He poked Sun awake. She rubbed her eyes, nearly whacked him with the Jingu Bang, remembered where she was, packed up her condiments and ladles and knives.

“I’m hungry,” she yawned, groggy-grumpy.

“Oh, hush. You’ll have your fill before the day’s out.”

They set out as soon as the buzzing was back to a background hum.

With Sun’s cloaking, they faced little trouble as they waded through the marsh. No locusts swarmed them. Schools of blind gunkfish, each bearing teeth made to gnaw through bone, drifted around their ankles like they were tree-roots. Was Dorian imagining it, or was Sun’s cloaking even more potent than before? Her qi cloaking had reduced their auras to tiny ripples. Now they were hardly noticeable as they romped through the Swamp.

The deeper they got the fewer riffraff there were. The small-fry fish lessened in number. Locusts no longer sagged on the boughs above. Even the trees were darkening, thickening in bark. Their leaves were now an ashy shade of black.

“Where are the Dao Fruit?” whispered Sun, eyes darting left and right. “Are they meant to hang off the boughs? Or—“

“You’ll know them when you see them. You’ll see.”

Truthfully even Dorian wasn’t totally sure. The last time he was here, he hadn’t done the plucking himself. He’d done the more sensible thing: waited for some valiant hero to battle the Fruit’s Guardian, then knocked the poor fellow over the head once he’d come out and nabbed his ring. The fruit-picking itself was a mystery to him.

Still—the scent was growing stronger. And with it came a sinuous rippling upon the fabric of reality, like those made by a tiny pebble on a calm pond. It meant they were close.

She nodded. As they went she produced a chunk of carrot from her Interspatial Ring. She nibbled on it as they went.

“…Can’t this wait?” sighed Dorian.

“Replenishes qi,” she explained, mouth half-full. “Cloaking’s tiring!”

The trek went on uneventfully for a solid half-hour. You didn’t catch Dorian complaining! Uneventful was good. Uneventful meant things were going to plan.

Then this blissful honeymoon was shattered, abruptly, with a shout.

They both stiffened at once. It was far off. To the east, lost in the wild snag of vines and trees. It sounded like a man who’d inadvertently stepped into a trap. There was a furious growl, a whiplash of steel. Then the crashing and slashing, the grating din of battle. Auras nearly up to Empyrean. Still hundreds of paces off, but clearly they were heading in Dorian’s direction…

“Another Prince?” squeaked Sun.

“I think so too,” said Dorian, wrinkling his nose. “Could be more adventurers. But I doubt it.”

“Were they stalking us? Like that other prince? Then they must’ve run into some kind of monster.”

“Yes. And they’re not the only ones…” Dorian’s gazes shifted across the blank dark face of the forest. It gave him nothing. “You’re not the only one who can cloak around here. Stay sharp. With luck that party will have its hands full for a while.”

“Mhm!” said Sun, nodding quick. On they went once more.

This time Dorian was the first to pick up their second tail. To the west, the sound of thick, muscular breathing. That of a minotaur—or some other hulking brutish thing bound with muscle, craving air.

“Keep going,” urged Dorian. He threw her an encouraging grin. It felt like the sort of chestnut she needed. It was fascinating to see her confidence wax and wane as they went. A steady decline from the moment they’d set foot in the Swamp. Then a hefty boost after that last incident with the coiling dragon. She was paling again. But now she gulped and nodded. She set her jaw.

“Mhm! Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” she said. Dorian got the impression she meant it. Her eyes were glowing with a certain light.

This was the same girl who had been the one cowardly enough to stay behind while her grandfather and the rest of her clan set off to fight to their deaths. Dorian hadn’t given it much thought until now. As a general rule he didn’t much care about the interiors of others, unless it suited him. But there was probably some rich psychological vein there. Something someone who cared more might tap. He shrugged. For now it was enough reassure him she probably wouldn’t shit the bed when the moment drew close.

