“What the hell is this!?”

Jack damn near jumped out of his skin at the sudden question from what he had been sure was an empty bathroom. As it was, his incredibly dapper robe suffered something of a wardrobe malfunction as he turned to face a rather angry looking divinity.

Deliberately calming himself he slid his toothbrush from his mouth. “Yating, you’re back.”

The rooster was sat on the shitter. Legs crossed, eyes blazing and feathers actively puffed up like some kind of cat.

“What. Is. This?”

Jack’s eyes flitted from the cultivator’s face to the object he had held between two fingers.

Ah, he thought as he took in the small metal chip. That’s not good.

He’d made those explosive chips to order, which meant he had literally zero spares knocking around. Which meant that the only place Yating could have got it from was inside of someone. And they were not located in places that were conducive to having them be removed.

That was kind of the whole point.

“Who did you get that from?” Jack asked. “And please tell me they’re still alive.”

“One of your new pets. The ones with the armor. I was on my way to see you when I heard them complaining of it in their room.” Yating sniffed dismissively. “Naturally, I investigated. And while it was tedious work to remove, it was nothing beyond the power of a healing sage. My test subject should wake up none the wiser as to her lighter burden.”

Well, that was terrifying on a number of levels. The divinity had somehow heard someone speaking to themselves in their room, entered said room - which was supposed to require a passcode - rendered the cultivator in said room unconscious without them or anyone else noticing, removed a device that was specifically tamper proof from said person’s neck, then healed them well enough that they apparently wouldn’t notice the change.

Jack hadn’t known Yating was a healer. More to the point…

“How hasn’t it exploded?” Jack asked curiously, eying the chip. “It should respond to changes in temperature.”

As in response, the Rooster quirked a single delicate eyebrow and the thing exploded in his hand. It wasn’t a big explosion. It didn’t need to be when the thing was designed to be placed at the base of someone’s skull. With that in mind, it was more akin to a large firecracker than anything else.

Jack didn’t jump this time, something he was sure disappointed the overgrown bird across from him.

“I assumed as much and accounted for that and half a dozen other failsafes that your little abomination might have had.” Yating said, as if that said anything at all.

This time it was Jack’s turn to quirk an eyebrow. “Abomination? That’s a little much, don’t you think?”

Yating said nothing, his eyes still blazing with anger.

“It’s insurance.” The human finally grunted. “And hardly the worst thing I’ve done since you’ve met me. So why are you so worked up about it?”

The Divinity growled and the nearby mirror suddenly cracked.

“Are you actually trying to hit me with some killing intent right now?” Jack scoffed. “You know it doesn’t work on me. Just use your words.”

Perhaps he should have remained quiet. Really, this should have been terrifying. It was the middle of the night and he stood in a bathrobe with a pissed off godling in front of him. One who would kill him with a twitch of his finger.

“Killing intent does not always come about as a result of some kind of technique,” Yating bit out. “There’s a reason even spirit beasts have it after all. Sometimes it’s simply that. Killing intent.”

Huh, that was interesting to know.

Yet, for all that, he wasn’t worried. More exasperated than anything else. Maybe it was the knowledge that they needed each other that was giving him courage?

Maybe he’d just become inured to the omnipresent possibility of death?

Either way, he was tired from a long day trying to run a city and wasn’t about to be highroaded by a being he was pretty sure had played a role in some literal genocide back in the day.

Neither of them had clean hands.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was more… personal rather than professional?”

He didn’t even see the Divinity move. One moment he was sat on the crapper, the next Jack could feel the cultivator’s spurs at his throat. And they were spurs. Like a rooster would have. Long blade attached to the being’s ankles that slid out with a flick of his foot. Jack didn’t move though. He simply gazed down the long outstretched leg to Yating’s serious gaze.

“Huh, you wear shorts under those?” he asked.

“No more. None.” Yating’s words were iron.

“Jokes?”

“Insurance. What has gone before may persist, but I will allow you to bring no others under these device’s’ despicable sway.”

Jack considered the other person’s words for a long moment.

“Alright.”

The Rooster’s gaze widened. He hesitated for just a moment, before the spurs slid back and the divinity slowly, almost gingerly, lowered his leg.

“Just like that?”

The human shrugged. “Just like that.”

The benefits the devices provided weren’t worth poisoning his relationship with the Divinity over.

Now, perhaps another man might have considered such a relationship poisoned already, given that he’d just been threatened by the other man, but Jack had grown up in a megacity underbelly.

Threats were the language of choice there.

