Memories of the Fall

“If you wish a man death you need only think only of ‘Red Dust’ and slumber each night in the arms of a gilded beauty, surrounded by money and riches, content in the knowledge that eventually you shall never wake.”

~ Ancient folk saying from the southern continent.

~Mother of Red Dust, lead us on! ~Your dance propels us, your wisdom drives us! ~With your dream in our hearts we cannot sleep, ~With your song in our ears we cannot find rest, and yet in your embrace we cannot help but linger! ~Please we beseech you, let us slumber!

~ Clay tablet inscription found in the vicinity of Nineveh, AD 1891

~ Kun Juni, Ruined Courtyard ~

Bright qi, carrying a vitality-boosting intent along with it, flowed out of the talisman in her mind's eye and into her body. With it came knowledge, so much knowledge that she had to wall that off and just ignore it for now. Her physical condition was more important.

Still barely able to move, let alone do anything with qi, she could only watch as the vestigial remnants of her spiritual cultivation, dantian and her meridians dissolved away before it. Swept away as if they were just so much rubble. The aching emptiness in her bones, which she had barely gotten to looking at, and which was growing more and more prominent, also faded away. Within a dozen heartbeats, she found, to her shock, that all the trauma in her body that had accumulated in the last few weeks was melting away like she was lying in a warm bath. With it came a feeling of 'normality' that was close to blissful.

Focusing once again on her cultivation, she stared blankly into the dusk sky. Whatever that energy had done, her meridians were healed and she no longer had a dantian. Even as she watched as best she could, the last vestiges of that bright qi like energy flowed away into the conceptual space she had been taught to equate with her 'spirit root'. A place that lingered in the consciousness, somewhere between the depths of her mind's eye and the where her dantian existed, had existed, as an awareness in her consciousness. In a stronger spiritual cultivator, this ephemeral point was, according to her father, also the gate through which her spiritual cultivation connected with the soul. once you became immortal, it was the point at which the body and soul transformed through one another.

Finding that she was, surprisingly limber all of a sudden, she pushed herself up from where she had fallen back over. Grimacing she ran her hands over her body checking her injuries anyway. She wasn't cold, in fact, she still felt like she was suffused in a warm bath in many ways. She was pretty much stark naked, courtesy of the lightning. Even what remained of the Luss Cloth was nothing more than charred outlines on her or the ground. Setting aside the black and white serpent of energy, in her memories of the moments before the bolts that had arrived had been... purple.

"It would be nice if that was just caused by the evening light," she muttered, not really believing it even as she said it.

Only two things remained; the tie that had been on the pendant, still in her hand, and her storage talisman, just visible in the dirt nearby by some minor miracle.

Reaching over, she picked up the talisman and put the tie from the talisman on it. As she expected, her blood bond with the talisman had been broken, confirming that her cultivation and foundation was... reset. She hesitated over the word 'abolished' because the talisman's energy was still repairing and infiltrating her body in mysterious ways. It had something to do with her physical cultivation, she was pretty sure. Her Mantra mnemonics were still there, present in its mind's eye, but it was impossible for her to say how much of her actual progress remained. It wouldn't surprise her if that had also been reset somehow as well, not that now was the time to get lost in that kind of thing, devoid of... qi...

Speaking of things being devoid of qi...

She looked around the crater she was in, it was perhaps twice the size it had been, if quite shallow. Ruined buildings were scattered in every direction, many of them looking deformed and melted in weird ways. The whole area of the crater was also totally devoid of ambient qi, as far as she could tell. A thirty-metre dead zone in the world that was centred, subtly, on her. Moving warily, she found it didn't remain centred on her, and having scrambled to the edge of the crater she was able to leave without any hassle. The air in the courtyard was humid and still, drifting smoke mixing with the evening mists starting to form in the montane cloud forest all around. The fires were still burning, but they were entirely natural now, all vestiges of the qi that had fueled them also dispersed from what she could see.

Scrambling out of it, she found Han Shu collapsed against the far wall of the courtyard near the edge of the crater. The group who she had been in the process of fighting were scattered on the ground in every direction in a manner that suggested they had been running away. They also seemed to be suffering qi depletion although it was not as extreme or fundamental as hers. A few were even still conscious, groaning in pain. The others were scattered around, in similar condition, having taken shelter as best they could. There was no sign of Lin Ling, but hopefully, that just meant she was in one of the ruined buildings.

A youth with a scholarly appearance and dark hair, wearing a rumpled grey robe, staggered through the courtyard looking like he had been hit in the head. He crumpled to his knees nearby, fumbling with some talisman-like thing before noticing her, as she knelt by the edge of the crater checking on Han Shu.

“…What… happened?” he rasped, his voice had an odd intonation to it, but that was probably just the weirdness of everything.

Thinking quickly, she pointed at the group that was scattered. “They attacked us…”

Kneeling beside Han Shu she checked his condition and was relieved to see he was basically okay, just a bit stunned.

“Some immortals were fighting… and then in that fight, one... of them used a talisman, there was a tribulation... or something... that messed with the qi?”

It took a surprising amount of effort to speak in joined-up sentences she realised halfway through replying to him. The information that had started flowing out of the talisman with that wave of qi and into her mind was deeply distracting and taking up a huge amount of her focus just to keep in some kind of rational check.

“Oh…” he winced and pushed himself upright. “We thought the lightning was some kind of treasure…”

-We? She looked around suddenly wary.

Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen this youth among any of those here at the start, for all that he was exuding an odd familiarity. Something was certainly off here.

“The lightning?” she didn’t have to try to look confused, thanks to the state of her mind right now, which helped cover her sudden wariness.

“….” She shook her head, trying her best to look helpless and as confused as he did.

“I…one of them threw me into the building and used some kind of attack too... Ahh…”

“…I don’t recall anything that happened in the courtyard after that…” she finished lamely.

Nothing in that was a lie in case this person was able to detect falsehood. It wasn't even an attempt at concealment. Her awareness of the courtyard had basically become non-existent as soon as the shadow rage got involved beyond her immediate surroundings.

“Oh…” the youth exhaled and looked confused as he looked at his talisman again, doing something to it with qi.

It's familiar look put her in mind of... a... a... geomancy compass?... A treasure compass?

She schooled her thoughts, and the talisman, as if feeling her unease, suddenly restrained itself and the flow of knowledge into her abated. It's form became a touch more ethereal as well. Keeping the youth unobtrusively in her vision, she gave Han Shu a shake. The scholarly arrival was also lacking qi like everyone else, so running away...