And it was drawing close indeed…

The boughs had grown pitch black. To the sides the trunks of trees were clustered so close they could’ve been walls. Vines drooped from above—or were they the lazy coils of serpents?—impossible to tell. Every so often glimmers of pale eyes twinkled from above like false stars. Go too high, and who knew what might reach down to greet you? The path through the bog had grown precarious. Like walking a mountain pass between two ravines. To either side: endless depths seething with beasts. Even the so-called safe shallows drawing a thin line between them were getting broken-up. Some sections felt like hopping lily pads.

It didn’t take another ten minutes for a third tail to make its presence known.

“Let’s move a little faster,” said Dorian.

“Err. What’ll we do about them?”

“Don’t know!” he said cheerfully. She seemed quite alarmed at that.

“No, no,” he said, waving a careless hand. “This is a good thing. See, they don’t know either. No-one does. The more there are, the better off we’ll be.”

“Uhhhh—”

He wagged a finger at her. “Tightropes. It’s all tightropes. You’re thinking of it like we’re all in a race from one end to another. Then yeah. More is worse! But what we want is to shake the others off—and the more men on the rope the shakier it gets, the worst it gets for the rest of ‘em. And the one who can cling on best is the one who wins, I the end. I have a hunch it’s me.” He grinned. “It’s always me.”

He left her to chew on that for a bit.

“Hmmmm…” she mumbled. “If your analogy was a tightrope, I think you you fell off like two sentences in. But I do get what you mean.”

“Good.”

Some more wading. A croaking sound, like a frog’s put through a horn, echoed about them. Sun nearly fell into the bog.

“Sorry for asking—again,” gasped Sun. “But how close are we?”

Dorian scratched his chin. He thought for a few breaths.

“Bones,” he said at last.

“Sorry?”

“That’s when you’ll know. The Dao Trees are on a fairly lush and very venomous island at the center of the Swamp of the Damned. Oh, there’s the usual Swamp monsters on it. Carnivorous plants, serpents with steel-melting venom, that sort of thing. But the real threat is the Guardian of the Fruits.”

“I’ve heard of him!” said Sun. Her brows scrunched. “Real piece of work. Isn’t he some kind of legendary serpent? Chews up and spits out anyone who comes for his fruits?”

Dorian snorted. “Not even close. First—it’s a she. And if you think she’s a serpent you’ve only seen a tiny piece of her. Which is all most who seek the Dao Fruit end up seeing, to be fair. But a nasty piece of work she most certainly is.”

“You sound like you know her.”

“Oh, yes. Quite well.” He sighed. “There was a time when she was a…”

He struggled to put a word on it. “…”

“…”

“What?”

“…friend? I suppose?” He managed. It didn’t feel quite right on his tongue, but he couldn’t find another word for it.

“And then?”

He shrugged. “I robbed her. As you do. She never really forgave me for it. My next two visits she melted me alive. Needless to say, she won’t be pleased to see me again.”

“Mm.” Sun nodded. “Yeah! Sounds like you. What’s all that got to do with bones?”

“Well, she has her fair share of villains with nefarious intentions—such as us—coming for her Dao Fruit. Hundreds a year. Thousands, on heavy years! Not even the bogs and their hordes of living skeletons can soak them all up. Bones saturate all the lands around the island. You’ll know we’re close when—”

CRUNCH.

He froze. He sighed. “Yeah, I figured.”

Bending down, he picked up the offender—a severed chunk of toe-bone. It looked to be of a humanoid.

“Lend me your senses,” said Dorian. His eyes narrowed as he swept the murk ahead. “Go by smell alone. A strong illusion covers the island. Sight, sound, even qi won’t help you here. Only the smell of the Dao Fruit can leak through.”

“Gotcha.”

They crunched closer. The gunk waters went down from their thighs as they went. Soon it was at their ankles.

