The scale sank within him, down his throat, and nestled into his Spirit Sea. Right in the eye of the storm.

Dorian felt the shockwave of qi from his bones to his skin. His whole body vibrated, top-to-bottom, like a string plucked by the hand of an angry god.

He lost it. His grip slipped. He yielded easily, relieved, and let the storm of qi detonate within him.

It lashed out like the death throes of a writhing beast. It stormed his Spirit Sea, snarling and thrashing against the walls of the space as it dashed from his body, and the Sea, stubborn and stretched as it was, had no choice but to give.

And a status screen Dorian had long craved flashed before his eyes.

[Level-up!]

[Spirit Sea] Grade: High -> Perfect

He’d done it. Dorian felt a rush of fierce joy. He was burning up with it; he couldn’t keep the grin from his face. He basked in the feeling. This—this!—was what gave existence color. Compared to all those other petty pleasures, this was a delight of a different kind; it stood alone. He lived for moments like this.

The Perfect-Grade Sea held triple the qi of Low-Grade. It was a heaven-and-earth difference, one which made a Perfect-Grade Profound cultivator worth ten of his lesser counterparts.

But Dorian’s breakthroughs were not yet done.

The Sea was a perfect sphere lodged within, a pearl where most every other cultivator possessed but a grain. It was a glorious orb of shining light within him, fiery and lovely. At its center lay the source of the heat: the Bloodline scale of the Great Serpent, dissolving into the Sea, tinging it. Melding with his body.

[Level-up!]

[Bloodline Density]: 1% -> 3%

And at last, it was complete.

He felt reborn, every ounce of him tingling with newfound power—his own qi, trickling over him from out of his newfound Spirit Sea, dense as the deep-sea, black as a starless sky, slick as pitch oil and just as smothering. A qi which exuded an aura of effortless majesty. Kneel, it seemed to say. For you stand in the presence of a king.

His qi was but a stream now, but soon his Sea would fill. Soon he would be awash with his own Bloodline qi. Soon he would be invincible in the Profound Realm.

He’d barely begun to fantasize about his impending glory before it happened.

A wrenching in his gut, a nauseous feeling.Dorian started, eyes wide. What?!

The air around him twisted, smearing the colors about him as though caught in a massive heat wave. But this was no heat. This was a kind of reality distortion. A kind with which Dorian was all-too-familiar.

Fate! But how?

He whirled around, but there was no-one there. As the tug grew stronger the air seemed to pull apart, making his vision a grotesque watercolor. He felt for the source of the disturbance. Was there some foul magic at play? Had Old Man Fate broached the realm?!

Then he stopped. For he’d found the disturbance’s source.

All this warping stemmed from… himself.

What. The. Fuck.

It was like some divine gong had been struck in an unseen dimension and now its waves spread out endlessly, rippling reality. Where the waves spread the qi grew agitated, flaring, sizzling.

Which was a hell of an issue, since Dorian stood in the middle of a stormcloud of qi! Qi that had, in the blink of an eye, turned vicious.

Then, as one, it moved.

***

The door to the cultivation chamber was taking a pounding.

A dozen Earth-Realm and peak-Profound elites, among the best soldiers of the Oasis, threw the full heft of their cultivation bases at the door. Thick gobs of qi sailed through the air; gauntleted fists pummeled dents into the door. The door clung on, gritty in its old age, but it was sagging under the assault, its golden facade burned to a crusty black.

Bin Heilong gave an impatient humph. “Pathetic!” he snarled. “My finest men cannot bring down one measly door? Can the Heilong name be shamed any further on this blasted day?”

“Step aside!” He flung out his arms as he stalked between them, and his men scattered, yelping.

“I’ll do it myself.”

A fizz of crimson-white sparked to existence before him. It swirled into a fireball the size of a finger, then a heart, then a boulder, building on itself mid-air the way a snowball grows as it crashes down an avalanche. Bin’s men glanced at each other, their faces white, and plastered themselves against the walls.

This was the Cry of the Dragon. It was the general’s signature move, and it was so named because he’d shoved it down the throat of a peak Earth-Realm Flood Dragon, and it cooked the beast alive from the inside. The Dragon’s agonized cries could be heard for miles.

This would not merely melt the door. This would reduce whichever unfortunate soul stood beyond it to slag. There would be collateral damage. He might scald one of the shrine’s sacred trees, an act which would get a lesser man hung.

But no-one dared say a thing, since the general was far beyond caring.

Suddenly, just as the Cry was cresting its apex, the door started to tremble.

The general blinked. The men blinked. No. That wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t merely the door. It was the whole of the chamber. Bits of debris bounced up and down, and the ceiling let out a labored gasp.

“Whoever is doing that, cease!” snarled the General, whirling on his men, his Technique held high above his head like an executioner’s blade. But his men simply looked to one another, baffled, for none of them had done a thing.

Then the door blew open.

The flood of qi which erupted out snuffed out the General’s attack like a candle. None of them had so much as the time to scream. The room was blasted apart, the men within flung out like leaves in a whirlwind. All there was was this shrill, endless rush of blinding purple-pink qi which streaked with animal desperation for the heavens.