After another gentle shake, Han Shu finally collected himself with a start. Hissing under her breath, she pushed herself backwards as he shifted the sword in her direction. Fortunately, he was slow and clumsy and there was no intent in it.

“Hey!” she said not having to hide the stress in her voice.

Had there been any intent there, the weird properties of the sword might have cut her in two, in which case she would probably have enough regrets to ensure she haunted his nine generations for the stupidity of the death.

“It’s me you idiot... Don’t stab me.”

“Oh, Juni…” he put a hand to his head and winced… “You’re alive?”

“Apparently the Heavens do have eyes,” she muttered still watching the youth from the corner of her eye.

“Where’s Ling?” she asked, helping him up and taking care not to touch the sword.

Getting Ling and getting out of here, fast, like they should have done before, was the correct choice now.

Han Shu gestured vaguely at the collapsed buildings. “Over there somewhere. I… oh I don’t know...”

The grey-robed youth stood in front of the two of them suddenly. She swore in her head and tried to move but found she couldn’t. Something she couldn’t see was holding her in a vice-like grip.

“How fate thrashed unpleasant,” the grey-robed, dark-haired, scholarly youth said with a calculating look, showing none of his previous infirmity or lack of qi.

She felt her skin crawl as his calculating gaze lingered far too long on her body. The light in his eyes at seeing her current state was not what she wanted to see right now, in her current condition, in these circumstances.

“So… this is the treasure that the compass picked up?” he mused, eyeing the sword.

-So it was a treasure compass, after all, she shuddered.

-Just our fate thrashed luck! And there I thought this place had turned a corner, more fool me, she swore at herself.

“Can’t be too careful I guess…” their captor pulled out another talisman, old and yellowing with strange, eye warping patterns on it that might have been flames and triggered it.

The ghostly talisman in her mind’s eye shuddered suddenly and slipped away into darkness with something approaching derision swirling in the qi still flowing out of it. A blueish-gold sheet of light swept across the plaza and his talisman shook. The light swirled around, quite a bit coalesced around the various people still scattered there. To her horror, however, most of it focused on the three of them. It washed over her, swirling around her storage talisman for a moment before all of it attached itself to the equally frozen and how terrified looking Han Shu.

Without any preamble, the youth tried to pluck the sword, which was surely what the talisman had marked, from Han Shu’s hand. One second he was standing there, then his hand was on the sword. When Han Shu somehow managed to retain a hold on it, the youth just smirked and moved his hand slightly. She winced in her mind as Han Shu’s arm rippled and bones suddenly jutted this way and that out of his skin. Without a care, the youth twisted his hand almost full circle and then pried his fingers back with awful, wet *snapping* and *popping*. Finally, when even that didn't work, he just gouged it out of Han Shu's hand, cutting half of his hand away in the process. Once it was freed, the flesh fell away to the ground, and the youth holding the bloodied sword with a more appreciative gaze than he had had before. Han Shu’s face was sweating, his muscles in his neck spasming from the pain.

“Tcch,” their tormentor stared at the sword, then back and Han Shu then kicked him in the leg with a sour look on his face.

She winced a second time as her friend's knee bent horribly in the wrong direction and broke with a series of hair-raising snapping sounds.

“It isn’t even refined..." he shook his head in disgust.

“How did such a thing end up in the hands of a weakling like you,” the youth continued to shake his head, half-mocking, half disbelieving.

Smiling broadly now, he admired the weapon as he waved it around. “How remarkable, this degree of potential… this craftsmanship.”

Looking back at Han Shu he sighed theatrically. “Such a pity, your fate only amounts to this much, but then again, I am far closer to the Heavens than you..."

They both stared at him, furious as he inspected the sword a bit more, nodding happily.

"For you to have delivered this to me is a huge merit, but I can’t have anyone knowing I took this..." the youth sighed again, theatrically.

-Oh monkeyshit, you nameless blessed world, I swear I will haunt every aspect of your ill-doing! she snarled in her mind's eye.

"Then again, let it not be said that I am not upstanding, even though you have to die, and I can't let you enter reincarnation, I can leave you an intact corpse for this merit." the youth said with a smile that radiated an obnoxious degree of self-righteousness.

The way he phrased it made her skin crawl as much as her mind howled in impotent fury.

"As for you..." he glanced at her, running an appraising eye over her body, looking her up and down appreciatively.

Grasping her chin, he tilted her head up with his hand, so she was now looking at him directly. “Nice eyes… and such a beauty too, developed in all the right places. Almost as good as that other bitch, and far more amenable probably besides.”

-Nice eyes your pox-ridden mother! She swore at him in her head, as he turned her head this way and that, making her neck protest slightly.

"Now now... don't look at me like that, I am not a bad person, and your injuries are ridiculous. If you don't fall in with someone like me, you will die out here... do you want that?" he asked her with a faint smile, now totally ignoring Han Shu.

-May the nameless fates make your cock shrivel off and your descendants die from inborn diseases!

"Huh... a good mouth on you too... although..." he stared at the sky, looking confused for a few seconds, as if expecting something, before looking back at her, his confusion vanishing almost as fast as it had appeared.

She felt a chill run through her body and mind, the humid air and mists here suddenly clammy on her skin.

-He could read her thoughts? And... had he expected a judgement for that curse....?

-What fate thrashed realm was this 'youth' at?

He laughed, with amusement. “Don’t worry, you'll find out soon enough. Though your friend here has to die, you and your blonde friend over there will be under our protection. Who knows, if you make a good enough contribution to our group, we might even take you back to the Gan Clan..."

~ Mysterious Sword Lady & White Squirrel ~

Stood there looking on, the sword spirit put a hand to her brow and sighed as the idiot used the Fate Seizing Talisman to try and break the non-existent connection between her and Han Shu. He was tolerably powerful for someone in the eighth circle, although kind of untalented in her eyes, given his age of ~70 years. Considering him with a professional eye, she noted he had been using a rather esoteric means to suppress his cultivation by a whole realm as well, at least until his meddling here undid it by accident. The art that had been used was one that was vaguely familiar as well, originating with the Heaven's Solace Cult, or more likely some derivative influence. The person who had cast it, an expert in the fourteenth circle, was, however, powerful enough in the current context to be noteworthy...

Idly she swept the surroundings, just in case someone with some kind of halfway credible power had suppressed themselves and entered this place with their juniors. That would make her potential role here suddenly very simple indeed. Sadly though, that was not the case.

{I guess you are going to do something about this yourself?} she said without looking at the white, two-tailed squirrel who was leaning over the wall above them with its chin resting on its paws, eyes narrowed.

-I take it, it will cause problems if you do it? The squirrel said looking at her.