Which was also why he resisted the urge to point out how little difference there was between being threatened by a subdermal explosive chip and an angry divinity with ankle-blades. Both compelled obedience through fear and force.

He knew the signs. He’d seen them before in former penal laborers. Yating’s issue wasn’t the principle behind the action, only the method through which it was achieved.

And the means by which the Empire functions slowly starts to make sense to me, Jack thought.

He eyed how Yating seemed to have shrunk in on himself, his feathers drooped. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the immortal almost looked… ashamed was too strong a word, but abashed or embarrassed were slightly more apt.

“So, where’ve you been?” he asked, stepped forward and once more readjusting his robes – noting that his microbots were still where they were supposed to be. He’d felt them twitch and bunch up when Yating moved, but they hadn’t done anything more than that.

At his words, the immortal sagged even further, before muttering something quietly to himself.

Eventually though he grunted something understandable.

“Buying you time. You have four months before an Imperial diplomatic team shows up at your door. You’re welcome.”

Then he disappeared. One eyeblink he was there, then he was gone.

“Wait, what!?” Jack’s hand whipped out, hoping to grasp what he hoped was an invisible bundle of feathers – even if he knew it was pointless. “You can’t just say that and disappear!”

He shouted at the empty bathroom, uncaring of how he could hear indistinct stirring from his partner in the other room. Fortunately, Lin was a heavy sleeper. Which was a nice change of pace from literally any of his other possible bedpartners.

Which was why it was doubly fortunate that Huang was apparently sleeping in the forge tonight. Or at least, that was what he assumed from Lin’s muttered mumblings on the subject before she sank into his bed.

“Yating!” Jack hissed. “Seriously, I’d like to talk more about these negotiators I’m going to have to deal with.”

All he got was silence.

“Like, are they negotiators or negotiators?”

More silence.

“Plus, you never said you could heal! That could save me a trip.”

Silence.

“If you come out right now, I’ll give you a cake.”

Yet more silence.

“Shit,” Jack finally muttered. He sighed, and glanced up at his now crack bathroom mirror. “And a fat lot of good you were.”

In response, microbots appeared lethargically from his collar and gave him what could only have been a shrug.

Jack sagged.

The damn things were getting smarter by the day. Either it was ki shit or just plain talking to them was helping them develop faster, but they were learning. And that increased understanding of the world meant that they’d known trying some kind of threat display against Yating would have been completely and totally pointless.

So they hadn’t tried.

Jack watched the sliver of silver disappear back under his clothes before resignedly grabbing his toothbrush and continuing his oral hygiene routine.

It was a distracted process though.

He had a lot to think about.

Like how he was going to convince the Imperial Throne to leave him and his people be.

…I’m going to need a counterweight, Jack thought.

------------------

“Don’t you all have things you need to be doing?” Jack asked idly as they trundled gently along in one of the new Barrels through Ten Huo’s busy streets, mounted members of the Steel Paw clearing the path ahead of the small convoy of tracked machines.

“Is our presence a problem?” Ren asked idly from her position to his right.

Jack glanced between the four women present in the crew compartment with him. Ren to his right. An across from and to his right. Lin to his left. Huang across from him and to his left.

The lines between the camps of his harem couldn’t have been more stark if they were outlined in chalk.

The tension in the vehicle was palpable.

Gao, the only other man present, had sat as far from all of them as humanly possible. He’d also spent the entire trip talking on his headset to, well, a lot of different people.

Most recently, he’d been fielding a conversation about some kind of… shadow crocodile thing.

Jack didn’t envy him. The man was incredibly busy and it had taken a small act of divine authority for Jack to get him to come along on this trip. Which said a lot about the man’s work ethic, given that they were finally going to see what they could do about the man’s scarring.

To that end, the vehicle behind them was carrying the other survivors of the Red Death’s attack – in an open topped variant of the new tracked crawlers.

A few of the former ‘tankers’ had become somewhat claustrophobic in the days following their near-death experience. So much so that some of them had quietly been transferred to other sections of the new army of Ten Huo.

Which wasn’t really too big an issue. If anything, the men were more useful as instructors than as drivers or gunners.

“Not at all,” he smiled as charmingly as he could. “I just would have thought you would all be busy with other things.”

“Our tablets allow us to keep abreast of many things without the need for our physical presence,” An said simply.

And sure enough, all the women present had tablets in hand. Even Ren, who was easily the least technically apt of the lot.

Which said a lot about how determined she was to be here for this showdown… or about just how quickly Huang had adapted to the wonders of technology, given the relatively short amount of time she’d spent as part of his entourage.

