“Greetings, I’m the masked lone wandering swordsman,” he placed the wooden katana, also known as a ‘bokken’, which he had learned only a few months ago when he had started practicing, on the counter.

The guards at the front should’ve taken the weapon.

The clerk should’ve been concerned that they hadn’t.

Yet, neither of those things had happened.

No one in the Phoenix Dynasty building seemed concerned.

“Purpose of your visit?” the clerk said.

The eagle-dragon mask concealed the man’s expression.

Perhaps, he thought of the interesting tidbit that ‘katana’ was just the Japanese word for ‘sword’ or vice versa depending on perspective. Furthermore, ‘dao’ was Mandarin for the same, yet it also meant ‘way’, ‘path’ sometimes, specifically referring to a set of traditions and religions governing how one should live like… sometimes spelled with a ‘T’. In a cultivator’s case it meant specialization, much like it was for classes. A warrior was a broad generalization, while a shield warrior specialized into shields and such.

But, such digressions were tedious and distracting when things were tense, though the Phoenix Dynasty people didn’t realize it thanks to a helpful thought.

“Yeah, why am I here? Let me think? Oh, that’s right. I’m here for the boy.”

The clerk blinked in confusion.

“As a concerned citizen of the world, of course,” the masked man said. “Weird prophecies aren’t sufficient justifications to force said boy into weird breeding programs. Now, you will remember to note that you did everything you were supposed to. You followed all regulations as set forth by the Phoenix Empress.”

“Yes, I always perform my duties with diligence and adherence to her divine majesty’s edicts,” the clerk frowned.

To suggest otherwise was to impugn his honor.

“Good to hear. Then, you’ll be diligently calling it a night and going home. Just like the rest of the staff.”

“I… yes…”

The clerk joined the mass exodus as several dozen of his fellow men and women streamed into the front lobby and out the door.

Deep inside the building a Happy Heron wasn’t quite living up to her name going by the scowl marring her otherwise perfect brow.

“Rhinoceros! Do you sense that?”

A huge shape seemed to materialize at the other end of the hallway.

“You flap your beak like a desperate songbird past her prime,” Thundering Rhinoceros grunted.

“Something is wrong!”

“Then let the blows fall impotently against my chest. It’d be a proper attack, unlike the one on my innards.”

“We had nothing to do with that!” she snapped. “The truthsayer absolved us of guilt.”

“As if they’re infallible,” he scoffed. “I see three out of the five charged with this task laid low with cowardly tactics. Common sense dictates that I place suspicious eyes on those spared such indignities.”

“Then why are you bothering me about it? What about gloomy? He didn’t have your intestinal concerns.”

“I’d have a word with him, if I could find him…”

“There is an intruder. The building has emptied,” a soft voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere.

It was a mark of their formidable natures that neither jumped.

“That’s impossible. I would’ve noticed,” Happy Heron scoffed.

“Gloomy, this isn’t time for one of your games,” Thundering Rhinoceros said.

“No games. Listen and feel,” the Gloom of the Concrete Forest slipped out of a shadow on the ceiling.

“That’s ridic— no, you’re right,” Happy Heron said.

“Good. I’m tired of standing still and watching the little brat,” Thundering Rhinoceros donned his horned helmet and flexed spiked gauntlets eagerly.

Happy Heron drew her thin jian and stalked forward.

“We’ll deal with the intruder, Gloomy. You watch the boy.”

The shadowy figure had already disappeared.

“The intruder has to cross the dining hall first.”

“We’ll crush him there. The last thing I need is for the empress’ dogs to yipping about damaging their precious shrine, forgetting that this place was just a hotel once. Not even a fancy one.”

“You lead, I’ll wait for an opening to strike.”

“Very well, little songbird, ride my back to victory and honor!” Thundering Rhinoceros bellowed.

“You speak of honor and yet you stand guard over a little boy unjustly taken from his only family because his ‘seed’ is supposed to lead to power… or something… curious.”

Happy Heron frowned.

She hadn’t noticed the man standing in the doorway of the large dining hall.

He wore a mask that resembled a brown-feathered eagle crossed with a dragon and wielded a wooden katana.

“You’ve better senses than me, songbird, but I’m not sensing any Qi.”

“You aren’t mistaken.”

“What? No way… I’m definitely a lone wandering masked swordsman. Yup, roaming the land on my own, righting injustices while wearing a mask. Stand aside and let me have the boy or be taught a lesson in humility.”

“He speaks like one of us. Such arrogance, such certainty,” Thundering Rhinoceros laughed.

“We are indifferent to your fate stranger. Our sole duty here is to safeguard the child, whether we agree with his fate or not. Leave in peace lest you suffer our less than tender ministrations,” Happy Heron said. She didn’t like how her instincts were screaming at her to flee. Even still, she wouldn’t, couldn’t. Honor demanded she fulfill her duty lest she impugn her sect with her cowardice.