{I am still adjusting, but it's not impossible.}

-I guess it would be embarrassing to rip a hole in the fabric of this recovering reality and properly drop everyone here into the unstacked ruin outside all for the life of one eighth circle rat. The squirrel said drolly.

{I had forgotten how annoying you could be in person,} she said still watching the youth, whose name appeared to be Gan Deng, monologue idiotically.

“Are you going to keep doing the {thing} as well?”

“What -Thing?” she said drily.

“….”

“I sometimes forget that your sense of humour is even weirder than hers.”

She shook her head and watched as the youth waved the sword around like a child’s toy giving some pointless appreciation of its quality. Based on that feedback, she decided to put a little more effort into making that form seem totally mundane.

“Your previous estimation of ‘plain-looking treasure weapon’ also seems to need a bit of a readjustment...” the squirrel said with a snicker.

“I must admit to a degree of traumatized amazement at how low this youth's standards are,” she said with a mock sniff.

“True, although some people are just greedy, and the standards today... Even that sword-staff that our young heroine here has would see avaricious brats holding the strings on these juniors with those talismans running around drooling and feverish, for all that it’s a lump of forged metal that we issued to elite soldiers.”

"Well, those weapons were forged by experts in their craft for all that they were viewed as simple weapons," she noted.

Before them, Gan Deng started sprouting some bullshit to the pair while keeping the entire space shut down, making her sigh. His intent to kill the boy was clear to her, as were his desires for the young woman, Juni. In some respects, mortals like that never changed. You could swap the face, the world, even the Heavens, and still, you would find people who simply had a natural disposition towards treating others as things to be used or abused, believing or perceiving their powers, either 'God-given' or 'Heaven-sent' to be a sign that they were somehow, truly 'Superior'. It was an enticing dream, and a deadly cage to find yourself caught within unawares.

“He has some very 'interesting' ideas…” the squirrel observed with a derisive eye roll, as the moment turned sluggish around them.

They watched the flow of his thoughts in silence for a few of their seconds, as the flow of reality adjusted to accommodate their desire to talk without events running on.

“Miss Juni’s invective is much more imaginative,” she noted with a faint smile.

“Young women like her, who have seen a bit of life, have much smarter ideas about ruining others lives compared to brats like him. Their power and privilege limits their perspective. Makes them unable to really put their all into dreaming up horror,” the squirrel observed drily, with the tone of a true connoisseur.

She shook her head with unfeigned amusement. The squirrel was one of the more notable scions of their generation you truly would not want on your case.

“That said, he has such grand plans, let it not be said that heaven has no eyes,” the squirrel sniggered.

Space around them half shifted subtly and the squirrel reached out and plucked a red-grey sandy stone tear-shaped blade, about the length of a human forearm and beautifully knapped for the material it was made out of, off a ghostly shelf. Reality settled back to how it was and the squirrel turned over the stone for a moment considering it pensively.

The red-grey sandstone blade held a beautiful carving of a lotus-like lantern in its middle. The central ridges both held swirling graven designs, like threads that flowed through each other in an enchanting, endless fashion. Even for her, it was hard to pull her eyes from it. A 'Declaration' and a 'Reason', spelt out in form so old as to be lost to all but those who walked in those distant times.

"So you had the last one of those?" she said with a half-smile.

"I always had it," the squirrel said with a wistful sigh.

"The 'Sar' stone as well no less," she mused, reading the lines.

"My comprehension was the closest in a way to her interpretation back then, but my role in it was slight at best," the squirrel shrugged.

She eyed the stone blade appreciatively. It was something akin to her own sword, albeit rarer. There were twelve of such manifestations as hers, linked to their abode, to the Truths that their mother maker had fashioned. There were only three of these stones in all creation though. One in the hands of her maker, one in the hands of the red-grey stones' originator… and this one, in the hands of the squirrel. In terms of traps for the unwary, it was, really an utterly monstrous one. All the Inheritances of that era were dangerous to the unsuspecting or the greedy, but the number of people who could safely enter the place that dagger linked to was, outside of their generation, a number so small as functionally non-existent.

“It always amazed me how they manage to survive so long,” the squirrel said with a shake of its head in mocking disbelief.

“It’s all relative,” she said with an amused eye roll, given their number was going to be reduced by a further one very soon.

“It is,” the squirrel conceded. “The young nobility of the land of our origin also had an unhealthy occupation with acting without thought for consequence as I recall.”

Events were slowly unfurling outside, even as they looked on. The youth had made Juni stand up and was eyeing her the way a man might eye a horse he wanted to try out.

"They do say that 'He who lives by his sword, will usually die by it'," she noted. “These kind of idiots though… are truly the ones I dislike the most.”

“You…? hating someone? Isn’t that… like unprofessional… or something?” the squirrel said a touch mockingly.

She rolled her eyes and ignored the squirrel's jibe. In a sense, it wasn’t wrong, but it was taking the piss as well. With her strength, any kind of misplaced emotion or attachment could cause problems. The mess before them was almost half on her as it was, and that was just the way things ‘were’. To aim for less was almost as disastrous as getting over attached in its own way.

“Well, I’ve long suspected that juniors like this are actually intended by the Acausal Construct to test our karmic resolve in some way,” the squirrel said with a faux sigh.

“Is that why this part of you runs around as a squirrel?” she asked, as she had been wondering this for some time, given the origins of the squirrel.

“It’s convenient…yes,” the squirrel managed to look shifty just by implication.

That meant that it was absolutely because her soul was still buggered and she didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t press though, that was a whole different mess totally unrelated to anything to do with this place or why it was now where it was. The latter she was also just getting caught up on in any case, having been slumbering, minding her own business when it occurred and then awoken to find herself already down here. It did, however, explain why she was tetchy about that damnation, having stepped in to personally cave its trespassing face in.

Something flickered in the evening, on the far side of the valley and they both paused, slowing the moment further and looking into the distance towards the source. The world stilled around them to faint shade of grey, the horizons bleeding red and blue as if light couldn’t quite get full purchase any more. In the stillness they now stood in, the world rapidly fading to monochrome with strange colour outlines, the disturbances to the fundamental aspects were a lot more obvious.

“They, however, are becoming a nuisance,” the squirrel muttered, observing the distant disruption.

“They are…” she agreed.

The oppression all these visitors were feeling was, truthfully, nothing particularly exceptional in the grand scheme of things. Most were simply not seeing it's true nature because they were of a low circle and inexperienced in planar travel. It was somewhat exacerbated because they had come from a Great World, into a manifest shard of a Supreme Realm that was also a Treasure World. Additionally, this world was already being forcibly oppressed by two supreme steps, anchoring its innate dominion firmly in the twelfth circle and properly oppressing most things in it to the peak of the tenth. Those final two steps being reserved as a buffer against unexpected incidents.

