Epilogue

“Doctor, something’s wrong!”

“Lady Highblood?”

“Alex. He’s awake. He’s feeling everything!”

“Impossible, my lady. The containment vat is frozen to -196 Celcius. Now please keep calm. We still need to pass the inquisitorial checkpoint before we have access to the gate, and Caesar has given his pawns the right to interrogate anyone, no matter their rank. But on the off chance that he is actually suffering the torment of sentience in extremis… he’d do well to remember what’s still in his hands.”

Dr. Wilm’s voice. Alex effortlessly recognized the pedantic tones despite everything he had been through. Every previous life lived, as he writhed in the hideous cold that would now consume him for all time.

A voice that was a perfect mirror of WiFu’s own.

Yet the surge and compression of fluids circulating through his vat could so easily have been the rustling of scales and the dry hissing laughter of an ancient water serpent finally claiming her due.

“It has been a long time coming, has it not, Alex Hammer Highblood? This dance we’ve embraced together for so many millennia.”

Alex struggled to formulate a single clear thought in the impossibly biting cold, let alone speak, consumed by a bitter frost so intense that his nerves were locked in a frozen scream, every square inch of his skin, save for the palms of his hands, now tingling with a fire so cold it burned.

An eternity of icy torment, his only solace being the sense of his reviled nemesis gurgling away his panicked final moments as his shriveled body was stuffed into an ancient pod.

Shui Jun’s dry laughter and the rustle of her constricting coils was both a torment and an inevitability as the pump droned on, her whispers endlessly thrumming into his frozen ear.

“I have always enjoyed watching you work, Eternal Disciple. But alas, all things must eventually reach their end. I will freely admit that it saddens me to see the inevitable conclusion of your own tale coming just a bit too early, free of any divine heart to replace that which you stole. And I’m afraid Grandmother Yi Wang is also less than pleased with you, your final act being to slice open her grandson’s throat, no matter how well deserved it was. Thus, you will be eternally denied oblivion, forced to remember your final life and all the fragments of horror and tragedy linked to countless other bitter lives you were doomed to recall in this, your final incarnation."

The serpent god's smile could have swallowed worlds. "And you owe that woman far more than you can possibly fathom. You’ll never know how many horrific torments you were forced to endure over so many lives. Exquisite suffering forever forgotten, thanks to oblivion’s sweet mercy. A mercy you will never be granted again, forced to relive all your greatest regrets endlessly in the frigid Stygian depths, making your final chapter the most tragic of all. Just like so many other tales of all those who once dared to walk beside the God of Chaos and Change.” The snake laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll tell you a secret that will do you no good at all, Alex Hammer. WiFu’s tales never have happy endings for the likes of you and I. No matter how noble the cause, or charming his smile.”

Her sigh was somehow echoed in the awful cold now flooding through Alex's soul, so vast and utter that it became all encompassing, delusional memories of conversations that had never happened extinguished like the final flickers of a dying star in a sea of eternal blackness as Shui Jun’s crushing pressure and the frigid despair of her rustling coils became his own.

For all time.

Shui Jun didn’t bother with words after that, leaving him in endless drowning silence, allowing the final moments of his life, back when he had been infected by the illusion of choice and free will, to endlessly play out in his mind’s eye, forced to examine endlessly how they had all led him inevitably to this bitter end.

Inevitable.

Inescapable.

So many questions left unanswered.

Countless hopes and dreams that would never be fulfilled.

Just the furious howls and mocking laughter of all the monsters who had done their utmost to destroy him over countless lives before finally succeeding, at great cost to themselves.

It was a torment without end. One that left him writhing and screaming, despite being ostensibly frozen to perfect stillness, hands clenching so desperately tightly, so eager for any sensation besides endless frozen fire that he would have eagerly welcomed the bite of ragged fingernails against his palms.

Instead, all he felt was the grain of ancient wood his hands still refused to surrender.

Finally registering, after endless echoes of frigid recrimination, what exactly Dr. Wilm, the clever shyster that had talked his mother into having him frozen alive in the first place, had said.

It was impossible to laugh, of course, in the endless frigid darkness damn near -200 degrees Celcius, frozen to an ice cube, utterly surrounded by Shui Jun’s icy coils, lungs filled with what amounted to liquid nitrogen. But laugh he did as frozen palms tightly gripped that which shouldn’t be there if he really was just a frozen popsicle in a storage vat, or a powerless wisp of a spirit, doomed to spend eternity shivering in the River of Souls.

The shaft of his favorite fangtian ji, somehow still in his hands.

“Hey Shui Juin, I think you’re forgetting something very important.”

The massive undulating swarm of coils froze in surprised stillness. Two massive orbs glared at Alex from the stygian depths of the river that had become his eternal home.

“How is it that you are even speaking? You were a soul entombed in ice and bitter regret. There’s no way you could truly awaken!”

Alex forced his frozen flesh into a rictus of a grin. “Ah, but we struck a bargain, you and I. One divine heart in return for seven blessed lives. And I gotta admit, that offer sounds really tempting right now. So... one divine heart coming right up.”