She’d been learning fast, and while she wasn’t quite on Lin’s level yet, she was still familiar enough to serve as an assistant of sorts to the peasant girl.

Which was a strange thought indeed, for an Imperial Princess to serve as a peasant’s assistant.

Almost as strange as Ren and An agreeing on something, Jack thought as he glanced at the two cultivators.

Though to be fair, their alliance seemed to be formed less out of mutual respect and more out of a need not to be shown up by a pair of mortals. By contrast, Huang and Lin were fast friends – and perhaps a little bit more.

He honestly had no idea how to frame the pair’s relationship and at this point wasn’t even going to try.

Fortunately, the conflict between the two camps had yet to escalate beyond a need to remain in his presence and some glaring.

Which was why he’d yet to step in to put his proverbial foot down. Normally he preferred to let these things work themselves out, lest he be seen as ‘taking sides’, but that stance would only persist so long as everyone involved behaved in a more or less professional manner.

Which is a strange thing to say about relationship drama, but I suppose that’s what I get for mixing business with pleasure, he thought with a grimace. Who knew knocking boots with my Head-Warrior, Regent, Head-Engineer/Best Friend and nominal concubine would get complicated?

Him. He’d known.

And he’d done it anyway.

Because sex. And greed.

…And he genuinely did like all of them. Both the good and the bad. Because while he could say none of them were perfect, neither was he.

And there were certainly worse things to experience than being stuck in the confined space with four different women who all wanted to get into his pants.

Still, he almost sighed in relief as the Barrel rolled to a stop, the light overhead turning green to indicate that they’d arrived at their destination – as opposed to all the other times they’d stopped to allow a crowded street to clear of traffic before continuing on.

Which, to be fair, they tended to do rather quickly given the average cultivator’s tendency to plow through a crowd in their horse drawn carriages.

By contrast, his people were apparently getting some good press for not doing that.

Going to have to make new laws about it anyway, he thought, adding the note to the near endless list of tasks he had to do. Can’t have some cultivator getting shot in the face by one of my people because they mowed down said person’s daughter on the way to a meeting or something.

Given that nearly every guard in the city would soon be armed with a gonne and answering to him directly, rather than the sects, that scenario would become a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ if he didn’t get in front of it now.

Plus, there was the fact that his vehicles were becoming an increasingly common sight across the city.

Yes, traffic laws would have to be instituted. And then actually enforced universally, which would be a whole different kettle of fish.

He idly rubbed at his scalp as he stood up, before pulling his helmet over his head as the Barrel’s ramp slid down to the ground, bathing the vehicle’s insides in natural light.

He stepped out into the morning light and craned his head around in search of assassins. There shouldn’t have been any, the Barrel was equipped with a sensor suite capable of tracking even Yating and Elwin’s light bending invisibility – let alone the simple ‘notice me not’ technique the locals used.

Still, it was better to get into the habit of checking now. He was sure the next bout of assassination attempts would come soon enough. The local sects could no longer oppose him through conventional force, and they’d been almost outright neutered politically, which meant that skullduggery was really the only method left to them.

There was nothing that he could see though. The nearby rooftops were clear.

And I doubt there’s anyone hidden in the crowd, he thought.

None of the sects could afford to be seen as responsible for killing a healer if he was caught in the crossfire. Ironically, killing the magistrate would net them allies and be seen as a show of strength – even clandestinely.

Killing a healer would gain only enemies.

Not out of any real respect for the life-saving profession, but because they were a somewhat ‘neutral’ strategic asset for the city as a whole.

And much like craftsmen, they were usually men.

Which Sheng definitely was.

It was the beard that gave it away. It was long, white and very stereotypical. The wizened old man stood in front of his compound, two women to each side, who could only have been bodyguards – or wives.

The line between the two could blur significantly around here, as Jack could attest. Though given the slightly advanced age of the two women, Jack was willing to bet the latter.

Still, they looked fearsome enough for it, even clad in white healer’s garments, there was no missing the way they eyed everyone around, hands firmly around the hafts of the oversized maces they held.

Behind the cultivators stood a small army of servants, nurses and orderlies, all clad in white robes with hats and masks.

Which did a lot to improve Jack’s opinion of the local medical industry quite a bit. His questions to An and Ren had resulted in them showing only an incredibly basic understanding of germ theory. They’d known that keeping a wound clean was good, lest it fester, but reasons beyond that had devolved into bad humors and spirits.

Admittedly, spirits might exist, but Jack was still dubious. Which had left him a little leery of leaving his people in the hands of what might well be a bunch of witch doctors.