That the brat in front of them had inadvertently attuned himself properly to the qi of this world in the process of trying to opportunistically subvert what he thought was a ‘treasure emerging’ tribulation had been somewhat unexpected. That he hadn't yet noticed it, because he was carrying a child talisman attuned to the artefact his compatriots were using to temporarily lift the oppression was, she thought, pretty funny. On the other hand, it had also sealed his doom here and now. Had he just run away, he might really have soared to the heavens in this place and made remarkable strides.

“A bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing,” the squirrel sighed, still messing with the red blade, changing its form subtly.

“Well, if that lot keep flashing that parent artefact around like that and using thirteenth circle 'Domain Totems' to forcibly raise the limits of the world, its gonna draw notice.” She mused, shaking her head at how they were going about things in such a bothersome way.

All they had to do was acclimatise themselves and yet here they were running around like rabid dogs ripping holes in the causal firmament to rob people and make a mess. In her mind’s eye, she could see the battle that was currently going on. A dozen white-robed youths were tearing through two groups of cultivators from a rival sect. Most of those doing the attacking were in the seventh or eighth circle, compared to their opponents who were mostly in the sixth and seventh.

-Unless of course, that was the point? And robbery was just accidental, she mused to herself.

That would be far more concerning and something she wished she was better placed to keep an eye on.

With a final satisfied nod, the squirrel finished messing with the throne key and turning it over, spat some golden blood at the back of it. Nodding as the blade, now a talisman, turned a subtly more ominous shade of red while its domineering aura was disguised to make it look more like some kind of lesser treasure.

“It’s already gained notice most won’t be able to handle,” the squirrel added, glancing over her shoulder.

She nodded, not needing to look. She had also marked the dark shadows hidden in caves far above on both sides of these valleys. Observers far stronger than any of these lost children, watching the carnage unfolding, gauging matters and weighing odds. The lure of those thirteenth circle treasures would be almost irresistible bait for both sides…

The squirrel finished disguising the object it had decided to be the instrument of judgement. It now looked like a red jade pendant carved with a lotus-like flame inlaid with gold thread.

“As they say, fools will perish for-”

She stopped and the moment really froze.

“What just?” the squirrel asked, hopping over onto her shoulder, as she became momentarily corporeal.

“That is a bit… he just tried to wipe away my makers mark with a twelfth circle 'Treasure Refinement' talisman”

In front of them, the youth was paused just about to stab the sword into Han Shu’s dantian, while Juni was frozen to the side. The girl who had suffered a fortuitous mutation from the blood was frozen about ten metres away, where she had been running bravely towards the youth. The others were also all still watching this tableau, with degrees of horror, irrespective of which side they were on.

“What man proposes, god will dispose… but after I went to all this effort…” the squirrel said with an eye roll.

It was hard to credit really that this would actually happen without her nudging at all. It wasn’t like the mark could be shifted. The mark was the entire thing, after all, everything else was just material cladding on it that reflected her whims. At their root, the twelve were really keys, not weapons. They also doubled as weapons, but only because it was convenient. If she desired it, it could become a hair broach or a ring. They had been even been a necklace of twelve swords and a crown at one point as well. She could see the root of his misconception at any rate. He had been drawn here by the treasure that the girl had inadvertently revealed. What it was even she wasn’t entirely clear yet because the squirrel had acted so fast. However, in its absence, and being fooled by Juni’s abolished cultivation, the youth had let his prejudices overrule his instinct. Rather than keep looking, he had immediately cast around, flagged her as something that someone of Han Shu’s realm shouldn’t be wandering about with, even in her suppressed state and added two and two to get five.

Now… with him having just done what he did, and accidentally made a connection to the key aspect of the sword, if she wished she could just drag him away right now. To a place every bit as terrifying as that he had ended up in, if not more so. There was a tiny shred of heavenly hope for him in the Throne of Red Dust, but their abode would only ever serve as his eternal Tomb. Someone with his views, with such a weak sense of conviction and a malleable sense of morality would never escape there.

On the other hand, the squirrel would sulk, and she was still dubious about the matric integrity of this place, with all these outside eyes prying in through those talismans. The smart choice was to just let the squirrel do the deed.

“Gotta give the moron props for belief at least,” the squirrel said. “It’s almost cute…”

“Are you gonna do it then? Or do I have to throw you at him?” she said pointedly.

They both eyed the sword-key that was slowly cutting through the timelessness all of its own accord, inching towards Han Shu fueled by the youth's desire to kill.

“Such a waste of a good talisman, even if he 'imposed' it by sideways means,” the squirrel snickered, "It’s a shame he will never know his ‘achievement’, even in death."

Colour faded back into the world.

~ Gan Deng, Ruined Plaza ~

Gan Deng found himself somewhat surprised at how hard the Gan Clan Envoy Elders ‘Treasure Refining Talisman’ struggled with the sword. Given that it was unbound and had at first impression barely exerted the outward aura of Dao Weapon unless you looked at it really closely.

On the whole, it really pleased him as he admired it now. It made up for the hassle of dragging that suicidal fake princess around. Her determination to call down tribulations every time she was returned to consciousness had forced them to temporarily restrain the fated link to Young Sovereign Hao, much to his senior’s displeasure. It had also cost them a lot of treasures and resources, hence why they were now chasing down groups left and right to recoup some of those losses. He had slipped away to look for stuff on his own for a bit because watching them do divinations was boring and had slowed them to a crawl.

Stumbling across this little farce and seeing the treasure lightning had been a stroke from the blue. Truly the Heavens having eyes. He had suspected it was the brown-haired beauty before him in the first instance, even the talisman had flared over her briefly, but that was likely down to her storage talisman. With her lost cultivation, it was likely unbound now and she had some lingering connection to events here by implication. She was really just an unfortunate cultivator who had been implicated by the lightning it seemed. The boy, on the other hand, had no business with an immortal grade weapon, let alone this one he now had.

He sighed happily. If he hadn’t seen the boy use it to protect himself from the suppression he wouldn’t have paid it any mind either, truly heaven had eyes today. Turning back to them he decided that really he should stop playing about. The lightning had caused a lot of noise already, for all that this group from the ‘Justice Hall’ of the ‘Argent Hall Sect’ had seemed intent on monopolising it and hiding the scene with a barrier no less.

