Memories of the Fall

While there is much that can be written about the storied endeavours and myriad accolades of the Courtly Flowers of the Azure Palace; of the heroics of Lady Jian, of the lavish soirees of Lady Bai, of the remarkable rebellion of Lady Kai, or even the utter failure of the Court to stop Lady Mo from simply being, it is perhaps unsurprisingly the enigma of Lady Xiao that still manages to exercise more febrile minds than this old scholar.

The issue that pertains to the Lady Xiao in truth stems from the fact that she is, on official documentation, not a ‘Lady of the Court’ but instead an ‘Imperial Advisor’; the only one of that fair gender in fact. Even Imperial Ancestor Fu, despite her vaunted position in this world, has not been granted this honour. Subsequently, over the time since her elevation to that position there has emerged a vast body of conjecture and suspicion as for the reasons behind her appointment. I will not bore you with that here, except to say that almost all of what is written is not worth the paper wasted on it.

There was never any chance of her being considered the 112th Concubine of the Emperor, a position that eventually went to ‘Saintess’ Shan Miao. Nor was there ever any possibility of her becoming a Companion to the Empress, nor a ‘Favoured Lady’ of the Emperor, primarily on account of her superior cultivation. I understand that this is hard to take for those members of the junior generations who profess to live and die by their determination to untangle such webs and turn them to their own agendas, but reality, I am afraid, is cruel.

No, the real reason for her elevation to that status is that she is too problematic to not be tied to the Imperial Court. Her talent for cultivation is beyond outstanding, her beauty is praised across a dozen worlds, The Lu clan has no apparent hold over her and her closest blood relative is a Worldly Venerate, the current ‘Grand Marshal of our Great World’s Military Authority Bureau’. In short, she is the principle example within this text of one of the great maxims of good governance; keep the most dangerous and unpredictable elements that might disrupt your rule, but which you cannot easily rid yourself of, where you can see them at all times.

Excerpt from ‘The Flowers of the Azure Palace’.

~By Eunuch Ji

~ Lu Xiao, Blue Water City ~

Lu Xiao leant, looking out over Blue Water City, sipping quietly from a cup of herbal tea and occasionally contemplating a flat grey slate with coruscating golden writing flowing like an unending river slowly across its surface. It was a pleasant day; the mist that perpetually cloaked the Blue Water Pavilion never hindered the view from the tower, allowing her unfettered view from the tallest building in the entire city. On this side, that view was the shore district and harbour beyond the vast expanse of gardens below. Children fished on the rocks, hoping to catch some small marine critter with a qi core. Old-timers talked over crates of strange things hauled out of the depths, and boats came and went, their sails creaking in the offshore wind. The gardens below were thronged with people, out enjoying the good weather, admiring the plants. It was like time had skipped back three weeks. Blue Water City had returned to a kind of peaceful equilibrium, for now at least.

“Really nephew, when the place becomes so silent people will inevitably think you were part of the problem and not the victim here.”

Beside her, the slate kept doing what it did.

–No point in bothering it until it is done, she thought idly.

The breeze shifted, gyres of wind qi that had formed half a world away twisting invisibly as wind and tide competed to lift up bigger waves further out. The Great Formation centred on the city, invisible to most and rarely thought about these days, shimmered faintly like a second skin over the ocean for miles around, dulling the surge and lessening the winds, keeping the ocean in check and ensuring that nothing too big and nasty came rampaging out of the swell onto the beaches. Her gaze was caught by dancing fish as a school of them skipped energetically across the shoreline. Children fishing on the rocks shrieked and shouted, chasing after them. Some hardy souls even left into the waters to chase after some bigger ones. There were a lot of people with water-aligned spirit roots in the city, so anyone who caught a fish would be set for pocket jade for a week or more. If you discounted the fact that the children were leaping like errant monkeys between the rocks, casting lines and small nets infused with their qi to catch them, it might have been a scene from a mortal city.

“Life goes by so slowly at times,” she mused out loud.

“You are thinking about maudlin things again,” the other young woman seated on a couch nearby smiled faintly.

She turned to look at the woman, her silver hair plaited back in one of her usual styles. Her appearance was a bit rumpled, but she always looked like that when she appeared here.

“What brings you up here?” she queried.

“Sometimes it’s nice to see the world go by,” Bright Dream murmured, leaning on the edge of the pagoda and looking out over the city.

She shook her head wryly at that. A long time ago she might have fretted, but frankly, the woman lounging there had long just become a feature of this place. She was not the pagoda spirit, although ofttimes she pretended she was, for the sake of convenience. The only names she had ever given since they met deep within the Yin Eclipse mountain range all those years ago were ‘Bright Dream’ and occasionally ‘Luminous’. Sometimes she proclaimed herself as 'Dao Mother Bright Dream' if pressed for an actual title. That was what most of those who interacted with her in the pavilion called her. If she went outside, she had almost always used the latter title insofar as she was aware.

“It is nice tea,” Bright Dream added, having poured a cup from the kettle on the table next to the couch.

“Just a mortal thing,” she shrugged.

It was a curious blend of herbs made by a young orphan girl who sold it every second week beside the Dragons’ Blessing Pagoda within the Shore District Markets.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Bright Dream sighed, taking another sip. “Some of the most remarkable things have been ‘mortal’ things.”

She nodded at that, savouring another sip herself.

“Ah, they caught one,” Bright Dream was leaning against the railing beside her.

She hadn’t seen the woman move. It was rare Bright Dream was that obvious, but sometimes she did forget. Forget that movement between places was as necessary as moving to places.

“It’s not a bad one,” she agreed.

A youth was struggling back out of the water, muscles rippling, as he wrestled a dancing fish almost half his size onto the beach. Onlookers nearby were applauding, some were sulking – competitors for the fish, probably. They were already sealing the fish up. It only had a second grade, -two-star core, but the one who had hauled it out was only a Containment Realm physical cultivator. You wouldn’t see a Qi Condensation cultivator dragging a Qi Refinement fish out of the ocean like that.

“It is a very interesting blend, harmonious.” Bright Dream was back to talking about tea.

“It is curious how something so simple could be just as delicious as the finest Immortal teas, grown across the ocean,” she agreed.

“Oh. The tea? That as well. The maker has done well. These herbs are not easy to turn into a stable infusion,” Bright Dream looked at her sideways.

She blinked, the other woman wasn’t talking about the tea?

“The Harmony of the land is shifting,” Bright Dream mused. “It started weeks ago, but something has touched the Great Geometry, more closely than it has in a long time, in these past days. Things that would have passed, oblivious to each other, are being dragged together… ”

Turning to look at the other woman more closely, she frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Ah?” Bright Dream glanced back at her, the distant expression on her face was back to normal.

“Oh, erm. I guess it’s really good tea.”

“…”

She resisted the urge to grab the other woman, that would do no good. She was a strange existence, on the face of it quite weak, but she knew in her heart that that was mostly a facade to make others – maybe even her – feel more at ease somehow. However, if she properly focused, she guessed Bright Dream would be far stronger than her in many aspects relating to the profundities of the Dao. One of those was geomancy; her own skill with it was exceptional, or so she had always thought. Until she met this woman.

-Young woman, she corrected herself, but Bright Dream gave no outward sign she had noticed.

She put aside the musings, in any event. If it had drawn her companion's notice yet alluded her, it was as subtle a shift as it was potentially a strong one.

“The tea is good because it was made with care and love,” Bright Dream added absently. “That girl enjoys her craft - and wants others to enjoy it.”

“Mmmmm,” she nodded, agreeing.