***

Kaya Rust was jolted awake.

Warm, salty tang on the side of her face, a hot throbbing at the base of her skull. She scrambled to her feet, spitting sand, whirling around. It was like a whip had cracked across her soul. Where was she? She froze as she soaked in her surroundings. Blood, so much blood, and not her own. The mangled bodies of foreign men lay about her, their limbs bent at stomach-churning angles.

Then the memories assaulted her. She’d been the one to bend them. She’d laughed while doing it, too! A spike of white-hot pain lanced her between the brows and she doubled over, coughing. She was going to be ill. In the moment it’d felt so good, somehow, so right—

Her thoughts evaporated.

One moment, the sky was blue.

The next, it was violet.

She was thrown off her feet, tumbling across the ground. There was nothing but a hollow ringing in her ears for a few seconds, then sound gushed in: a long, cavernous roar unlike anything she’d ever heard. If the earth grew a mouth and could bellow, she imagined this was the sound it would make.

Wiping the soot from her eyes, spitting out a mouthful of sand, she glanced up, ears ringing, eyes streaming with tears, head throbbing something awful. And gasped.

She’d been trapped in a raging sandstorm before. It was like that—except each grain of sand was a mote of qi, streaming upwards, blanketing the world. An ocean of qi, more qi than she’d ever seen by so many orders of magnitude her brain felt like a dried-out fruit just trying to comprehend its scope. It was unlike anything she’d seen.

She sank knee-deep in the blood of her enemies, and, for the second time that day, blacked out.

***

They’d all felt it—the Chosen on the field of the Heilong manor. That sharp twang, deep in their souls, even before the ground in front of them erupted, and a universe of qi broke out.

Now they’d picked themselves up off the ground, dusted themselves off. At first they’d assumed enemy action. There were a few moments of hot-headed panic. Then they all, as one, saw their folly.

This could not be the work of man, nor beast. This was the work of a higher power.

The qi was fast-flowing, sure, but it did not seek to harm them. It did not disturb them. It simply went up, returning to the skies. A phenomenon of nature. A sign.

“Remarkable,” spluttered Tan, twirling, taking in the frothy haze all about them. Lin could barely hear him over the roar. For a while they all stood there, transfixed.

“Remarkable,” Tan said again, dumbly. “It’s—it’s like that poem, isn’t it? The Rhyme of the Ages.”

It was a poem taught to them all, a nursery rhyme. A myth, made up of hot air and fantasy—or so Lin had thought. A myth about the founding of the Azcan Oasis.

It was said that when the Founder broke through to Profound—

“Fate plucks a string,” breathed Lin, eyes wide. “A legend rises. And Purple Air Comes From the East.”

She’d heard other legends about this, but she’d never believed them. Her grandfather had told her the tale of the Moondragon Knight, Founder of the Heilong Clan—how he’d carved a bloody trail across the Desert, unified it under one banner, and ascended to the heavens. How, when he broke through to Profound, the very earth and skies had trembled in recognition.

And now it had happened again. Right beneath her feet. She could scarcely believe her eyes.

Just what sort of monster had been born down in that chamber?!

***

All across the Oasis, eyes turned to the sky. Eyes of the lowly and the powerful alike.

In the Governor’s Palace, a wizened, dwarflike old man squinted at the skies, and scratched at his mustache, and frowned his bushy brows. For this unassuming man’s name was Zhang, and his title was Oasis Lord—a title he’d held for decades, ever since he’d ascended from his role as head of the Artificer’s Guild. He was true to his roots. He liked to keep his little city running as smoothly as polished clockwork.

And he did not like unforeseen disturbances.

The Rat-King, Feiyang Shen, hung by two fingers on a skyscraper’s ledge and watched the Air rise in stony, narrow-eyed silence. Master Artificers. Master Alchemists. The heads of each major Guild. Family leaders, gangsters, Tournament Rankers, Young masters—all stared at the skies in awe. For they had all heard the myths, the legends. But few had believed them.

Until now.

***

All dust, no matter how violent, must settle. Air rises, and is gone—even Purple Air. In the aftermath, amidst the ruins of once-great Chambers, stood two bedraggled parties.

One were the Heilong forces. They’d been battered, thrown about, and splattered against the walls of the chamber by gales of irresistible qi. Now they’d gathered in a jagged line, red-faced and huffing.

The other party was Dorian, who had just gotten out of being trapped in this cage of fast-flowing qi. And now was confronted with a row of furious-looking Earth-Realm elites, all bearing the Heilong insignia.

They stared at each other, equally speechless.

Hmm, thought Dorian, swallowing. I appear to be… screwed.

Silence. More silence. It was growing awkward. They stared at each other, neither side willing to break the stalemate. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do.

Then a man stepped forward. Stern-looking, a once-slick mustache plastered up his face. Judging by the obscene number of stars on his uniform, he seemed to be the leader.

“What,” he croaked, pointing a thin, trembling finger. “Is your name?”