The girl's thoughts were still snarling away in her eyes, which was really quite uncalled for. With his realm, there were few secrets to her physical condition. Her cultivation was abolished, albeit in a remarkably holistic sense, so she could probably cultivate again. She had endured a lot of punishment as well, based on the qi scarring across her body. It was also a surprise to see that she was only in her early thirties. The oddity was that her spirit root was somehow obfuscated from his sight, but that was likely down to her injury. She also wasn't a virgin, which was a shame, and a little surprising, given she was clearly noble taught at least, and her soul's aura was pretty pure, for all that it was tinged oddly.

-That she might be married at the age of thirty though? unlikely, he had to acknowledge.

More likely she was either a well off commoner? A beauty like her would have no shortage of suitors or interested parties with her looks and body and would likely have entered into some young lord or others service rapidly. A handmaiden to a young lord, and this boy being a servant... that might make sense...

He scanned the surroundings, but beyond the other blonde girl collapsed in the rubble nearby, most of the other parties were from either the Argent Hall, Justice or Melody Sects... given their condition probably these two were separated from their own young noble and had had a lucky encounter. Now his lucky encounter, and the girls'. Out here she would become easy prey for any number of things, so taking her back to their group and making her his own handmaiden was really a stroke of fortune on her part. When she realised his backing and his realm her tone would certainly change. Perhaps the other girl as well, although she was young, and undeveloped, saving her would be a slight effort though, and her realm was close to Golden Core as well. Certainly, they would help to distract him from the utter nuisance that that Liang girl was becoming with her incessant resistance and nihilistic attitude regarding her capture. It was already bad enough that he had had to play the pig in that dumb duel for Yan Ju and his cousin Yan Fu. A Dao Immortal, even suppressed and hidden as his cultivation had been, having to pretend to be beaten up by a Golden Immortal like her, all just so she could be marked unobtrusively had been utterly embarrassing.

Pushing qi into the sword, he sighed again at the potential that was hidden away in it.

It was a remarkable thing for looking so unassuming. So much of its potential was still locked away. And yet... and yet... even sealed up and unrefined as it was, it still exuded a remarkable intent. Watching the way it manifested of its own accord on the edge of the blade, he could only think that the weapon was one a Dao Sovereign would be proud to own. When he finally refined it, it might even be Low-Grade Ascendant Weapon. To stumble across such a thing in the hands of a servant like this. And they had been using it as a common sword, to cut people with. Certainly, it would do that, but...

He waved it and sent a slice of its intent outwards, watching it effortlessly leave a cut in the ruined wall nearby. The stones of the ruins here were tough, the calibre of this place put him in mind of a Supreme World rather than a Great World, although that was certainly just coincidence. there was no way this was actually a fragment of a Supreme World, lost in a Great World like Eastern Azure. It would have been found and dug up Aeonspans ago, by the Meng or the Tang, nevermind the Kong who, on the face of it now held sway over much of it.

He looked around again and sighed happily again.

The others also had some potential, the girl from Melody Hall he might also take back, to distract from this sword. A Chosen Immortal of her calibre would be useful for the divinations, as might the Immortal girl sprawled nearby. Their influences would not raise any fuss even if they did find out what happened to them. As to the others, all of them were at least soul foundation and likely had means that could be investigated... They would all have to die. Nobody could know he had this blade, especially Gan Jiao or Qin Den. While they were fixated on the 'Heavenly Blossom' Sword Art, that was for the 'Young Sovereign'. They would think little of taking it based on their status within the Huang Clan and the Heavenly Solace Society. Fortunately, the sword's aura was so restrained and from the exterior, it was totally unassuming.

First things first though, he turned back to the youth who had been the owner of the sword and focused on the blade. It resisted subtly, making him sigh, it had seemed to be attached to him somehow though.

Sending his thoughts into his storage ring he selected one of his more precious treasures; a rather shabby looking talisman and charm he had found in a vestige in a trial before he ever came to Eastern Azure with the bunch from the Gan Clan. Pushing his qi into the 'Path Turning Myriad Fates' Talisman he linked it to the sword, watching as it wormed its way into it. It found what he was after surprisingly quickly, within the hilt. The talisman superimposed itself over the maker's mark of the blade, which was in and of itself also a work of art, and forged a quasi soul-link to it. Sending his qi into it again, he nodded, its intent was now no longer rebelling against him and also no longer had the same sense of sympathetic resonance with its former wielder.

Turning it over once more, he nodded to himself and then decisively stabbed the ragged youth in the stomach. The strike would ruin his cultivation, such as it was, but he was going to die anyway so that was unimportant. His goal was to sunder the youth's spirit root and cut off any chance that his demise might be divined by his young lord, or anyone else interested in the sword.

He had nearly executed the action, when he was interrupted by the judder of collapsing masonry as the wall right above them crumbled over onto all three of them. With a sigh he paused the strike, and with a wave of his hand, dispersed it backwards, scattering it into the building. Beyond it, a dark brown, two-tailed squirrel was also in the process of fleeing, jumping up the far wall, holding a reddish jade pendant. The compass around his neck gave a tug, even though he didn't need it to see that it was another treasure. The creature itself was dao seeking, which was surprisingly high for a critter like that.

-Truly, he sighed to himself. The Heavens have eyes for their own.

He marked it, it would be easy to chase down, and stabbed the sword at-

The rock hit him in the head, which shouldn’t have been possible given he was unsuppressed. It also made him stab the boy in the side rather than the dantian, which was just silly really.

Hissing under his breath he pulled the sword out and picked up the rock.

-It was a hand, off of some statue?

Whatever type of stone it was, it repelled his qi easily as well, which was highly unusual. Looking around, he saw the squirrel two metres away on top of the rubble, holding the head of a statue in the same rock, the pendant nowhere in sight.

“How the fates did you get so close,” he muttered focusing on it.

It was a Dao Seeking Qi Beast… Maybe it had some special trick? He examined it with his Law infused Principle and his soul sense, but beyond it being a bit inscrutable, which seemed to be because of the weird aura of the rock it was holding, it really was just what it appeared to be.

Shaking his head he marked it casually and focused on locking down the moment properly. The world stilled even more than it had already, and those held within his prison of spatial laws groaned weakly beneath the pressure. Turning back to the youth he stab-

Something hit him in the chest, making him stagger backwards and fall over. It was accompanied with a flare of Martial Intent infused qi that dissipated harmlessly on his armour and robe.

Gasping, he saw that the squirrel was inexplicably on a chunk of fallen masonry just behind the frozen pair. The thing that had hit him was the beautiful red jade pendant he had seen the squirrel running with earlier. It now lay on the ground beside him, with a faintly auspicious aura.