It was easy to forget sometimes that such simple things had a very real power. If you compared the tea in her hand with some of those enjoyed in the tea houses, for instance... One was made with care and love, as Bright Dream said, infused with the sincerity of its maker. The young girl would have worked daily picking the herbs, drying them, matching them so they would have the right blends of auspicious energy and so on. Her love for her craft was tangible in every part of it. The other? The other was steeped in ritual, obfuscation, mysticism, grand patronage and secret ‘arts’ that a bunch of ridiculous old money grubbers had branded and exported around the world for enormous fiscal gain.

"It is easy to get lost in shallow ideas of the Dao,” Bright Dream mused, swirling the tea in her own cup.

“Take this city, for instance, this pavilion,” the other woman waved a hand expansively, taking in the panorama of the entire city below them. “How many know it is truly yours?”

She nodded again at that. Few did know. Probably only Lu Ji, and a few select old ghosts as ancient as she was.

“They believe it is the thing of your nephew, that young lad. None outside of us four, and Mo Zhou, know that this is a shallow interpretation. Yet it is not a great secret or a dark conspiracy.”

“It is not,” She chuckled. It was because nobody had ever actually bothered to check whose name was on the foundation stele of the Supreme Array at the heart of this place.

“Sure, getting to it is not easy, but it is possible, with the right approach," Bright Dream went on. “Not all things can be solved with force, fire and fury.”

“Indeed...” because the city outside was mostly a thing set out by her nephew, Lu Fu Tao.

Everyone just assumed that this pavilion and the great gardens around it were also his work. His reputation for that kind of thing was well known, and who was going to sidle up to a World Venerate and dare to ask if his defining work was really his. Nevermind that he had never claimed outward ownership of anything, beyond helping set up the Blue Water Province to secure a small tithe to a few select descendants who worked entirely within the Blue Pavilion.

Staring back at the sky over the ocean, she sighed. That was just like the way this world worked, but in microcosm. The Imperial Dynasties built the structure of the society, but nobody ever really thought to give much concern to the nature of the world itself.

“The world is just the world,” she mused. “Those who sit at the top dare not claim it by virtuous means, but will say nothing against those below who think it is owned on their behalf.”

“That is always the way,” Bright Dream murmured. “People forget that the divine can be as minuscule as the grains of sand on the beach, just as much as it can be the domain of those thie—.”

They both paused to stare at the shimmering, blue lilac flowers that were sneakily drifting in the air just behind Bright Dream.

“Really,” Bright Dream said levelly. “Scram.”

The flowers rippled and dissipated as if they had never been.

“They can get in here now?” Bright Dream asked, staring at where they had been pensively.

“Of late, yes,” she replied, schooling her face to hide the twisted sneer of annoyance that was threatening to make its presence known.

“Someone is staring at you. Twisting the Harmony of Heaven’s Grace,” Bright Dream looked back over the ocean.

“Probably," she agreed, suddenly feeling a bit tired – it wouldn't be the first time some old ghost half her age had tried to pry into here, nor the last either – "It won’t do them any good though.”

They continued to watch life pass by below them in contemplative silence for a few minutes. The tea never cooled. That would not be appropriate after all.

“It should be related to those two brats,” she said eventually.

“Mmmmm… they are more like crows before the storm,” Bright Dream shook her head. “They are part of the cycle it brings, but the change is elsewhere. Even I cannot see it clearly from this perspective. It may not even have occurred yet, and all I am seeing are the beginnings of its upheaval…”

The bit left unsaid there was that even if she could, she was certain Bright Dream would not speak of it. The woman had esoteric views about prophetic geomancy, but she had never experienced an instance where the woman was wrong. Not in all the thirty thousand years since she had taken up residence here.

“You are certain it will be upheaval?” she asked eventually.

It was undeniable that she had started to get an uneasy feeling herself of late: it had begun even before Lu Ji came to see her. It was one reason why she had given him such a sympathetic ear. That it was here, even when the city was so placid, put her in mind of the waters slipping silently away before a tsunami, the quake that caused it still racing through the earth, preparing to herald its intent.

Bright Dream stared into the distance in silence. “All changes in the Great Geometry and the Aeon Web are upheaval. That is the wrong way to look at it.”

She stared out at Blue Water City again. It had been a long time since the mysterious young woman had accompanied her back from the heartland of the Yin Eclipse Peoples, north of Thunder Crest and west of Fissure Peaks. Bright Dream was oddly talkative today. Usually, she kept to herself, worked on a certain matter and occasionally dropped by to chat.

While Bright Dream saw geomancy as a kind of geometry, to her it was more like cycles, and integrally linked to the passage of things through the world. The town was a kind of cycle in itself. She was still poking and prodding Lu Ji subtly to arrive at this comprehension a bit more clearly, really. It was hard to see such things when you were part of them. That took a special kind of perspective only two people she knew of had: Bright Dream and Meng Fu. If Lu Ji managed to acquire it, he would take a huge step forward in his comprehension. His future beyond this world would be all but assured, and he would owe nothing to the useless Lu clan as an added bonus.

Clearing her thoughts, she considered the town again, keeping Bright Dream’s words in mind. To her, the whole place, calm as it was, had the air of a spinning plate that was starting to teeter. Lu Ji blamed that on those two brats. If not for Bright Dream, she realised she might have as well…

…She stood there with her eyes closed, just doing nothing for a full minute, before she understood. They were bait. The lure. There were shadowy forces poking and prodding this part of the sub-continent, there had been for years, but this was deeper, more subtle, and more malevolent. The obvious one was Huang JiLao, he was dangled in front of her tantalisingly. She considered his merits and cast him aside. Lady Shan was a dangerous obstacle, she had had clashes with her sister long ago to be sure. But she was her equal in every way, and a trusted, sworn sister of Huang Wuli... whoever was setting this trap didn’t know a lot about the Huang clan of this world. But then, whoever was setting this trap wasn’t accounting for her either. Her influence here was utterly unknown to those who put strings on the world that led back to the Imperial Court.

That left the princess. She considered what she knew of Dun Lian Jing.

“Hmmmmm…” she rubbed her temples and considered adding some alcohol to the herbal tea.

“Problem?” Bright Dream asked

“I’ve just had a sneaking suspicion I may have exacerbated things in a way that is a tad undesirable.”

Bright Dream said nothing, just looked out at the city again. She also found her gaze travelling to her nephew's office. Huang JiLao was there again, poring over some texts Li Ji had finally put in his path. All of them were horridly florid and verbose. Her nephew had liked to write using a lot of adjectives: his poetry was like that as well. Dun Lian Jing was staring out of the window at the pavilion they were in, as if she thought herself able to unpick its secrets just by looking at it.

“She does have a lot of strings on her,” Bright Dream’s eyes glimmered faintly for a moment. “Even so, she is not a core piece of the pattern. Just an orbiting piece.”

She considered the cycles in the town that were unbalancing again. There had always been a lot of influences here that skulked just under the surface. People and influences looking for insight into her nephew’s great discovery. Mostly in vain, that had left the world with him. On the other hand, her own interest in the mountain was still here, working its way towards a sort of conclusion, deep in the heart of this pagoda. She had tried her utmost to keep that utterly apart from everything else, and yet...

“It is the regression divination.”

“Mmmmm,” Bright Dream smiled faintly. “Your gaze has gotten better. As has your ability to make intuitive leaps that land where they should.”

“Has someone set eyes on this pavilion?” she grasped the edge, exerting actual strength until her fingers went white.

There was no damage to the pavilion, of course. It was a Connate Star Venerate’s Treasure, made with materials that were largely unworkable within this world. At her realm, she might as well have tried to damage Sovereign Stellar Jade by licking it, for all the good it would do.

She considered the threads… -The third prince? Too young. The second prince is moving with the Teng School. It won’t be him either.

-The three old ghosts in the Astrology Bureau? Possible, but they have their eyes on the princess for some reason.

Dun Jian was ruled out. He was too weak. Maybe someone behind him? He had connections to those of some influence in the Huang clan. Not just in the Wuli branch either.