At the same time, Dorian sensed their tails converging on them from all sides. The one on the east had, by the sound of it, vanquished whatever they’d pissed off. They sounded like so close they were almost through the trees now. The west, too, was drawing closer. He was pleased to hear a shout and a splash erupt from behind him—good. It was oh-so-easy to take a wrong step in this Swamp…

“There’s one party somewhere behind us,” said Dorian. Usually he kept all this in his head. But after her antics last time maybe it would prove useful to let Sun in on the game. “They’ve taken the same path as we have: The shortest but most treacherous one, straight through the Swamp proper. The others, to either side of us, have likely fought their way through tens of li of venomous beasts. Unless they’ve got Empyreans on hand, I doubt they’re in any position to fight.”

Sun nodded, listening intently.

“They’ll be on us very soon. If they catch us here, we’re done. We’re exposed and we can’t maneuver at all in this bog—they’ll converge on us. Which means we’ve got to find the Island first.”

Sun nodded again.

Dorian kept scouring the air as he spoke, sieving out the pungent tang of sap, the sting of feces, the heavy stench wafting up from the waters. The path ahead of them seemed very much like the path behind. But for all he knew they could be walking in circles. Here, only smell was truth—

“There.”

Sun pointed smack in the middle of a giant bog before them. No land in sight. He sniffed, frowning. “Are you sure? We’ll need to jump, so we’ll only have one shot at this…”

“I am very hungry,” said Sun. She wrinkled her nose. She looked equal parts offended, hungry, and frightened. “And when I am very hungry I could smell the faintest whiff of a stale cookie from ten thousand li out! I’m sure.”

There was no time for second-guessing. From out of the trees to their left burst a motley troupe of Gods. They were very much like the adventurers Dorian and Sun had left behind, only there were more of them, eyes bloodshot, bristling with weaponry, splattered with gore, looking like they’d—well, like they’d survived a hellish trek through the Swamp of the Damned. A dozen or so. At their head was what looked to be a demonoid—part-man, part-demon. A Prince of Ur, no doubt, with the sauve looks and regal aura to match. Only his skin was mottled purple-black, like obsidian, and his eyes flashed red. Peak God. “Halt!” he cried. He met Dorian’s eyes. “Greetings! I am Vinicius, second Prince of Ur.”

“Hey,” said Dorian with a wave.

“Do I have the honor of addressing the former Godking Dorian?”

Former? Dorian’s cheek twitched. “You do.”

“I have been tasked with bringing you to trial, sir.” At least this one was polite about it. “You are a figure of legend, so I shall give you this much respect. You are stranded, alone, and we outnumber you six-to-one. Turn yourself in and I promise you safe passage and a fair trial.”

“Hm.” Dorian scratched his chin. Stalling for time. “Give me a few weeks, will you? I’ll get back to you. I’m rather busy at the moment.”

“I must insist on an answer now, sir. Or I’m afraid…” Behind him, godly auras flared to life. Some were frighteningly close to Empyrean. “You shall not like the consequences.”

“What are we waiting for?!” whispered Sun. “Let’s jump for it!”

“Oh, hush. This tightrope can fit a few more men.”

“I’m really starting to hate that analogy,” she grumbled.

“It’s the same as the Ba Serpents and the Taotie. We can hardly beat any one of them on our own. But with luck and some finagling we can set them against each other. Only then can we come out on top.”

Sun poked him. “Why does it seem like all your plans involve a lot of luck?”

From the west—finally—only two auras broke through the thicket of trees.

One was a girl in a dress spun of a silver so pure it looked woven out of moonlight. She sat cross-legged, a parasol in one hand which was splattered in all manner of blood and insect carcass. She herself was untouched. She looked almost bored. From her radiated the aura of a peak God.

But it was the thing she was riding that drew Dorian’s eye.

A tiger with white fur and blue stripes and pupils sparkling the color of clear ocean waters on a sunny day. Dorian knew it instantly; how could he not? He shared a domain with it, once upon a time. Legendary Beast, a master of Time—White Tiger. It snorted puffs of white qi, which swirled like puffs of snow.

And this one, like the coiling dragon before, was half-step Empyrean.

“…Huh,” said Dorian, “That is quite unlucky.”