The squirrel itself looked at him directly and with one paw pulled an eyelid down and made an obscene gesture with the other paw.

With a scowl, he sent a wave of qi infused with lightning and spatial laws at where it was.

In the instant, before the bolt hit, everything twisted faintly and the squirrel faded away into the rock, pulling a face at him as it did so.

The rock itself turned into molten slag a fraction of a second later. Sweeping his surroundings, including underground, he could see no sign of the squirrel. There were, however, now two more bands of cultivators circling the edges of the ruins. A bunch of yellow-robed youths from the Shimmering Dragon Sept and another ad hoc group mainly of rogue cultivators. Both were refusing to approach, wary of him and likely each other. It was too bad for them really, having been spotted they would also die in due course. The strongest among them was a Peak Golden Immortal from the Shimmering Dragon Sept.

Refocusing on himself he sat up and shook his head. The damage that the stone pendant had done was nonexistent beyond a faint sense of discomfort in his chest. Its grade was inscrutable, but the Martial Intent within it was as profound as any he had seen used by Elders in the Gan or Huang Clan. It truly was a treasure just thrown in his path.

-Stupid beast, he sneered inwardly and ridiculed the fate-thrashed squirrel.

The grey robe was a Dao Sovereign grade defensive artefact after all, and not the only one he wore either. It must have thought that this treasure would do some damage if it just threw it at him?

Sitting up, he cleared his head and looked around. The momentary ambush had still managed to break his concentration. That was a bit inconvenient, but everyone else here was still so stunned by whatever had happened to them before he got here, and his use of laws to twist the space after that, they were in no condition to do anything. Both the pair before him were slumped down now, looking wan. The youth's wound was bleeding badly as well.

Drawing a qi crystal out of his dantian, he tested the pendant carefully, then grabbed the treasure sense talisman and triggered it using the qi from that crystal. You couldn’t be too careful after all. Weird treasures could have even weirder defences. From what he could see it was some kind of talisman jade that contained a bunch of comprehensions on 'Martial Intent' along with an art to manifest it. Satisfied he stretched over and picked it up.

The world went black as the talisman drew in his qi like a hungry beast.

“Fates get-” He swore, wrapping his qi around him and sheltering his Dao Soul with all his might, drawing on the protection talismans and trying to sever the-

A horrifying, devouring, slaughtering intent swirled around him and the world changed.

The talisman in his hand melted away into red dust and flowed into his body, vanishing without a trace before he could so much as get a grasp on the idea of dropping it.

He stood on a terrible, red, sandy plain. Dust tore at him, the leaden sky with bloody clouds drenched in the last rays of a setting red sun that took up half of the horizon pressed down tyrannically on him.

Groaning in pain, he crumpled to his knees, his qi incapable of supporting him in the face of the oppression even as the ground ripped it out of his body at a disturbing rate, bleeding it away into the dark red sands all around him.

The sword was gone…

-Was this place projecting into his…?

He wanted to say soul, but that didn’t feel right, he was absolutely here, body and soul.

An isolated space, linked to the pendant…

-Shit… monkeyshit… subverting fates who rebel against heaven may you go and be…

He recalled that the sword had protected the brat from the suppression. Focusing on the forced bond he had made with it, he called it to him.

It resisted, inexplicably.

He focused harder, and it laughed at him mockingly, the sound had a faintly feminine bent-

The brand mark from the Worldly Venerate, Treasure Refining 'Path Turning Myriad Fates' talisman, supplanting the maker's brand exploded into a million pieces which tore through his sea of knowledge like white-hot shards of shrapnel. He had a moment of frozen horror to appreciate what was about to happen before the soul bound treasure talisman's anchor Dao Soul also ignited. He successfully managed to expel it before the worst could happen, but it still made him stagger and cough up blood as his soul wavered under the shockwave. The priceless talisman rippled in the air, dissolving away into glittering ash, making him cough up another mouthful of blood, this time out of anger.

As his blood-spattered onto the ground, the oppression of the place… intensified somehow.

It clawed at him, as the mocking laughter of the sword somehow still echoed in his ears.

“You fate thrashed… thing… I hope someone refines you into a treasure chattel and sells you to a whorehouse!” he groaned, staggering to his feet and fighting against the pain.

The sands swirled around him and a figure appeared before him. A shadow of a voluptuous woman, naked, wearing strange painted designs across her body that drew his eyes in distracting ways, accenting her most feminine attributes in ways that made his skin clammy. Taking a deep breath he focused on stabilising his mind... of course, a place like this would have things-

“Kingdom... or Glory.”

The words whispered through the world, making his soul shake.

“Kingdom….”

“Or…"

“Glory…”

The words carried a far more ominous intent, as the woman walked towards him now, growing in scale. He mustered all his strength, trying to break the intent that was bearing down on him.

His bones creaked, the sand tore at his robes, ripping the treasure garments to shreds, tearing at his skin, dragging the qi from his body, oppressing his nascent soul.

“KINGDOM…

“OR…”

“GLORY.”

The woman stood before him now and somehow the oppression faded away. She was breathtaking, a golden-haired maiden with olive skin and bright azure coloured eyes. Every part of her was beyond perfection her shapely figure, her gentle face, her lithe legs and curved hips, voluptuous breasts and curved neck... He had seen beauties, but she was so flawless it was painful even to look upon her. Emperors would covet her person and chase after her for eternities. Sages would seek the heavens for her and Scholars would write epics about her... The patterns that swirled across her body accented every aspect of her, hiding much but suggesting everything in strange, enticing ways. The symbol painted on her forehead resolved itself into his mind as 'Bel'.

A second woman appeared, more mature, with a kind of beauty and presence that was impossible to reject. All she wore were silver bracelets on her arms and legs, with bells and charms, and a choker of red cloth around her neck held a design that became 'Ash' in his mind. Auburn hair, luscious pale skin, Smokey eyes, flawless curves, even more, enticing than the blonde beauty, her beasts were a thing of wonder, her hips distracting to the point of insanity, her lips lush and inviting... her whole, unblemished form such that, upon observing no man, or woman would ever be able to rid from their mind's eye. Her every move as she walked towards him, made his legs weak and his heart pound, the hunger in her eyes, the smile on her face...

A third figure stepped out of the raging sandstorm, even as he tried to tear his gaze away from her, and became… enraptured by flawless wonder.