The Shu Pavilion had also been nosing around this land subtly since the previous Dun Dynasty’s foundation. That was a sorry tale that would drop on someone like Mount Tai, eventually. It also wasn’t in their style to pry like this though.

The Seven Sovereigns Imperial School was also out, she had an understanding of sorts with Meng Fu.

Same with Ha Tai Wen and Ha Kai. The Ha clan was, however, a possibility.

That left the Red Sovereign Sect, the Jade Gate Court and the Pill Sovereign Sect.

On some further consideration, the Pill Sect was out. They had been trying to tie in the Blue Gate School for millennia, having already basically subsumed the Golden Promise School and worked with a variety of influences to ruin the Lin School. They had nothing to draw them to the Blue Pavilion, let alone this pagoda.

The Red Sovereign Sect, on the other hand… they were still poking around, hunting for Song Jia. Another case of Mount Tai stalking a bunch of fools who thought themselves smart for their opportunism a hundred years ago.

-That really leaves only the Jade Gate Court.

She rubbed her temples.

-That group isn’t simple at all.

They had no beef with her specifically that she could recall, but rarely did that matter for them.

-That said, that group of heaven-sent meddlers also have a lot of karma with this part of the world through other means: for their role in both the mess with Song Jia and the mess with that Di... Ji... she thought with an annoyed sigh.

Her great-nephew had gotten involved in that, as had Ha Kai. He had had a good thing going with Lady Kai as she recalled. They were an auspicious match... right up until that brat ruined her adoptive daughter and her inheriting disciple. After the misfortunate Ha Kai was unable to intercede on her behalf due to some rather mendacious interference by the second-generation headmaster of the Jade Gate Court, she had broken matters off with him and was still in seclusion, staying as a guest of the Dewdrop Sage.

Perhaps she was looking at this too closely. Too specifically? There was enough tug of war in the shadows going on here, even before that preposterous declaration of a trial by fire to crown a new Tian in the younger generation. As if anyone in this generation could hope to match Cang Di: the boy was the inheriting disciple of one of the original ancestral elders of the Shu Pavilion for fates’ sakes and almost had half a foot on the previous generation to boot. The only reason he wasn’t a Dao Immortal already, stepping over the current crop of idiots entirely, was because it probably amused that old bugger Bronze to spit in the eye of an entire generation. If not for the Kong clan and the Jade Gate Court, the Shu Pavilion might have had Song Jia as well as Cang Di. She had to admire the depth of that old man’s grudge.

Bigger. She turned to look the other way. Towards the mountain in the distance. What if it didn’t relate to the array here, but the cycle that was affiliated with it more broadly?

Was it related to that idiot Qin Qiu and his badly written polemics of political aggrandisement? Certainly, local tensions were rising again. The incidences of one hundred years ago were not forgotten by any means. She belatedly considered that it might be someone else trying to glean some knowledge from the fragmentary arts of the Yin People? There hadn’t been any interest from outside the world regarding the mountain since the time of the emperor before the current one. The abrupt death of Star Venerate Sky Seizing God was still talked about, though. In any event, she didn’t see the old ghosts to the north and east of the mountain helping anyone else. The gratitude there was deep, and anyway, they had their own ideas of what was worth obtaining.

That left another disturbing possibility. Bright Dream had said that the Great Geometry was shifting. That the Harmony of the World itself was changing. Ignoring the mechanism of the pagoda itself...

-Is someone else after the same goal I am?

-One of the old fellows in the North Fissure Flats... or one of the less amenable tribal ancestors of the Easten folk?

-Or that bombastic old turtle from the Moon Tomb Cult for that matter?

A gentle chime rang through the air and a neutral-sounding voice in a language only she and a very small number of other people on this world would recognise murmured “ANALYSIS COMPLETE.”

The innocuous pronouncement from the tablet made her drop the teacup over the edge of the pavilion.

“… RETURNING SIMULACRUM.”

The voice continued as she stared at the tablet dully. While she had a healthy respect for ‘Good Fortune’ this was…

“ARRAY: AxECY-2019-AD996JG14578 IS NOW STABLE.”

There was a very faint sense of settling energy through the whole pavilion. A manifestation of Truth. Only the two of them would be able to perceive such a pure form. She involuntarily looked at the sky, but it remained clear. A testament to the nature of this place and the talent of her mother. She strained to sense anything untoward, any divination or ill-intentioned auspice, but all she had was the same sense of unease as before.

“… CATEGORY CLASSIFICATION: CLASS FOUR.”

“… CATEGORY DETERMINATION IN PROGRESS.

“… CATEGORY: UNFOUNDED... Earthly > Mortal.”

“… CATEGORY: DERIVED CATEGORY FOUR, CANON CATEGORY TWO, PHYSIQUE SYMBOL CATEGORY FIVE.”

“… SCRIPTURE: ECLIPSE SCRIPTURE - YIN ARCHETYPE.”

“… CHAPTER VALIDATION: IN PROGRESS….”

“PENDING….”

Her heart was thumping loud enough that anyone standing beside her might have actually heard it. It had never, ever, gotten to this stage before.

“… SCRIPTURE MODEL HAS VALIDATED IN THE SIMULACRUM WITH A REDUCTION RATE OF P<0.0000003 and a STABILITY CONSISTENCY OF P<0.0000003.”

“SIGMA THRESHOLD: FIVE.”

“STABILITY: EXCELLENT.”

“STRENGTH: CATEGORY FOUR.”

“UNITY: CATEGORY THREE.”

“NATURE: MAJOR – AURIC, TOTEMIC… MINOR -THAUMIC, ETHERIC.”

“STRUCTURE SUCCESSFULLY FINALIZED.”

“It finished?” she said blankly. “It always ended in failure before.”

“Mmmmm,” Bright Dream nodded. “I finished the last of the reconstruction this morning.”

“… RENDERING MODEL.”

“It finished this morning?” she stared at the other woman, who just nodded.

“Then why is it doing this now?” she stared at the slate again.

“Because the method you are using is unorthodox, I needed to be certain.”

“10…20… 30….”

The golden runes that had been flowing, mesmerically, across the surface of the tablet, twisted oddly through space and started to project a three-dimensional image. It was a strange symbol that had far too many swirls and not enough edges. Her gaze slid off certain parts of it in unnatural ways.

“MODEL COMPLETE….”

Bright Dream stared at the cup of tea in her hand and sighed softly. “Sometimes random chance is remarkable and makes us want to see things that should not be there. Would you credit that it is actually the girl who sold you this tea who was the fundamental piece?”

The symbol snapped into focus in front of them. It was a swirling representation of a moon-like symbol. She was struck by the similarity to moon runes in its overall composition, but if this was a moon rune, it was one drawn by an insane Rune Master on some kind of hallucinogenic spirit pill trip.

“The tea seller?” she turned to Bright Dream. “How come it didn’t work before?”

“Mantras are strange things, you cannot force them, or seep them, or steal them, or manipulate them outside of their accepted parametres. But mantras are not the whole thing. Physical cultivation, as you call it, is not a ‘broken’ art, as so many have claimed, but it is but a piece of a greater system. It is the preparation. Nothing more than building the foundation. It was not built for a world like this, but to allow a people to rise in a world born supreme, with the suppression of the Final Shore weighing down upon it directly. It requires more than what most possess. You will learn this in due course as you practice this art.”

Unbidden, the picture of the girl appeared in her mind’s eye. Pretty in a homely way, a member of the Yin People with curly dark hair, tanned skin and deep green eyes. She was only in her late teens, but her talent for physical cultivation meant she would already live to be over six hundred years, probably longer. She had inherited her family’s mantra, which was an above-average one by her understanding of physical cultivation, through her genes rath—

She winced as several small pink cherry blossoms condensed around them with a hiss of static. Some melted holes in the veranda, another took the corner off her table while a third destroyed a rather nice cushion on the couch. She sent out her own Truth and they dissipated.