For all that, Sheng seemed intelligent enough in the few letters they’d exchanged, but pure text wasn’t always a trustworthy medium for communication.

“Great one, this humble servant is proud to welcome you to this place of healing,” Sheng bowed deeply with every outward sign that he meant it.

Which he likely did. Sheng was the most well known healer in the city and while he was not truly independent – given that he was nominally part of the Jade Fur Sect – he had also had a somewhat lucrative contract with the Imperial Army and Huang herself.

A contract that was voided with Shui’s transition to power and one I’m sure he’d love to renew with me, Jack thought as he eyed the expensive architecture just beyond the outer doors of the compound.

No, this place was no charity. Medicine was as much a business here as it had been back on Jack’s homeworld – after the megacorps officially finished gutting the last of his homeland’s more ‘socialist’ policies.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, he thought.

That was fine by Jack. He had access to the city’s vaults – and enough precious metals to crash the secondary mortal economy five times over. Sure, he had less spirit coins, the crystallized ki currency used by cultivators, but one could buy the other.

Well, it could until an economic crash occurred, he admitted. And the value of gold nosedived.

Fortunately, he had Ren handling all that. She was slowly liquidating his supply of precious metals in a manner that hopefully wouldn’t destroy the city’s slowly recovering economy.

A task that was easier said than done with the ongoing war. The value of gold compared to goods had already plummeted a little without any input from him.

To that end, I need to revive our shipping industry and see if we can’t find some overseas contacts, Jack thought.

That would be something he’d need to broach with Elwin at some point.

“I’m glad to be here,” Jack nodded back to the man, giving him face while deliberately not bowing himself given his higher social stature.

A slightly quirked eyebrow was the only note the healer made of the fact that Jack showed up to his place of healing outfitted for war, but otherwise said nothing. Instead his eyes traveled over Jack’s entourage, brightening slightly when they alighted on Huang though, before dimming just as quickly.

“As overjoyed as I am to hear that, Great One…” The wizened old cultivator coughed. “I confess some confusion as to the purpose of this meeting. Your letters, while welcome, were rather vague on the matter of specifics.”

That had been entirely intentional. The man might have refused his request if he’d made it from a distance.

It was a lot harder to do so from within grabbing distance.

“Nor did I expect such a large convoy,” the man continued nervously, eyes flitting toward the Steel Paw.

Well, Jack was glad to see his reputation preceded him. All he’d had to do was almost single handedly save the city, kill a small god and then wipe two small armies of cultivators off the map.

“It would be better to talk inside,” Jack said without preamble. “The doors of your compound are no place for such talk.”

Indeed, the man could be said to be insulting him by not immediately inviting him inside.

He wasn’t. At least, not intentionally.

The fact that Jack had shown up with so many people simply had him searching for assurances where ‘good behavior’ was concerned.

“Of course. Of course.” The healer smiled weakly, gesturing to his people to clear a path.

A path that Jack followed the old healer down as they headed into his ‘hospital’.

Though he didn’t miss the way the old man’s eyes twitched as Gao and his equally scarred fellows followed after them, while most of the Iron Paw stayed outside.

The man had likely already figured out why Jack was here and was likely not best pleased that he’d be ‘wasting his time’ on a bunch of mortals.

Jack didn’t care. He’d promised he’d heal his people and he would. Some wrinkly old cultivator’s pride wasn’t going to get away with that.

Though I’m glad to see my decision to keep the specifics of this trip a secret wasn’t pointless, he thought.

Still, not all of the Steel Paw stood outside.

Two came up the rear of Jack’s formation, having clambered out of the rearmost barrel. Between them stood a third figure, clad from head to toe in a thick cloak that obscured their features completely. Nevertheless, they towered over the cultivators escorting them, and none could miss the rhythmic clanking of chains jingling with every step they took.

Jack didn’t miss the way the man twitched as the figure drew closer, his hands clasping and unclasping as they darted from Jack to the cloaked being.

It seemed he’d sensed that something was off. Ren had said he likely would. Healers, more than anyone, had excellent sensory abilities and ki control.

And while the Steel Paw were supposed to be blaring their intent as a form of shroud, if anyone in the city were capable of parsing through it, the man opposite him would.

“What manner of madness have you brought into my home?” The healer asked, eyes hard and flinty as they turned back to Jack.

There was no honorifics there, and the man’s wives tensed once more as they pulled closer to the old man.

Jack ignored them, his gaze only on the healer, before he shrugged within the confines of his suit.

“The necessary kind.”