Even beyond the other two, he felt she was the most wondrous thing he had ever seen, every aspect of her perfect and flawless. Dark silken, wavey hair, voluptuous yet truly harmonious curves, tanned, flawless skin, purple eyes that shimmered faintly. Her face was kind and her manner elegant and poised but within her, every move was a lingering enticement that made his stomach twist into knots and his mind go fuzzy. If the other two were beauty and lust, this woman was everything a man could ever dream of a paragon of pleasures and yet also possessing wisdom and wit to make any who were in her company hang on her every word. She had no ornamentation but wore a shimmering, translucent and diaphanous stole that draped over her form, hiding nothing and promising everything. A symbol that translated itself as 'Sar' ghosting over her navel on her robe.

The three stood before him, their gazes drawing him, tormenting him, enthralling him, such as he was unable to look at any one of them.

“Kingdom… or… Glory.”

Their joint whisper stilled the world, their words suggesting so much to him that… they would walk with him, raise him up… give him everything…

Their voluptuous forms seared into his mind and unbidden he imagined what joys he might experience if they were willing to walk at his side. Huang Hao and Huang Teng would be nothing… the inheritance they sought in this place would be his…

“..G…glory…” he gasped, as their haunting, enchanting forms enflamed his emotions, resonating with his Dao Seed and making his whole body ache with desire to possess them.

The sand swirled and the red dust closed in, obscuring everything except the dying embers of the red sun that reflected through it mysteriously. The three figures smiled and stepped forward, the youngest held up a lantern, while one in the garment reached out a hand and plucked a red thread from nowhere that swirled away into the storm. The beauty clasped his arm, her breasts pressing against his flesh as they set out into the storm, resting her head on his shoulder and smiling up at him, her gaze whispering that soon he would become one with all of them.

Such a thing… he slipped an arm around her, enjoying the feel of her in his arms and found that the one with the lantern was also holding his other hand, smiling at him winsomely as she led them on through the storm of red sand, which was now no longer tearing at his flesh and oppressing his mind.

The clink of the bells on the voluptuous beauty and the whispered nothings of the maiden stilled the ruination around him even as his gaze was drawn to the other, flawless creature ahead of him, her every movement feeding his desire.

He lost track of how long they walked until the storm faded away and they were stood before an edifice, the three beauties led him forward, up the steps to the top. Standing there, surveying the plain, he turned to the nearest one she smiled at him and gently directed his gaze towards the centre of the place.

“Well… do you behold our glory?” her breathy whisper and the feel of her body against his drew him on as his gaze alighted on the great statue.

It was immense, a carving of the woman beside him… of all three of the women beside him in fact, merged into one heart-stealing, mind-shaking, soul-enrapturing visage of perfection. Though she was carved from stone, she might as well have been a living being, so lifelike and flawless was she as she reclined there in simple meditation.

In her left hand, she held a lantern, like the one the blonde fairy maiden carried, and which now flickered with a deep red flame akin to the colour of the storm they had just walked through and which was still swirling around the great edifice they were standing on.

In her right hand, was a representation of that rippling red thread the dark-haired goddess had returned to her waist. As he stared at it, it shifted and twisted strangely, even though it was just a graven image. To his eyes, it held a representation of some profound mystery of fate.

“My lord… it is time for you to understand…” the maiden smiled, leading him forward, towards the marble dais that was before the statue.

In the flickering light of the lantern, in the dusk, it looked like a bed.

“Yes… you wished to experience our glory.” The beauty at his side murmured, walking with him as his gaze was fixed on the swaying curves of the flawless creature still affixing the red thread artefact.

She arrived at the edge of the altar and turned, shedding her robe in one fluid motion and spreading her arms to draw him to her.

The red thread ran from his heart to hers, her words whispered in the air...

{Behold… The World…According To …Red Dust}

Between one footfall and the next, he was transfixed. Her gentle and melodious voice, dripping with desire sank into his mind, robbing him of his remaining senses. With a desirous gasp, he reached for her even as the thread drew him on and the other two wrapped their arms around him, pressing their bodies against his, carrying him forward.

He placed his hands upon her, running them across her body, feeling her respond to his touch, even as her words, whispered in his ear seeped into his flesh, into his bones.

His desire was unquenchable, through her he could attain… everything, and she was… everything…

His soul… his immortality, his principles and law… the very essence of his dao.

Standing before her, the others embraced him as well, whispered in his ear, telling him how he would rise, with them, how his clan would crown him Sovereign, how the Heavenly Solace Society would bow before him…

Her face was gentle, kindly almost as it looked into his. In her eyes, he could see everything he had ever done… everything he could ever do reflected through him. Her lips brushed his.

The intent of her breath in his body was so profound and heaven shattering that he had no way to even begin to resist it.

The symbol on her forehead sank into his soul, unspooling into red thread and too late he understood.

He felt his body collapse in her arms as her lingering kiss consumed him.

His meridians collapsed…

His dantian dissolved into red dust...

His 'Dao Seed' withered away…

His Principle scattered...

His Immortality crumbled away…

His Spirit Root melted away like mist…

His flesh failed him…

With uncomprehending eyes still affixed on the perfection before him, that desired every part of his being, he fell and became one with the Glory of that place.

The blood-red sands shifted and his corpse, desiccated and decayed, became just one more in the endless plain of bones that the storm had hidden, breaking apart and dispersing into oblivion, except for his skull, which was still clasped in the hands of the peerless beauty.

Within it, his soul flickered dimly at the last, as he understood for the briefest, lingering, terrifying, soul-crushing moment the nature of this place and the glory within it.

The woman stared at the skull in her hands and sighed, letting it fall. It tumbled into the lantern in her left hand and the shattered soul fragments that had once been Gan Deng, that still lingered within, silently passed away into the cycle of reincarnation. Still unaware, even in their final moments of understanding, as they were carried to oblivion, of the true stature of what it had encountered.

~ Kun Juni & Han Shu, Ruined Courtyard ~

The pressure collapsed as the youth staggered back, hit in the chest by the red jade talisman that looked suspiciously similar to the one she had just picked up, Juni couldn’t help but think.

-Fates curse you for this! She screamed in her head, as she tried to move and failed.

Han Shu, next to her was bleeding badly she realised, even as the grey-robed youth waved his hand and her hair literally frizzed out all over her body.

A shockwave of lightning and thunder hissed past her, scorching her skin and making her ears bleed, turning a rock somewhere right behind her into molten droplets and chips of rock that scattered everywhere.

Cursing, the youth scrambled up on his knees and then noticed the jade talisman. Scowling he pulled out some kind of crystal and then the same talisman as before. She watched dully, trying to convince her body to move, as he did something to it, nodded in satisfaction and picked it up.

She stared at it.