Shui Jun tilted her head in puzzlement before suddenly understanding. Countless rustling coils compelled by fate to contain Alex for all time meant that Shui Jun had him utterly surrounded in all directions.

Which also meant that the eternal guardian of Death’s Waters was impossible to miss, no matter if her Quickness was mortal, or divine.

Her bemused serpentine hiss became one of sudden alarm. “No. Wait!”

SOUL CLEAVE!

It didn’t matter that Alex was long dead. A wisp of a powerless soul that should be capable of nothing more than silently howling in the ether for all time, doomed to forever remember his final existence, denied the grace of rebirth forever after.

Somehow, it didn't matter in the least. Not when he could still feel the screaming pressure of his divine super cable still howling about infinity’s horizon, spinning ever faster amidst the current of a hundred and fifty million souls.

Potency capped by Jade and Gold and countless Silvers that would have served as the tip of the Ice Queen’s spear as she enacted the most devastating campaign of conquest and slaughter that the Golden Realms would have ever seen.

Potency that was now his own.

You have successfully claimed the heart of Shui Jun!

Alex howled under the furious onslaught of spiritual currents of life and death suddenly roaring through his blazing soul, elevated from shattered husk to the cusp of divinity in a single beat of his draconic heart as he gazed upon the prizes he had claimed.

A divine tier soul stone in one hand, the beating heart of a fallen god in the other.

Shui Jun’s decapitated head gazed at him with sightless eyes in frigid waters as Alex caught sight of the only other god that had ever dared the Waters of Oblivion by his side.

Alex smirked at the fox-eared inspector wearing the same tricorn hat and uniform he had when they had first crossed paths.

"I'll bet those bastards above didn't see that one coming."

Silver Fox's eyes twinkled with mirth. "They most certainly did not."

Alex's frozen lips stretched into a smile, warmed by the fearsome storm of power now swirling through his soul. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, WiFu?”

His mentor laughed, neither of them bothering with petty concerns like breathing, speaking effortlessly within crushing Stygian depths as they chattered over the corpse of a guardian deity in the deepest trenches of the River flowing through so many worlds.

“That we have, disciple. That we most definitely have.” WiFu tilted his head thoughtfully. “Oh, that reminds me. After all these eons, you would have thought I would have upgraded your wardrobe by now.” He tossed a bemused Alex both a tricorn hat and an inspector’s cloak, which Alex had to admit did look pretty damn fine on his mentor.

Alex couldn’t quite hold back a grin. “Seriously?”

WiFu gave a solemn nod. “But you’ll have to give me the heart and gem back.” He tapped the nonexistant watch on his wrist. “Time, young padawan. This nonexistent clock is definitely ticking.”

Alex chuckled. “Well I have wanted one of these kickass hats for a long time. And I can’t argue with the quality of the cloak. Finest weaving in all the underdark.”

“Isn’t it?” WiFu winked, though his eyes were serious as the grave. “I’m glad to hear that. Because you got less than a minute to jump through the portal that just opened up behind you before every single terrified god scurrying to our gaming table slams down fate cards that lock you down as the new Guardian of the River for all time. Which, yes, Alex, does mean unbridled power to revel and glory in for eternity. However, that power, and yourself, would be confined to these frigid waters for all time, shepherding wayward souls till the final days.”

Alex froze at those words, eyes widening in horror, suddenly seeing the beating heart and diamond in his hands for the traps that they were.

“Plans within plans. Schemes within schemes. And now a desperate final play, when I slip free of their noose. It really doesn’t end with those assholes, does it?"

WiFu’s smile was all teeth. “It really doesn’t. Now you got just a handful of seconds, disciple, before—“

But Alex didn’t need his mentor’s warning to sense the awful cords of inevitability even now looping around his heart and soul, strands held by divine countenances both furious and terrified, all uniformly glaring his way, the look behind their eyes exquisitely obvious, even to him.

He was an abomination so terrible they’d put all divisions behind them to chain him within the River of Souls for all time.

One chance. That’s all fate would permit them.

And that’s all they had needed for the girl who had come before.

WiFu’s first eternal disciple.

Now fallen by Alex’s feet.

Horrified eyes gazed into WiFu’s pain-filled orbs in sudden terrible understanding.

“WiFu. I didn’t...”

“Go now, Alex! You have no time!”

With cords of darkest fate closing in, Alex wasn’t about to argue the point, or even ask where he was going. Instead he darted back as fast as his Bulrush-enhanced feet could take him, just in time to avoid fate’s guillotine, feeling himself plummet into a tributary stream of the great river, whipping him through time and space before a blinding flash of light overwhelmed him, and the darkness of oblivion claimed him at last.

***

End of Book 7: Warrior's Peril

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Alex Hammer

Class – Cultivator: Disciple of the Dual Path (Unlimited potential. This is a Divine path.)

Rank 5 Divine Silver Cultivation Achieved! (Note! You have super-saturated your frame! Raise all key skills related to Golden Swan kung fu by one or more ranks before daring to progress further! - Note! Your World Seed is closed to you until Gold is reached! (And perhaps forever, but you can dream!)