“Impressive… did you think about something that contravenes their views?” Bright Dream chuckled.

“It’s truly childish. Such a wasteful enforcement,” Bright Dream shook her head wryly and walked over to sweep the dust of the cushion off the couch before sitting down on it.

“I don’t make the rules,” she grumbled.

-If I had been in a position to do so back then, things might have gone a bit differently, she mused to herself half regretfully.

Inspecting the damage to the veranda railing, she sighed. A vexatious downside of hiding the thing like this was that it had to take damage from things like that. Fortunately, it would fix itself with the ambient qi in short and subtle order. However, even that bit of manifestation had tried to infiltrate and leave some lingering intent into the pagoda with the clear intent of spying on her. The treasure had dealt with it, easily, but now that she watched, it had diffused and expelled it much faster than usual.

-Is that down to the reconstruction having finally finished?

She had to admit she had no idea how her mother, Mo Zhao, had made this pagoda. Its outward abilities to hide in plain sight and not really behave like a treasure to things that came prying were remarkable, even to her, having lived here for so long.

“The Blue Morality Scripture is not a good thing for this world,” Bright Dream sighed.

“It is just how those forces operate. I do agree though,” she sighed wistfully.

In any case, she had made her decision all those aeons ago and now, against all reasonable odds, it was actually paying off. Their Blue Morality Scripture could go suck its own cock for all she cared now. As for Bright Dream? Bright Dream had views on some things she had learned over the years. The Blue Morality was very high up on that list of things she disliked and she had never really grasped the full extent of why the other woman held it in such disdain. Not that she at all disagreed in the slightest with the other woman’s sentiments. The Morality Scripture espoused by the Dun clan, with the aid of the Kong Heavenly Clan, was indeed a cancer slowly eating into the fabric of this world.

“If you use Fate and Destiny as a club to beat the weak, and do not give face to the Harmony of Causality while preaching your own superiority on every street corner, the foundation of the world you build, the Fundamental Truth of its Great Geometry will be fundamentally flawed,” Bright Dream murmured.

“I believe my mother also said something to that effect,” she agreed drily.

“Sadly, this is not uncommon. Were it not for this—” she waved her hand at the symbol that had shrunk down and was now the size of her head, floating over the slate. “—I would have departed this world over fifty generations ago, when sister Xiao found her wings.”

She took another sip of the tea, which was back in her hand with barely even a thought, to calm her nerves. Her hand didn’t tremble as she eyed the symbol from the corner of her eye. It looked so simple. Hard to believe that this was the culmination of almost two aeons’ worth of endeavour.

“Do you think this...” she glanced at the symbol, “was worth the effort?” she said eventually.

Bright Dream leant back and craned her neck out over the precipitous edge of the pavilion to look at the sky above.

“For you to soar into the heavens from this world? Absolutely. With this, you will be unmatched beneath the sky of this world.”

“However,” her voice changed abruptly, becoming properly serious.

“You cannot advance it out here. MUST not advance it out here. It will be the death of the 'you' from all those years ago if you reveal it before you cross over the Dao Immortal threshold.”

Pondering that warning she considered the symbol again. It almost sang in her ears. Words she couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of unless she touched it—

Bright Dream blocked her hand, stopping her centimetres from the symbol.

“The lure of dreams is dangerous, even for you. It would be a pity if our deal foundered because you were overeager. These symbols have power. They are not a thing of this aeon, of these cultivation worlds. They have their origins in a place long ago, with the great titans of old who first walked the earth and pondered the sky. Before them, even your adoptive mother, let alone you, is nothing more than a mote. A curiosity to consider or move according to their whim. They are not divine: they are what divinity dreams of becoming. Never forget that. Even your adoptive Grandfather would bow to them thrice and not speak in their presence.”

Closing her eyes, she exhaled and waved a hand. The symbol vanished, dismissed in a shimmer of light.

“So how do I use this?”

“The core of this pavilion will provide enough shel—”

Something settled, all around them. Her own instincts for the subtle changes in the geomancy of the world twisted, knotting in her stomach. It passed as quickly as it arrived, and the day was as it had been.

“You felt that,” she turned to Bright Dream, only to find she was gone.

“Great,” she muttered to the world at large. “Just great.”

“That was unpleasant,” Bright Dream was suddenly back again, as abruptly as she had vanished.

Staring at the other woman, she found herself wondering what about that strange wave had made her vanish.

“What just happened, what was that shift?”

“Something best left alone has been awakened in the depths of the mountain range.”

There was another flicker. Less subtle, the intent that came with it had no qi, no soul strength, no principle, and no Truth. Sweat slicked her body as her gaze was drawn towards the mountain for a second. Something was trying to attract... no, demand, attention. It was infinitely close to the threshold of the world’s realm, just by existing. Unbidden, a certain story, told once around a campfire long ago slid insidiously into her mind. About a certain thing, known only to the ancient chieftains of the Yin Eclipse People. A thing she had desperately banished from conscious thought until that fireside moment and never dared consider since.

She closed her eyes and saw the shadows dancing. She alone was somehow still alive. The rest of her village was dead even before the words had finished reverberating. Her mother’s still-warm embrace around her, trying to protect her. Her father’s sword falling to the ground as his life ended. She saw the woman who would become her teacher, her adoptive mother, ripping the realm wall apart and summoning thunder from beyond the sky. Saw the chasm of the Star Ocean descending in a howling wave of nihility, even as the great god warred with the golden devil in the sky far above. Saw once again the darkness within the mists that came out of the wreckage of that place. The words it spoke not of any sane tongue as it looked into her mind.

“Tell me, primate child of this distant land… what do your people know of suicide?”

Her gaze shot towards the mountain, ignoring the pull. Her full focus descended on the place where the lure of those words was still reverberating.

The suppression blurred her vision but she ignored it, drawing upon the pagoda itself for a brief moment to rise above the suppression of the world to peer back into the past. The mountain pushed back, an inexorable force descending from the heights of the Great Mount. The pagoda shook: the entirety of Blue Water City probably quaked as she wielded the treasure to block the counterstrike. It still made her slump to her knees. Her organs were ruptured, her meridians destroyed, and her spiritual power almost dispersed. It didn’t matter, she would not use this body for much longer, anyway. Golden blood ran from her mouth and ears, but the scenes she had grasped hung in her mind’s eye, clear as if she were standing right there, within them.

A hand grasped her shoulder, and a force flowed into her. Bright Dream, supporting her, stabilizing her somehow. The pressure of the mountain on her, and the lingering echo of that horrific thing, untouchable beneath this sky, receded.

“So that is how the geometry changes,” Bright Dream's voice had a hypnotic tone. “There was something like that, out here in the world?”

There was… desire? In her voice.

She just continued to stare at the tableau within her vision. It wasn’t the current moment that was voided by the presence of the abomination from beyond. She was seeing events of an hour or so before, amid the first growing flickers of unease. Two familiar faces. One missing for several years, one presumed dead.

Now she could see where her thinking was wrong. She had been thinking about why. That wasn’t what was important. It was how.

“Ah. Of course, it would be that little shit of a reincarnator. How in the fate-cursed, nameless, deceiving world did he lay his hands on one of those?”

~ Jun Han, Blue Duke's Palace ~

Jun Han paced back and forth in the study of the Blue Duke. He had left the two young Herb Hunters with the senior scholar of the Scout Cadre, while he came to meet his martial teacher, Cang Tai, and the Duke. Cang Tai, the General of the Second Regional Legion, was currently stood by the window of the Duke's office within the Regional Authority headquarters for Blue Water Province, staring at the distant peaks of the Yin Eclipse Mountains’ north spur, waiting as the Duke pored over the document in front of him.