The woman, Ning, who was collapsed a dozen metres away, stared at it.

Han Shu, bleeding out by the wall stared at it.

They all watched as it dispersed into red sand and flowed into the shocked youth’s hand. There was a fractional pause as his face flickered between shock, ecstatic delight and then pure horror, and then he screamed.

And screamed.

She stared blankly as he just kept screaming. There was no intent, no qi… no nothing. His face a rictus of ecstasy and desire, totally at odds with the horrific sound he was making.

The sound lingered for what seemed like forever, even if she knew it had only been a few seconds, and then he collapsed to the ground.

His flesh turned into red dust, scattering in a swirl around him and his disarticulated bones, mysteriously sans skull, clattered to the ground. On the other hand, his robe grew bizarrely fuzzy amid the expanding cloud of red, suspended for a few seconds on a faint outline of a screaming dark-haired youth. Everything hung like that, for a fractional heartbeat, then it was all drawn away into the red jade talisman, which warped and became an arms-length, red stone blade as it fell to the ground.

As they watched, mute, a squirrel paw emerged from the ground in the midst of the dispersing cloud and caught the handle of the blade just before it hit the ground. With a silent ripple, the paw and blade vanished into the ground, leaving only drifting red dust, scattered bones and a ringing echo of a scream that somehow refused to fade.

She stared, the other survivors of the two groups who were still conscious just stared… as did a red-robed, lightly armoured, spear-carrying youth, who had just run into the courtyard.

“What the…” Ning gasped blankly from nearby.

Her gaze, however, was affixed on the new arrival, and the brown squirrel now, somehow, sat on his head. She stared at it, at its purple eyes.

-None of the brown squirrels had ever had purple eyes, a small voice in her head mumbled.

Still stunned, they all watched as it pulled out a deep azure pill from nowhere and then hopped onto a rock beside the youth. the squirrel pondered the pill for a moment, then tossed it in the air and ate it with a gulp.

The youth gave a horrified wail and desperately scrambled away, colour draining from his face. The squirrel just licked its paws and then after a moment gave a belch, expelling a faint cloud of azure miasma. It then proceeded to make a familiar mocking gesture at the youth.

He managed to make a half movement, only for all eyes to find the squirrel sat on his hand. She saw his body quivering oddly in a way that suggested strongly that as much as he might ‘like’ to move, he was very much ‘unable’ thanks to the squirrel. Almost a dozen pairs of eyes followed its motion as it took off his storage ring and turned it over in both paws, narrowing its eyes and looking pensive.

Having seen this trick once before, she already had a faint idea of what was about to happen, but to see it occur to a storage ring of a cultivator far higher realm than Ling Luo was… disturbing. The squirrel flexed its arms briefly and then crushed the ring between its paws with almost no apparent effort.

There was a *Pock* sound and then the contents of the storage ring exploded all over the square, throwing the youth down on the ground in the process with an impact she could only call bone-rattling. The squirrel flickered once more and held up a pill bottle with a triumphant expression.

“No… no…no…” the red-robed youth mumbled in horror, stumbling back.

Before their eyes, the squirrel opened the bottle and then poured all the contents, a dozen azure pills into its open mouth and crunched them noisily.

Its body seemed to swell slightly. The dusk overhead deepened abruptly and a star in the sky distended and became a streak of black and gold lightning that screamed down at the squirrel in the form of a miniature dragon.

It looked up with a very human expression of annoyance on its face and caught the bizarre tribulation lightning with a paw, crushing it out of existence somehow. Up above, the sky trembled and then fifteen stars all dropped simultaneously turning into pitch-black bolts. The squirrel… sighed, and without any preamble just spread out its paws to welcome the bolts. For a few brief seconds, it was illuminated pure white against black as the colour drained from the world, then the bolts were drawn into it somehow. The squirrel shook its tails and made a rude gesture towards one of the distant mountains.

No more lightning came.

“It… broke… what…?” the lightly armoured youth mumbled, still struck dumb with terror.

The squirrel turned to look at him and hopped forward abruptly. With a scream, the youth crumpled a talisman and vanished with a crack of lightning, far into the distance across the river. Almost all the contents of the square vanished with him, presumably, most of them were branded somehow with his soul power.

The squirrel landed… and stared around, looking somewhere between deeply vexed and disconsolate. Then it turned to look at the others in the square with a calculating… dare she say it… evaluating expression.

In the evening light, the collective thoughts of ‘oh... monkeyshit’ from the various immortals she had been fighting before were almost audible.

Without ever seeming to move, it was suddenly standing beside the woman who had fought her at the end, holding her storage jade, a hair broach of bluestone and creamy spirit wood, in its hand.

It looked at the bauble, then just crushed it to pieces like it was a piece of rotten wood. The woman coughed blood and moaned in pain as the contents of the talisman tumbled down all around her. It picked up a reddish-brown bottle of pills and stashed them somewhere before turning to the youth called Jiao and the woman Roxu.

It landed on Roxu, and Jiao gave a scream and scrambled away as fast as he could, fleeing the courtyard. The squirrel looked at him and shrugged, shattering Roxu’s ring. Pristine, pure qi flooded the courtyard as the squirrel picked up a bag of shining stones and stashed those, then also grabbed two black and white pills, swallowing them both down without pause, before turning to look at the rest of the courtyard.

It needn’t have bothered, the vast majority of those looking on were already fleeing as fast as they could. The new arrivals on the other hand... The group who had just entered the near side of the courtyard, a dozen youths in gold robes with dragons on them and drawn weapons stared this way and that in confusion at those scattering.

The squirrel shook a fist at the remaining fleeing group, before noticing the new arrivals. With a truly shit-eating grin, it took a step and covered the entire distance to the group and grabbed a golden jade talisman in the shape of a dragon from around the neck of the lead youth, shattering that as well. The others all stared in shock, finally realising why everyone of any consequence was running like lunatics to get away. One of them attacked the squirrel, which vanished before the attack ever landed and appeared on the aggressors head, holding his storage ring. She watched mutely as it shattered the ring like it was made of cheap stone. The ensuing implosion took the youths head and much of his torso with it.

It occurred to her, as she watched the other golden garbed youths all use teleportation talismans with looks of panic on their faces, that that was the first time she had seen the squirrel actually 'kill' someone directly.

The squirrel turned to the remaining stunned occupants of the plaza, who were now solely the three of them, and the five survivors of that initial group and put its hands together and bowed slightly. Then fell backwards into the earth without a sound leaving them still unsure of what the fates had actually happened, and her silently vowing to set up an incense altar and a scroll of respect for it if she ever got back home.