“All things considered you are not that bad,” the masked man inclined his head to Happy Heron, “and you, loud rhino, are a dick, but not evil, so feel free to leave yourselves. So, be not the cow hiding in the bushes when the tiger stalks the jungle, be the quick rabbit darting to his burrow.”

“No creature is safe when the tiger hunts, run or hide, the only thing that matters is luck,” Happy Heron said.

“Enough of this!” Thundering Rhinoceros roared.

Rhinoceros tramples the brittle.

He accelerated from zero to sixty-five kilometers per hour in two strides.

The relatively close distance to the masked swordsman vanished in the blink of an eye.

And yet…

The swordsman stepped to one side and sheared the thick steel horn off Thundering Rhinoceros’ helmet with a practiced stroke.

Was that a blue-gold shimmer surrounding the wooden blade?

Happy Heron stepped on air to reach the high ceiling.

Heron swoops on the fish.

Her thin blade sought the masked man’s shoulder.

His parry nearly caused her to lose her grip despite her high-level cultivator’s strength.

She parried his counter cut and thrust with Heron spears the frog.

He was too slow!

Ha!

She knew that he moved without true experience.

It was like watching a machine that knew the moves and performed them exactly, but lacked the soul of a true cultivator.

Her blade struck his shirt and glanced off.

The counter stroke almost hit her own shoulder, so surprised she had been.

She had struck with speed, power and technique.

Was his clothing enchanted?

It had to be, but if they were there should’ve been some kind of reaction.

A flash of light, a feeling in her sword hand or something.

Thundering Rhinoceros chose that moment to pull himself out of the far wall. He charged, so fast for his size, with spiked gauntlets striking.

The masked man backflipped over and cut the shoulder straps to Thundering Rhinoceros’ thick steel plate. Front and back hit the floor with a loud clang.

Happy Heron darted back in to sword range.

She thrust and cut, while he was limited to the latter.

Each parry, steel against wood, brought forth sparks and that strange blue-gold light that seemed to shimmer around the wooden blade.

“Thunder’s Rage!”

Curses!

They were definitely not supposed to destroy the entire building.

Boom!

Thunder cracked inside the dining hall, shattering every glass and window.

Happy Heron saw the angry red aura of Thundering Rhinoceros’ Qi flowing from his body like the haze off a dark street on a hot day.

The wooden blade sliced the side of her head, shearing through her long, raven locks.

“Pay attention please, lest you lose an ear. A tiger with one ear is—”

She silenced him with cutting gale thrust.

Once again, he remained untouched while everything around him bore the brunt of her Qi technique. Tables and chairs were shredded. Deep cuts marred the floor.

She used flashstep to gain as much distance as she could.

It was a wise woman that stayed out of the angry rhino’s path.

Thundering Rhinoceros’ face was a twisted rictus of rage. His nostrils flared, spittle flew from his mouth.

He charged.

“The river’s about…” the masked man sighed.

Thundering Rhinoceros shot up through the ceiling like a rocket.

“Close enough,” he muttered. “Is removing someone from the battlefield dishonorable?”

Happy Heron blinked. She held her sword point toward him.

“You could’ve done that from the beginning.”

“Spare the tiger the lash and you spoil him… no, the original saying of that is just dumb. I’m trying to make a point. Basically, tell your fellow sect masters that there is always someone bigger. So, reconsider how you run things. Less forcing people into peasantry and more sharing the stuff. That goes for everything. Food, medicine, homes, training. Wouldn’t it benefit everyone to have more cultivators? At least let people level in the class that most calls to them. That’s how you succeed as a society. Less feudalism and more socialism. Rising tides lift all crabs out of the bucket. Because, you have to understand that you are one of the crabs, not the crab fisherman. Those are things like eldritch entities and immortal beings that have already come to our world and caused suffering. Now, more are on the way.”

“We will not be lectured by a foreigner.”

“Aren’t we all foreigners?”

“No… no we aren’t.”

“Nations are gone. I guess you can fall back on culture, but what is that? Who determines who belongs to what? Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say… whoever holds the power, right? So, is this the best you can do?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Who are you to tell me what I hold inside?”

“As an outside observer, I think that I can be a bit more objective that someone on the inside. Someone that built an identity on all of this needs it to be right, otherwise they’re the bad guy and no one actually thinks they’re the bad guy.”

“Then what would you do in my place?”

“Find like-minded people and work together to do good things.”

“We are all beholden to the Phoenix Dynasty. We are the nail and they are the hammer.”

“I guess you got me there.”

“Nothing? No sage words? No dripping arrogance? No—”

“Oh, sorry, your gloomy fellow was trying to sneak up on me. It didn’t work out well for him.”