Cao Leyang was younger than his station might have otherwise predicated he be. As such, his demeanour and dress had always been more serious and austere than his peers. He kept his long, dark hair tied up in a ‘dragon crown’, and had grown a beard that he kept trimmed in a military style. He was a legionary boy through and through, never attending a great school, or travelling to the central continent. He spent little time at court before his appointment and even less time in the Bureau itself. His formative years had instead been spent at his father, Cao Hongjun’s side. Training.

He had had the best teachers in the arts of war and peace that the Military Bureau could provide in this world almost from the time he could walk, as far as Jun Han was aware, and the result spoke for itself, really. The current Duke was an accomplished poet, scholar, linguist, rune reader, musician and painter. In the arts of war, he held the loyalty of his father’s old legions through merit, born out of commands on three continents before he even began his tenure as Duke. He had stepped across two generations, despite being only a thousand years old. He had even travelled beyond the realm wall while still a Dao Immortal on more than one occasion before his father abdicated the Duke's Seat to become one of the youngest of the three controlling seats on Shan Lai for Eastern Azure's branch of the Azure Astral Authority’s Military Bureau.

It had to be admitted that his cultivation was low for a Duke. The lowest of all the seven continents’ Dukes, in fact, as he was only a peak Dao Lord. This was rarely brought up by detractors, however, because doing so required them to acknowledge that Cao Leyang was a Dao Lord within his own generation, only a bit over three thousand years of age. When put in that frame of reference, he was the most remarkable cultivator to emerge within Eastern Azure Great World since Song Jia and had been beset by none of the latter’s supreme tragedy.

Cao Leyang sighed and put down the jadework tablet.

“Well?” Cang Tai queried.

“It is just as you suspected, and which Special Envoy Jun has finally provided proof of. The Ha clan has entered into a business relationship with the Din clan.”

The Duke held up the tablet, “I just received a very interesting communication that, thanks to both your hard work, provide the final bit of proof we need—”

The sound of shouting and remonstration drifted through the closed door of the study.

“School Headmaster!”

“This is—”

“I—”

“Please don’t—”

The Duke frowned and was about to touch the scrying array when the study doors opened and three figures entered. One strode quite authoritatively. The other two followed behind, looking… at a word… terrified. Several elite guards filed in afterwards, looking awkward. Their weapons were not drawn but their commander was still trying to remonstrate with the scholarly-looking young man, dressed in somewhat rumpled azure and golden robes with dark hair and deep blue eyes who led the group.

The Duke held up his hand and looked at the intruder. “Headmaster Lu, this is an… unexpected visit.”

“You have a problem!" the headmaster unceremoniously started, before belatedly added a “...Sir Duke”

“Apparently I have many problems,” the Duke replied dryly, shuffling the papers away and resting his hands on the desk.

“Please enlighten me as to the nature of the particular one that has caused you to rush all the way from Blue Water City, which I understand is having quite a bit of societal upheaval right now, to storm into my study with… your vice headmistress? And the Head of the Envoy Authority Bureau for Blue Water City in tow?”

The headmaster spat out two words. “Di Ji.”

General Cang scowled. "You make a poor joke, Headmaster”

Jun Han nodded, saying nothing. Di Ji was indeed a poor joke to bring up in the current circumstances, among this group. Many who still served in the estate had lost comrades in that whole mess. Not to mention, one hundred years ago it had been Cao Leyang who had personally been the one to bring an end to his rampage with the Iron Crown Duke's heirs.

Abruptly the room creaked. He saw the colour drain out of the world. The pressure that settled around them made his skin tighten and he became keenly aware of the faintest smell of lemons as his senses started to misbehave. It wasn’t at the point where he had trouble standing, but the headmaster was clearly disinterested in being ridiculed, despite technically being the one behaving improperly here.

General Cang and the headmaster had a staring contest for several seconds as the pressure continued to rise.

He had no certain idea as to the cultivation of the Headmaster of the Blue Gate School, but, if this was what he was willing to display, he was clearly at least a Dao Sovereign.

General Cang, who was a Dao Sovereign and by no means weak, as befitting a military commander with almost 25,000 years’ experience, remained standing, but sweat dripped from his brow.

On the other hand, he could feel his own principle eroding and his soul starting to fluctuate simply from being in the immediate presence of their clashing gaze.

Two figures in grey robes appeared beside the Duke. Adjunct Elder Cao Feng and Adjunct Elder Kun Mao. Lu Ji’s oppression in the room receded a touch but didn’t fully vanish, despite the appearance of the two Dao Eternal Adjunct Elders.

With a careful cough, Cao Leyang stood and saluted Lu Ji. “On behalf of Blue Water Province, I congratulate your breakthrough to Dao Eternal, Headmaster Lu. I was unaware until now you had passed such an important threshold in your cultivation.”

Lu Ji held General Cang's gaze for several seconds longer until his martial teacher finally broke away. Before anyone could do anything else precipitous, the Blue Water City Bureau Chief stepped forward smartly and offered a formal salutation.

“Ling Jiang offers our esteemed apologies, Sir Duke.”

“Accepted,” the Duke waved his hand, finally diffusing the matter. “So what brings the three of you here with such urgency that you couldn’t even message ahead?”

“We are here officially on behalf of the Central Authority Bureau of Blue Water City, the Transport Authority Bureau, the Hunter Authority Bureau and the Blue Gate School to petition for Sir Duke to authorise a Court Authority Censure on two individuals.”

Jun Han blinked and wondered if he had misheard. Who on earth would have pissed off two-thirds of the bureaucracy of Blue Water City to this degree, while still being alive, and apparently having achieved this without it coming to the attention of the Duke’s Seat already? Based on the expressions of the two adjuncts, the secretary in the corner and his martial teacher, he wasn’t the only one wondering this either.

“That is a very extreme petition Sir Jiang” the Duke frowned, leaning forward. “Under what grounds do you feel this is necessary?”

Rather than the Bureau Chief, it was, in fact the headmaster, who had actually been pouring General Cang a cup of wine by way of apology for his outburst, who spoke up.

“Di Ji has resurfaced.”

“Say what now?” Adjunct Cao interjected.

“He surfaced bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, about three days ago in Blue Water City, in the company of Din Ouyeng—”

“The one who went missing?” the Duke asked.

“The very same,” Lu Ji nodded.

“How is he even...? Wasn’t Di Ji killed in an honour dual by Kong Di’s other adoptive son?” Adjunct Kun cut back in.

“Here is the file, Sir Adjunct,” Ling Jiang murmured, passing a jade tablet over.

He watched as the Adjunct skimmed through it, his face getting darker and darker. If he recalled correctly the Adjunct’s martial niece’s daughter, who had been a renowned and eligible beauty, was one of those caught up in the mess at that time. Really, it was remarkable how many people Di Ji had gotten through before Cao Leyang caught up to that bunch.

“Here... you look.”

The Adjunct passed the jade to the Duke, who also spent a moment considering it, frowning deeply. Eventually, he sighed and tossed it onto the table. “Faked his own death, got the help of the Jade Gate Court and his adoptive father to cover his tracks, had the three old geezers turn a blind eye, all because he made True Principle Golden Immortal by the age of fifty.”

“So he resurfaced as this Di Yao?” the Duke frowned.

“If I might just give you the formal request?” Lu Ji interjected, glancing at the Adjuncts. “Without interruption?”

The Duke nodded, even as the two Adjuncts scowled a bit. Lu Ji coughed and pulled out an ornate Jade.

