Master Yan strolled through the Sect at a casual pace, his steps as light as his mood. At least one of his worries had been lifted from his shoulders. His Disciple, Jie-un, had completed her foundation. With one last little push — one that realistically he didn’t need to intervene in — her dantian would ignite, elevating her to the Initiate Realm.

  He still had another week to prepare his Disciple for the formal Imperial visit. There was much to do; instruction on qi techniques, further lessons on talisman crafting — she had taken to it like a fish to water — and of course preparing a routine to present in front of an audience. It was a lot to do in only seven days, but Master Yan was confident he could push his Disciple towards further achievement.

  But more than that, his Disciple had already proven capable. Surely that meant he could leave her to train and finally spend a moment to investigate the workings of the Sect? To begin with, which of the Elders were responsible for the suppression of a Disciple of the Sect? And why do such a thing, to no benefit?

  Or was there a benefit that Yan Duo could not see from his lowly perspective? He spared a glance to the Inner Sect atop the mountain’s peak, eternally shrouded by a disc of cloud. How would he approach his investigation into such lofty figures? Questions kept coming, but there were no answers. Not yet.

  Perhaps he’d reward his Disciple for giving him this chance. Would more pills be suitable?

  Master Yan stood outside the pavilion he knew Disciple Ji-eun resided in. He did not bother announcing himself as he stepped through the moon gate. Such respect for Outer Disciples was below his station. He felt a brush against his qi and a gaze land upon his side. He turned to find a woman clad in the robes of an Outer Disciple. She had sharp features and a head of neatly styled silver hair. She stood in the pavilion gardens, interrupted mid swing of a sword kata. The woman presented a picture perfect bow to Master Yan and returned to her training. He returned the gesture and continued on, impressed with the Disciple’s work ethic.

  Things changed once he stepped inside. The metallic tang of blood in the air wafted through the entire pavilion. Master Yan’s eyes narrowed as he followed the scent to its source. The third bedroom in the dwelling, given to the youngest Disciple of the cohort. He expected the worst.

  With a gust of qi, the door swung open. Blood ran through the room, flicked against walls and sheets. A faint qi signature lay in the corner. With a swivel of his head, Master Yan identified the source: a Disciple he had not met with a sword run through their chest between the ninth and tenth ribs Non-fatal, and judging by the precision, deliberately so. There were no other qi signatures in the room, not even the faint trace of a pill.

  “Identify yourself, Disciple,” Master Yan said as though discussing the weather.

  The woman on the ground sputtered as blood trickled between her lips. An internal injury perhaps, or a result of the many blows that littered her face?

  “Outer Disciple Cai Shufen, esteemed Master,” she managed.

  Master Yan nodded.

  “Spare me your details, Outer Disciple Cai. Simply nod yes or no. Did you fight Disciple Ji-eun?”

  Something about his statement irked the woman lying bleeding on the ground. He was asking more as a formality than anything; what happened was quite self evident. Cai Shufen nodded.

  “And did she win?”

  She nodded again.

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  A shake of her head. Disappointing. Master Yan considered for a moment.

  “Was she fatally wounded, or in some way crippled?”

  Cai Shufen grimaced, but shook her head. A relief. Which led him to his final question, one he was most curious about:

  “And why did you attack a fellow Disciple of our Sworn Sword Sect, much less in their own bedroom?”

  The Disciple’s eyes went wide at the ripple of qi Master Yan let slip. He was not impressed with such conduct, so far beneath the standing of his Sect. Even if he was not personally invested in the wellbeing of this particular Disciple, it was inexcusable. Cai Shufen shrunk.

  “I was just following orders.”

  That got his attention. A solid lead on the plot entangling the Sect most recently. He had to know what game the Elders were playing. He had to know just where he stood.

  But he had a responsibility to his Disciple. With an unfelt pulse of qi, Master Yan sent a silent signal to the medical pavilion. Someone there would feel it and send aid.

  “A doctor shall arrive shortly. Until then, Outer Disciple Cai Shufen, do survive. I shall have many questions for you upon my return.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Leaping out the window, Master Yan began to follow a faint trail of disturbed qi winding through the Sect. A Disciple in the late foundation realm did not have enough qi to track, but one who was igniting left disturbances in the worldly qi around them. Disciple Ji-eun should not be hard to find.

  She shouldn’t have been, at least. After a few minutes on the trail, following pockets of qi shifting unnaturally, Master Yan had to stop. After all, the trail stopped. Just ahead he found the Servant quarters lined in neat rows. Small qi signatures flickered within, each a Servant unintentionally building a foundation of qi. In a few decades some would become Disciples of the Sect. None were strong enough to be a Disciple nearing the Initiate Realm.

  He continued forward, his head on a swivel and senses extended. There was nothing. No, that wasn’t quite right. There were disturbances in the flow of qi. Far more than there should have been. Pockets of qi flowing unnaturally swarmed the area, struggling to return to their natural rhythm. Master Yan Duo, in over 400 years of life, had never seen anything like it.

  Just where did his Disciple go?

  —

  Ji-eun tore her way down the mountain, winding through trees and across stones. There was just one thought on her mind: get away from the Sect.

  The difficult task of manipulating qi now came easily. An unseen energy filled her body, moving in tandem with her to grant inhuman speed. She felt unstoppable. But she felt smaller than ever.