Prismatic Path Bone Strengthening Technique has been infused with Divine spiritual energy! Shui Jun’s blessings now infuse your bones and joints! Present Strength: Undefined. Drawback: Should you cross her, you’re never slipping free of her coils!

Physical Characteristics

Strength – Gold Rank 2 (41+125+250 = 416) (Relentless Resolve and a dragon's might are now recognized as core elements of your path.)

Vitality – Gold Rank 2 (41+125+250 = 416) (Eternal Resilience and a dragon's fury are now recognized as core elements of your path.)

Quickness – Silver Rank 5 (40+125 = 165) (Chaotic Unpredictability is now recognized as a core element of your path.)

Finesse – Silver Rank 5 (40+125 = 165) (Mastery of Oneself is now recognized as a core element of your path.)

Spiritual Characteristics

Scholarship - 14 (Exceeds 84% of Population.)

Perception - 18 (Exceeds 99% of population.)

Willpower – 20 (25) (Rank 1+1 Bronze achieved the hard way! - You have the resolve to walk in the Valley of Death and slip free of the River of Souls.)

Qi Pool – 165 (Silver Rank 5 - 0 Points reserved: Divine Soul Stone is no longer anchored! You have dared to consume it to enhance a world and yourself! Note: Forged and peripheral channels now enjoy added resiliency!)

Health Points: 4966

Perks

Insightful – Rank 2

Charismatic – Rank 3

Lesser Shadow Affinity - You can now see Shadow Qi! You have +6 to spot all those using Shadow to ambush or confuse you.

Golden Apple of Wisdom consumed. Increased chance of cultivation breakthroughs.

Draconic Ancestry. - The blood of golden dragons flows through your veins! You enjoy inhuman Strength (+1 Silver Tier to Strength and Vitality, once adulthood has been reached.) You may now purchase additional ranks in Strength and Vitality as if they were 1 tier lower than they actually are, in terms of cost and requirements!

All damage from heat and flame, spiritual or mundane, is reduced in severity by 2 Damage tiers. All cold-based attacks and physical sources of damage are decreased in severity by 1 Damage tier.

Favored Skills tied to your transcendent art.

Golden Swan Kung Fu – Rank 5 (This counts as a Gold tier martial art specialized in piercing and deflecting all spiritual energy attacks and counters! Golden Swan kung fu rank counts as a modifier equal to its rank with all underlying skills!) - Drawback! This art is partially based on a Forbidden Path! Anyone who dares this path must maintain physical purity until Gold is reached or risk destroying their cultivation base!

Eternal Fox Kung Fu – Rank 10 (15) (Incorporates all benefits and techniques of Rank 10 in Golden Realms, White Crane, and Silver Swan Kung Fu.) This art involvs the mastery of movement, Qi flow, and battle; serving as the cornerstone of the Path of Pearlescence.

Black Swan (Soul Cleave) – Rank 10 (15) (Standard variant can now be used at zero cost! With your mastery, every blow you or your second disciple deliver is potentially a killing blow!)

Dark Qi Projection – Rank 10 (15) (You may now coat your arms and legs in Dark Qi at zero maintenance cost! Weapons may also be coated, at increasing cost. Note, your second disciple has already learned how make use of this skill better than you!)

Piercing Strike (Spell Cleave) – Rank 10 (15) (Successful use of this skill allows you to ruptured wujen spells, and partially or completely bypass all elemental wards! Note! Using Spell Cleave with Storm Strike will give additional bonus of +3 +Storm Strike Rank to rupture wards and deflect all incoming spells!

Qi Deflection – Rank 11 (16) (Synergizes with Silver Wing to twist aside Qi attacks and space itself!)

Silver Wing – Rank 13 (18) (Not only can you deflect attacks with singular grace, you’ve begun to learn the art of warping space itself with your parries!)

Storm Strike – Rank 10 (15) (You may effortlessly channel lightning at no energy cost with your every attack! (This variant specifically made with your first disciple in mind.

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Qi Disciplines

Adderstrike – Rank 8

Blood Mastery – Rank 4

Bullrush – Rank 7

Forest Flight – Rank 5

Forest Sense – Rank 5

Potency Mastery – Rank 4.

Qi Absorption – Rank 8

Qi Flood – Rank 2

Spirit Crane Strike – Rank 7

Storm Flight – Rank 6

Summon Portal – Rank 11

Water Walking (Soul Stride) – Rank 7

Qi Perception-linked Disciplines

Artificer – Rank 7

Find Weakness – Rank 6

Qi Perception – Rank 7

Soul Sight – Rank 6

Spiritual Teacher – Rank 8

Elemental Qi Disciplines (Learned at Royal Phoenix Academy)

Water Shield – Rank 5

Water Strike – Rank 5

Oak Strike – Rank 5

Thorn Shield – Rank 5

Shield of the Grove – Rank 2

Flame Fist – Rank 4

Fire Shield – Rank 4

Earthern Shield – Rank 4

Stone Fist – Rank 5

Avalanche – Rank 3

The Eternal Fox Unified Cultivation Technique – Rank 13

Biochemical Mastery – Rank 6