“Di Ji, [the infamous criminal] has colluded with a young master from the Din clan, abducted the Deputy Head of the Office for Envoy Affairs in Blue Water City, stolen a Jade Loci from the Astral Authority Bureau's Central Records Hall, and used both it and her for personal gain. He was able to do so in large part due to the disruption caused by the subordination of both Astral and Imperial Authority Bureau assets and Town Authority assets under personal licence from the Huang Clan’s Huang JiLao and the seventeenth-ranked Imperial Daughter Dun Lian Jing, for a project they claim is sealed under the Imperial Seal’s Authority on behalf of Imperial Advisor and Court Official Dun Jian.”

“That is quite the proclamation,” the Duke murmured with a tinge of respect.

“To be clear, you want an official Court Authority Censure of Di Ji and Din Ouyeng. Not the Huang boy or Princess Lian Jing?”

He saw a brief flash of conflict flicker across Lu Ji’s face as he seemed to seriously contemplate the idea of asking for the latter as well as the former. He had heard a lot about the ruckus unfolding in Blue Water City since he got here. It made him glad he had been prescient enough to send both his daughters out on that mission for a while. They were well away from all of this mess at least.

General Cang stepped forward to look at the file now set aside by the Duke. “Let’s assume this IS Di Ji. I assume you have proof somehow? What exactly is his aim here?”

“Bureau Head Jiang?” the Duke looked at the Bureau Chief.

“Here are our records of the offence in question, including visual identification of the perpetrators, attained after the fact from bystanders and from the Blue Water Transit and West Flower Picking Transit arrays,” Ling Jiang passed over four jade slips and pulled out a white orb set in a spirit metal stand – a Teleport Matrix Loci – from his storage ring which he also placed on the desk.

General Cang frowned as he flicked through the jade slips.

He, on the other hand, was running the last few seconds back through his head. Something about this was starting to make him feel deeply uneasy. A soldier's intuition and, more worryingly, a father's.

After a moment, he steeled himself and stepped forward. “Sir Bureau Chief, may I ask you something?”

The Bureau Chief glanced at him. “Ah. You are the Special Envoy for the Duke’s Seat in West Flower Picking Town?”

“Sir,” he acknowledged. “May I ask why Di Ji went through that particular array? If there is some possibility he is currently in West Flower Picking?”

“Ah, yes,” Ling Jiang nodded. “The Jade Loci was one that relays detailed information on the active locations of all five-star and above Hunters, through their talismans. We believe he picked West Flower Picking terminus because a squad of five elite Hunters was deployed out of there, all of them ranked eight-star or higher and highly cited with exceptional skillsets. His group used the Loci to teleport directly from that terminus to that squad. At best guess he was looking to get a head start on this proclamation that the Imperial Court has issued. A Ha clan team seems to have had the same intention and travelled at almost the same time to the same location.”

Jun Han realised he had stopped breathing. His skin was damp with sweat.

“Are… you okay?” Ling Jiang frowned.

He tried to speak, but suddenly he realised he had no words. That team absolutely had to be the one he had sent Arai and Sana out with. The knowledge he had about Di Ji flashed through his head. His habit of seeking out skilled people who he could use and dispose of easily. His fascination with seducing and controlling young women. Few of those who passed through his hands had not been ruined in some way.

“What is it, Brother Han?” his teacher was standing beside him, helping him to sit down. “This is unlike you?”

“My…” he tried to speak, but his throat was suddenly too dry. He hadn’t felt like this since… since the day Ruliu…

“Breathe,” the voice belonged to Cang Tai.

He exhaled. The world was dissociated. He couldn’t control his qi properly. There was a buzzing in his ears that just wouldn’t go away.

“Arai… Sana…” he forced the words out one at a time. “Both… of… them… are… on... that… team.”

It hurt just saying it. His daughters, his beautiful, kind, sincere daughters were out there in the hands of that…. that…

“Calm yourself, disciple,” Cang Tai spoke again.

His panic and terror flowed away, was carried away by the qi of the General.

“It will do you no good to have a psyche break here and now.”

He wanted to scream, rage… but…

The words he spoke were in his voice, but monotonous. “I sent them out there to keep them away from the young nobles… away from that preposterous proclamation…. So this couldn’t happen.”

His principle was slowly stripping the chair upon which he was seated, even as he spoke. It was tugging at Cang Tai’s clothing as well, but the old General was so much more powerful than him that it did no damage at all, even to his clothes.

He realised that the vice headmistress of the Blue Gate School was kneeling beside him, holding his hand. Her eyes held his. There was a deep fury in them, mirroring the turbulence in his own he guessed.

“Sir Envoy… the Official taken by that monster was my brother Jiang’s only daughter.”

Dully, bits of superfluous context he didn’t care about clicked into place. All that mattered was that his daughters… were... First Ruliu, then Little Ruo, now Arai and Sana…? Had the fates no sense of justice?

“Brother Han,” Cao Leyang had stood up and walked around the table to him.

“General Cang, why don’t you take Little Brother Han and Lady Luo to my personal courtyard for some air? Ask my wife to come and see that they are both taken care of.”

“SIR, SIR!” everyone in the room turned as a breathless messenger envoy came rushing into the room.

“Urgent message My Lord! From West Flower Picking Town. Direct from the Military Authority Captain to you, Sir Duke. He said it was to go through the Special Envoy!”

Everyone paused. Duke Cao, Headmaster Lu and Bureau Chief Jiang stared at the man. He, General Cang, Luo Tao also paused in the door.

He shook his head, trying to push the rage down. Tears were still running from his eyes. Personal grief was one thing, but there was also such a thing as 'Responsibility' and 'Duty' which could not be abandoned here and now. That was code for a serious emergency, to be sent through the direct channel to the Duke. Only North Fissure and West Flower Picking had that right, as they were the closest places to the true danger zones in the Yin Eclipse Mountains, Thunder Crest Pinnacle and Chain Spire.

“Go on” the duke commanded.

“SIR!” the messenger saluted.

“Reporting a serious incident in West Flower Picking Town!

“The Ha clan has formally requested censure of the Hunter Pavilion, alleging betrayal of the Imperial Mandate and support for rebel authority within the indigenous. They claim that a team of five Herb Hunters coordinated with indigenous elders of the Red Eclipse Tribe to cause the deaths of two elite bodyguards, a Ha clan mortal ascender, a Ha clan Elder and two noble scions of the Ha clan, Ha Yun and Ha Leng. Five other members of the Ha clan's younger generation were also slain by the rebels before they fled into the forests with the Red Eclipse Tribe. The Ha clan alleges that the Tribe is allied with remnants of the disbanded Lin School, who provided inside information.”

“…”

They stared blankly at the messenger.

His mind was still trying to process that. The Ha clan was claiming that his daughters were somehow siding with the Red Eclipse? Never mind that nobody had seen hide nor hair of that band of terrors since the Three Schools Conflict, they had not been a feature in regional politics since the Iron Crown Duke’s rampage across the straight into the Yin Eclipse tribal region north of Thunder Crest.

“Di Ji,” his words made the air frost briefly and put a faint sheen of silver across the doorway before it was dispersed.

“Sir… that’s not all,” the messenger was shaking.

“It’s not?” the Duke narrowed his eyes.

“Right of Censure within West Flower Picking Town was automatically authorised, overriding local and regional concerns using the authority of Young Noble Din Ouyeng of the Jade Gate Court’s Junior Official Authority... Court Authority Censure—”

“WHAT!”

The Duke roared in fury. The pressure that enclosed the room was nearly as powerful as that of Lu Ji earlier. For all that, the former was enraged, and the latter a bit peeved.

“S-s….Sir,” the messenger quailed, but was supported by General Cang who happened to be standing beside him.

“Here lad, let me see,” the general took the message from the terrified junior officer and skimmed it, hissing in anger as he did so.

“What does it say?” the Bureau Chief was also pale and shaking.