Happy Heron stilled her features.

The Gloom of the Concrete Forest was above her on the next floor.

From the looks of his Qi, he was out cold.

She was the last protector.

To lose the boy would dishonor her and her sect.

“C’mon, do a little thought exercise with me? Picture a little boy, unlucky to be the central part of a dubious prophecy. Taken from your family. Turned into a prize to be won.”

“He will live in luxury.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, “but, he didn’t make that choice.”

“It is irrelevant. We all serve in our own ways. Come, let’s finish this—”

The light went out in her eyes as she crumpled to the floor.

The masked man left her softly snoring on the floor in the midst of a pleasant dream.

She was truly one of the better cultivators in the city.

He found the sleeping boy in a room deep inside the building.

He carried him up the stairs and to the roof where he waited for the boy’s sister.

While waiting, he stretched his thoughts out citywide to see how the others were doing.

Bakunawa had some concerns.

He couldn’t move too fast, lest he set off sonic booms at ground level where hundreds of people were slow in clearing out.

The street was packed with restaurants on the ground floor and living spaces above.

That was a lot of windows he could shatter, sending jagged shards into innocents.

He took stock of his surroundings where superhumanly quick cultivators moved in slow motion to his perceptions.

Mid level.

He searched for the higher level ones and found them hiding in concealment at key points a good distance away.

A net of sorts.

Meant to allow them to collapse on him wherever he decided to flee.

There were some hiding in the sky as well.

They thought themselves hidden but Qi was just a form of energy that he could sense.

Since they planned for him to flee, why not do the opposite?

He burst into motion.

Fast, but just a shade under the speed of sound.

A light tap broke a cultivator’s collar bone.

A soft kick snapped a tibia.

A grab to break an ulna.

Clean breaks.

None of that compound fracture nastiness where the bone breaks the skin.

No reason to be cruel.

Some of these kids weren’t that bad.

Well, maybe, like ten percent.

Ninety percent fit that arrogant young master stereotype from what he’d observed over the years.

It was his civic duty to teach them humility.

That was what he’d say if someone asked… who?

He’d admit that he didn’t know, just that he had heard it from somewhere and it sounded pretty good in the moment.

The violence lasted a moment.

Dozens of young cultivators laid low.

None had even the chance to launch an attack.

“I’ll break more if you try anything. Clear the area and I’ll leave you alone. Young men and women, learn from this experience. Be better. None of that arrogant young master bullshit. It’s dumb and makes you look stupid, as you can see for yourselves.”

Several decided to ignore his words.

He broke their other arms, left them their legs so they could run away.

“Yeah, sorry,” he regarded the white-faced young man with the broken leg, “can one of you help this guy before—”

A falling star screamed down from the heavens.

Bakunawa had time to curse as he rushed over to the downed young man, intercepting the spear.

“What the hell, asshole?” he shook a fist at the master cultivator standing several hundred feet overhead. “You weren’t even close to hitting me… unless… hey, kid,” he eyed the white-faced young man, “that old dude wouldn’t happen to be part of your rival sect?”

Saucer-sized eyes gazed up at him and nodded.

“So, it’s like one of those taking the opportunity in the chaos to weaken an enemy?”

Another nod.

“Fuck’s sake. You all can’t even work together in the face of a greater threat. Bunch of snake-y crabs in a bucket. Young man it seems that you now owe me a Wookie life debt. I’ll find you later to explain. Best move along, lest grandpa up there, decides to take another shot.”

Two other young cultivators, cradling their own broken arms, helped the third hobble away.

“Lucky you had boon companions,” Bakunawa called out after them.

Well… they hobbled to his perceptions… they moved like Olympic sprinters to the normal human eye.

“This a spiritual weapon?” he held the spear toward the old cultivator standing on air. He knew that it was judging by the same Qi flowing through the weapon and the man. “Shouldn’t have tried to murder that kid,” he snapped the spear.

Perhaps the old cultivator thought it was too strong to break or that it’d hold long enough for him to take it back.

Mistake.

The old cultivator plummeted from the sky with an agonized scream.

Because Bakunawa wasn’t a complete asshole, he bounded across the street to catch the old man.

A high level cultivator would’ve survived a fall from that height with no problem, but that was under normal circumstances. Not right after one had their spiritual weapon broken. Best not to take the chance. He wasn’t here to start any blood debts or such nonsense.

“Huh? Is this that same Green Orchard dude?” he muttered. “I can’t tell.”

And that was when the other masters decided that Bakunawa was a real threat.

Predictably, the ones that didn’t belong to the same sect as the old man in his arms didn’t display any concerns about friendly fire.

In fact, it was as if they had decided to use his mercy against him.