  The world around her was full of qi. The air she breathed, the ground beneath her feet, the trees she passed by. All of it was rejecting her. The qi in her chest, smooth and oily, pushed against the free flowing qi of the world. They did not flow together. The two could not mix. Ji-eun felt it down to her bones, grating against her.

  She was at the edge of the Sect now. Before her stood a gate dozens of metres tall. It stood between two natural cliff faces as the one and only entrance to the Sect. Ji-eun knew before it only opened at the request of Sect Masters and above. Now, she could feel the rough outline of shaped qi lining the gate. It probably worked similar to the Southern Quarter gate. Which meant she had no way to open it.

  If she couldn’t go through, she’d just have to go over. With a running start, Ji-eun hopped between jagged outcroppings and slanted cliff faces. At times she jumped to the rivets and beams that supported the Sect Gate, climbing higher and higher until she reached the slanted roof ramparts. It was a daunting climb, but she wasn’t even tired. How much of it was adrenaline, she didn’t know.

  Ji-eun lept from the wall ad scaled down the mountain to the stone steps below with terrifying speeds. She landed roughly and steadied herself. The mountain fell away quickly outside the Sect.

  with a single leap she cleared the wall separating the Outer Sect from the mortal mountain below. Tears streamed across her face, blown away by the wind as she hurtled forward. She paused once she could no longer see the towering Sect walls, slouching through heaving breaths. High in the sky, perhaps hung in Heaven itself, the moon shone bright across the world below. Stars dotted the night sky in unseen constellations. It was the clearest night she had seen in months.

  She continued down the steps at a sedated pace. Each step was a single stone slab, a thousand years old. They cut a path up the mountainside, the only path to and from the base. Mortals climbed up each and every one of the thousands of steps to reach the Sect. The Old Master who first found her had taken her not to the Sect, but to the base of the mountain, and told her to find the path and climb it. He probably meant it as a metaphor or something. Ji-eun laughed at the thought. She spent hours climbing these damn steps. Now, she stumbled down them.

  She had failed.

  She had wanted power. She wanted to be free from the greedy hands of others. She wanted to be untouchable. In that regard, she had to admit, things were looking up. But that was not her true goal in agreeing to join the Sworn Sword Sect.

  She wanted to be a Cultivator. A regular, heaven-defying mortal on the path to immortality. Not…

  Ji-eun felt the oily qi welling inside her. Her fists clenched tight at how natural it felt. How easily it moved within her, far easier than the qi of the Sky Blue Pills ever did.

  She had wanted to be a Cultivator, like everyone else under Heaven. Not a Demonic Cultivator. But like her Elders had said all those years ago, the North was cursed after all. Cursed to carry the horns of Jiaolong. To live and die as Demons.

  Before, Ji-eun had held the naive hope that learning with the qi of a Sect would break this fate. It was the unique qi of a demon that made them Demonic, after all, or so her Elders had said. But now that hope was gone.

  The stone path continued winding down the mountain, passing through a layer of thick grey cloud. Ji-eun spared one last glance up the mountain. The Sworn Sword Sect lay near the peak; she could make out distant candlelight, Disciples who had yet to give in to sleep that night. From this distance it was easy to see the unnaturally even plain the Sect rested within. Like a perfectly square slice of earth had simply fallen away. Further up the mountain still was a ring of eternal cloud obscuring the peak. Through it, she knew was the Inner Sect, where true masters and the Elders reside. She stepped into the cloud, the final layer between the Sect and the lower realm — the mortal world — below.

  Clouds above obscured the moon and the stars, though the ever growing canopy of trees was contending for the job as well. It was a shame. It was dark, but not impossible to see through. Ji-eun suspected being in the Initiate Realm was helping somewhat. The stone path was even. Built for mortals, not superhuman cultivators. Though the occasional root did threaten to break her stride every now and then.

  Trees began to thin, and the path slowly grew more overgrown. The once even path began jutting out at odd angles, stone slabs fading entirely under blankets of green. It was just as she remembered. Finally, the end was in sight. Through one last thicket of trees stood a simple wooden fence. An archway stood tall, an open invitation to and fro. The fence had seen better days, and the archway definitely needed some maintenance.

  Concrete pavement lined the sidewalk of an old and cracked road. A single streetlamp illuminated the area, its harsh white light a beacon through the trees, like a poor imitation of the moon. Huddled underneath the streetlamp was a weathered shack: a bus stop, weeds springing through cracks in the foundation. Ji-eun checked the schedule, the only thing around recently replaced. Next bus service was in… seven hours? It was the dead of night, after all.

  Ji-eun took a seat. The world still pushed against her, but it was a quieter feeling down here. The worldly qi was less dense and flowed in slower streams. Still, it was uncomfortable. She rested her head against the wall. Exhaustion was catching up to her, following her down the mountain. Ji-eun couldn’t stay in the area long. She was a Demon now, not just in blood but in strength. She was the Enemy of all. Could she hide it? Should she run forever?

  What could she do?

  Her thoughts were just… empty.

  Ji-eun admitted to herself that it wasn’t a good idea to rest now, so close to the mountain full of people now likely hellbent on finding and killing her, but she also admitted that she couldn’t care.

  As sleep begun to overtake her, a scene of crimson recalled vividly filled her eyes.