“Authority Censure of the indigenous rebels and their collaborators was coordinated at the behest of Young Noble Ji Tantai, Inheriting Disciple of the Seven Sovereigns Imperial School. Cited reasons for circumvention are as follows; Hunters abused knowledge of Bureau secrets, collaborated with indigenous rebels to draw multiple thirteen-star active threats to assail Young Master Ha Yun…“

“There is a stupidly long list of names and titles to follow,” the General scowled. “After that, it goes on...

“The School has accepted the request for censure in accordance with their treaty obligations and coordinated appropriately. Pending immediate threat to the life of Young Master Ji Tantai, a censure upgrade was further authorised through that channel to the Seven Sovereigns School and an array of their elite defenders is en route as of my receiving this notification. They are authorised to begin censure of all rebels upon immediate arrival at the point of contact.”

“And what is the strength of this censure force?” the Duke asked flatly.

“The report doesn’t say,” the General frowned. “It has the original request embedded within it, but I don’t have the authority—”

“Give it here,” the duke sighed, finally getting his own aura under control.

General Cang tossed the scrip over. The Duke waved his hand, and a talisman flew off a nearby shelf and landed in it. The Duke did something to the jade scrip that he couldn’t follow. A moment later, a long list of information flickered into view in the room.

“They actually sat on it for a full two hours before sending an official notice that the censure was authorised to West Flower Picking,” Adjunct Cao grunted.

“And delayed it at Jade Gate City for a further one,” General Cang noted.

“The Sovereigns Sect censure is the same,” the Duke frowned. “And the timestamps have all been messed with at least once by another outside source as well.”

“The Astrology Bureau,” Lu Ji grunted. “I recognise that style of manipulation. And no mention of the strength of either censure force being deployed.”

“That just means it’s embarrassingly disproportionate to the threat involved,” the Duke grimaced.

Lu Ji narrowed his eyes. “I wonder if they will do the usual thing and just teleport straight there.”

The Duke turned back to the still shaking junior officer. “Well done, soldier. Would you go to Central Command and tell Old Yao that I want to get in immediate contact with Shan Lai. Tell them... I wish to open up a communication channel to my father.”

All other eyes in the room, including his own, turned to the Duke. Cao Leyang was planning to take this straight to the three Military Authority Seats? He was glad he was standing against the door frame already. That way he didn’t have to put out a hand to steady himself.

“SIR. YES SIR!” the messenger recovered some of his composure and rushed out.

“Well gentlemen…” the Duke said grimly “it seems our two problems are now one singular problem. “Adjunct Kun?”

The adjunct nodded to the Duke. “Can I trouble you to lead your personal unit to West Flower Picking Town? You may take from the Ascendant Armoury as a precaution. It is unlikely that either of their old ancestors is involved in this mess. This stinks of the Ha clan, not the Ha family, for all that their Young Master seems to—”

There was a whip-crack sound, and a talisman appeared in the room. It was simple, crude even, in its design, which prominently featured a two-tailed squirrel running while holding a pill bottle with an evil expression on its face. The woman’s voice that spoke through it, while melodious and clear, held a certain edge that made a part of him want to run gibbering from the room.

“Nephew. We have a problem.”

~ Ji Ming, Seven Sovereigns School Censure Force ~

Sect Elder Ji Ming was currently sure that today was among the very worst days of his entire life. It was currently edging past his Dao Sovereign tribulation at the very least. The entire world shook as a chain of colossal explosions tore apart the valley on the other side of the ridgeline he had taken refuge behind. The monstrosity twisted, and the world shifted. The ridgeline was somehow there and not... there was not even any intuition of danger. The attack had no intent behind it at all! He managed to palm a barrier talisman before he hit the far side of the valley. The rock barely even gave under the considerable force of his impact.

-That puts the difference in power into stark perspective, he thought grimly. If this kept up, this was certainly going to be the last day in his quite long life.

The censure command, when it arrived, had been a surprise, if not a particularly large one. It wasn’t uncommon for them to undertake them on the Bureau’s authority. They performed an average of about one a month on the south-eastern continent and about one a year on the western continent for the Military Bureau. In that regard, it was only noteworthy to most of them because this was the first one they had ever undertaken on the Easten Continent that he could recall.

The surprise, to him at least though, was that they were involved in this, apparently, through one of their own disciples. Through the Imperial Court treaty obligations their school had to fulfil, no less. The instruction had been...

-Well if we survive this, whoever made the jadework filing is going to have their soul pulled out through their toenails and be refined over a soul fire for a millennia or more.

-Assuming my teacher doesn’t get to them first, because somebody has clearly planted our school with this, and she takes a truly dim view of that.

There was a flicker of something in the terribly limited sphere of his consciousness. Danger.

He fled, using a space shifting talisman. The sense of terror that rose came diagonally this time. Hesitation at that had already cost Elder Yu Dai his life within seconds of their arrival. His space shift took him through the next ridgeline, affording him just enough time to see a shadowy appendage scythe straight through the ridge, leaving no mark. It passed directly through the place he had landed a moment earlier.

To his right was a flare of green lightning as Sect Elder Ji Tan used his signature secret art. A split second later he then teleported in a further crack of viridian lightning as a second shadow appendage shifted out of the mist to try to skewer him with inexorable intent.

Across the valley, within the icy mists, there was a brief blaze of purple fire, forming dozens of lotuses. Elder Meng Hai’s attack was much weaker than it should have been under the suppression of the mountain. He was glad he was a Sword Sovereign with a Physique; the fate-thrashed suppression had less influence on him that many of his—

The ridge across the way twisted upwards in a terrible gout of multi-coloured fire. Within it was a desperate and enraged scream as someone exploded their own soul. He watched in horror as the energies that should have incinerated several hundred miles of the landscape in every direction, were it literally anywhere else than here, were sucked away by the abomination in the blink of an eye.

“Ahhh…..”

The sigh echoed through the valleys like the pronouncement of a malevolent god, which in fairness this possibly was. He grasped his sword and executed one of his strongest arts.

{Feathers of the Phoenix}

Twenty-five blades of golden fire, faintly resembling phoenix feathers, descended into the icy mist. They barely made any dent on it and the art was repelled a second later by a long black limb that rose out of the next valley and neatly popped each blade, one after another in inexorable fashion. There was no point in decrying it as impossible. All he could do was try again.

{A Sword Severing the Day}

The world dimmed above the battlefield. His sword split the sky and descended to strike the limb. The strike repelled the limb very slightly, glancing off it. The pain that twisted through his core made him hiss in shock. The faintest of scratches that the attack had dealt faded into the darkness. When his sword reformed he saw that his precious, soul-bound armament had a crack in the blade.

“Primate. Your tone is not bad...”

This time he was teleporting almost before he got the danger flash, using his own qi this time. His sword strike severed the space he had been standing in, even as a limb punched out from the ridgeline. He landed with a crash in a thicket of some vitality-sapping briar. It seemed to feed on soul strength, but it was no match for the fire within him. A second strike followed the first as the thing twisted towards him once more, resembling a terrifying primordial serpent or a tentacle than an articulated limb. In the distance there was another detonation, truncated. Another one of them had died.

“—But do you only know one word?”

The intent of his sword world bent around the limb as it passed through it, before being popped like a soap bubble. The voice actually gave him soul shock. That was horrifying in its own right. The creature’s qi didn’t seem that much stronger than theirs, but its physical form and ability to warp the landscape was on a level he had never conceived a mere beast was capable of and its soul power was easily comparable to something from beyond the realm wall.

“You think me a beast? RUDE!”

-Shit on the Fates. It can read minds.

He almost wanted to demand HOW given his realm it could hear his thoughts—

This time he couldn’t dodge. Something gripped his mind and locked out his soul's control over his own body for a bewildering split second. The limb connected, and he was punched through the valley. His teacher’s lifesaving treasure triggered automatically, sheltering his Dao Source, but his body was still half destroyed by the impact.

