deathsprint, lungs heaving like bellows, no end in sight.

Jidihu’s eyes widened with concern. “Alex, what’s wrong?”

Alex choked out a bitter chuckle. “What’s wrong is that bloated bastard Shalu inhabited Dongfang Hong like a puppet. And it was his malice, divine, not infernal malice, that infected his blade. And that’s a damn sight harder to counter without any more beast cores to burn.

Jidihu gazed at Alex in dismay. “Alex, I don’t have any… most cultivators use spirit pearls for emergencies. Not beast cores. The latter is so wild as to be… but yes, I see how it would fit you.”

Alex wheezed bitter laughter. “Yes, I know. Baidushi’s about to fall, my enemy’s about to sacrifice who knows how many souls in the bowels of the academy, and I’m dying of a divine suppurating wound, having been pushed so hard so constantly, I had no time to stock up on what I need. I’ll bet Shalu’s cackling the bastard he is, right now.” He flashed a bitter smile. “Or maybe that asshole’s still on his knees. One can only hope.”

Yinzi’s eyes filled with resolution. “We need beast cores? We’ll get beast cores!” She glared up at the restless audience. “You all do know that my master just saved you all from death or eternal servitude at the hands of a mad prince that just invited all his Seanchen friends to invade Baidushi, right? If you’d like to start paying back on the karma scales, you’ll toss us whatever beast cores you have!”

Those words earned strange looks as more than one cultivator rushed to pass her Spirit pearls, coins, even entire pouches worth of wealth, though not everyone seemed so willing.

“It’s his fault this madness even occurred!” Snapped one angry elder cultivator, earning eye-rolls and disparaging looks from a handful quickly passing him, with wealth in hand.

“No, we don’t need your spirit pearls or gold, we need your...” Her yes lit up.

“Perfect!” She said, giving a younger pair of anxious Bronze enthusiastic hugs that earned her both pain-filled winces and relieved smiles.

Then, a heartbeat later, she was stepping out of Alex’s shadow, handing him what he so desperately needed. The crudest and most perilous of all cultivation tools normally only used by artificers and alchemists was met with the warmest smile of gratitude as Alex’s desperate struggle to stave of death became a hundred-fold boosted rapid repair of a cut that was little more than a flesh wound within seconds.

“Thank you, Yinzi,” Alex said with a relieved smile, earning an impish grin and a heartfelt hug.

But before either could say another word, the air rang with fresh screams.

And much to his horror, Alex recognized those voices that howled like they were only moments away from death.

“Come on, no time to lose!”