Something appeared above him. A mouth opening into absolute nihility.

Something seemed to draw him in, even as the transmission intent in his sword souls all activated simultaneously.

-Darkness.

He opened his eyes.

He was lying, sprawled, on the floor of the Supreme Transmission Platform of the Seven Sovereigns Imperial School.

Exhaling, mentally, he thanked the Fates of Meng that he wasn’t dead. The one sword soul he had stashed in his sword had survived long enough to transmit itself away. His body reformed in front of the stunned students and teachers who were passing back and forth through the grand hall.

Surveying the damage he had sustained, he fought down panic over how close to the edge he had come. His cultivation base was intact, courtesy of his Physique, but it was held together with gossamer and goodwill. Dao Souls, all gone. Sword Souls, one left. Six thousand years of accumulation and progress wiped out in a second under the force of whatever that…. the abomination had been about to do to him.

"Primate.

"You ask how I can see your thoughts. Yet how can I not? Your mind is weak. Unbarred. Unguarded. You called yourself a sovereign? But you have no acclaim. Your words are poor and illiterate and you do not even have a NAME…

"How…

"…. MEDIOCRE.”

He tried to scream as the pressure of the intent tore space apart. The wards in the inner halls disintegrated like cheap paper in the rain as the abomination reached out towards him.

The students in the hall collapsed like puppets, their souls smashed instantly: complete death, no hope of reincarnation.

His own consciousness blurred and his soul twanged like a taut wire, slowly fraying even as he struggled with all his might against the force trying to drag him out of this place and back to where he had been.

A single breath was all that remained between him and true death when a stately old woman appeared in the hall. Dressed simply, in a red robe with a golden shawl, she carried a sleek wooden sword in her hand that was coloured reddish-black and carved with patterns of trefoil leaves and blazing feathers. The pressure coalesced into a long black appendage which poked towards him before abruptly diverting towards her instead.

{Parasol Blaze}

White fire swirled around her and sparks of white twisted around the shadowy limb, pitting it faintly as its trajectory was slowed.

Her sword met the black limb, and both flexed for a second. Space bent unnaturally, then exploded outwards. The hall they were in creaked as a second set of wards, ones much older and grander, built throughout the entire building's superstructure, resisted the destructive intent above a peak Dao Ascendant. His teacher was thrown backwards while the limb recoiled, passing harmlessly through one of the pillars.

A sword, that was less white fire and more a white hole in the world, materialised behind her.

{~White Phoenix Wing~}

The blade connected with a second limb that had appeared out of nowhere, which was scored deeply by the impact.

{Five Wings of the Phoenix}

Four more white blades swirled around the old woman. She grasped two, surging forwards to strike at the nearest limb directly, while the other three spun behind her. Three more limbs stabbed out of nihility. Two went for the old woman, and the other... the other came for him.

Four old men, his fellow Martial Brothers Tan, Liang, Ren and Quan, appeared around him, each carrying a red and black wooden sword in the same style. The barrier they conjured barely stopped the limb from obliterating him and he watched in horror as his Martial Teacher, Imperial Ancestor Meng Fu, skidded backwards, spitting blood from deflecting the remaining four limbs with the blades of white fire.

A terrible cry reverberated throughout the entire hall as Meng Fu struck back with her full strength. There was a sound like tearing silk as her attack ripped a hole in reality directly to the Yin Eclipse mountain range. Her sword sheered through the chasm of spatial destruction as she tried to strike at the source of the limbs directly.

In the same instant, the entire school shivered and a mighty aura surged all around them. A dozen voices, male and female, resounded throughout, focused on the rift that was torn open.

“YOU DARE!?! CREATURE FROM BEYOND!”

[SEVEN ~ SEVERING ~ PHOENIX ~ SWORDS]

Execution descended into the world, carried on wings of heavenly fire.

Seven points of light spiralled down from above the hall. Within each was a blazing white wooden sword covered in scrollwork depicting the mythical parasol tree whose wood they were fashioned from. All seven passed directly through the rift and smashed directly down into the region they had been in. The limbs, twisted around the rift in a weird way, all twitched awkwardly. White spider-like vines with trefoil leaves were starting to form on them even as they retracted bizarrely into nowhere. As they departed, he watched mesmerised as they folded up the broken space behind them, closing off the path of pursuit.

A strange mocking laugh echoed through the hall as the final vestiges of the rift vanished, leaving it as if they had never been. An amused voice whispered through the hall.

“NOT BAD… ‘Little chicken’...”

The Imperial Ancestor recovered first, picking up her treasure sword from where it had fallen and shooting a truly filthy glare at the ceiling before looking back at the place where the rift had been. They all looked around, surveying the devastation in the heart of the Seven Sovereigns Imperial School transfer hall. 1831 students, twenty-one teachers, two guest elders and seven other visitors to the sect who had been going about their daily business in the vicinity of the hall were all very dead, their souls totally smashed, beyond even hope of reincarnation.

“It is fortunate the outer wards held,” his senior Martial Brother Liang exhaled and shook his hand, which was smoking where he had been holding the wooden sword.

“Indeed… the death toll could have been a thousand times this,” Supreme Guardian Elder Yun Quan grimaced.

“Teacher’s foresight has saved the school,” all four bowed to the Meng Fu as she stalked over to them.

“Without the 'Seven Severing Phoenix Swords' formation your mother bestowed from the Heavenly Meng Clan, we would not have repelled that horrific thing,” Sixth Old Ancestor Meng Ren agreed.

He agreed silently. Without those twelve Dao Ascension Guardians, who were always stationed at this transfer hub, their main point of contact through Eastern Azure Great World’s realm wall to the Meng Clan’s Treasure World, their school would be in deep, deep trouble right now. In the worst-case outcome, they might even have had the vitality of their lineage irreparably damaged by that unspeakable thing. That said, it didn't escape his notice that for some reason his teacher seemed a tad displeased that the formation had been used?

“What was that thing?” the twelfth Old Ancestor Cao Liang shook his head grimly as he surveyed the carnage. “If it was an abomination from beyond the realm wall why did it look like it originated in the Easten Continent?”

“It has a commonality with them, but it isn’t a thing from beyond the realm wall,” Meng Fu swept up the swords in his four senior martial brothers' hands and merged them back into the sword she carried briefly before splitting them back out again. "As to it being from the Easten Continent... that is going to be a problem. It would have been better if those brats didn't send that lot through. I can hope that it doesn't provoke something ungodly.... that would be embarrassing, to say the least."

“Did it die?” he asked, his voice shaking a little. Had any of the others managed to flee?

“No…. it isn’t dead,” Meng Fu sighed staring around at the serried ranks of corpses that ran throughout the hall. “It was also disturbingly talkative for an eldritch abomination.”

“Erm… Teacher?” Yun Quan spoke up a touch hesitantly.

“Yes?” Meng Fu had been staring at the ceiling and was now staring at the place where the rift had been with a vexed expression.

“Did it really call you a little—?”

Something cut off Yun Quan mid-sentence. His mouth worked silently for a few seconds.

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Meng Fu gave him a sideways look that was very cool.

"If any of you ever bring that up ever again? I will see to it that you spend the rest of eternity as outer disciples feeding spirit fowl. With cultivations to match your status and life enough to reflect on it.”

He silently praised his senior martial brother for being brazen enough, or perhaps clueless enough to actually ask about that.

“Little Ji…”

He started slightly, -oh. His teacher arrived in front of his slumped form with a searching look on her face. His heart sank. Now that the immediate threat was over, and he had against all the odds actually survived, there was indeed going to have to be an accounting about this...

"...Would you mind explaining to me what exactly has happened here?”