Azure Profound Continent
Behind him, the wall of the House of Crimson Pleasures exploded outward.
The Sect Leader burst through the debris, robes hastily adjusted, tears still drying on his cheeks, his skin shifting from gray-brown to metallic silver as the Iron Rhinoceros Body technique activated.
"YOU SAW NOTHING!" Lord Ironhorn bellowed, his voice cracking the tiles on nearby rooftops.
Leo angled his Moonrider toward the edge of the domain. Three hundred meters. He needed to stay at the boundary, where the gravitational effect remained manageable.
Leo had studied all thirty-five possible Nascent Soul domain configurations. The Eight Trigrams, Seven Stars, Six Harmonies, Five Elements, Four Symbols, Three Talents, Two Polarities.
The Mountain domain was derived from the Eight Trigrams Formation System. Within its sphere of influence, enemies grew heavier the closer they approached the center. Time itself would seem stretched and distorted, each second near the domain's heart lasting an eternity for those caught within.
"I apologize for the intrusion!" Leo called back, zipping sideways as Lord Ironhorn launched himself forward with surprising force. "I was actually here to make peace! Offer my assistance!"
The Sect Leader's massive fist cratered the spot where Leo had been hovering a heartbeat earlier.
"PEACE?" Lord Ironhorn spun, tracking Leo's trajectory. "You burst into my private chambers during a private moment!"
"You were busy and the door was open!"
Lord Ironhorn's face contorted. His massive form pivoted, trying to track Leo as the younger cultivator danced along the domain's edge. Every time the Sect Leader lunged forward, Leo simply zipped to another section of the boundary.
It was like watching a rhinoceros try to catch a hummingbird.
"STOP MOVING!"
Leo moved faster.
"I'M GOING TO SILENCE YOU, LITTLE PERVERT!"
Leo paused mid-circuit, genuinely confused. "I was trying to keep it a secret for you. Why are you the one revealing your sexual perversions?"
Lord Ironhorn's charge stuttered. "BEING EARLY IS NOT A SEXUAL PERVERSION!"
"I wasn't talking about that one."
"SHES NOT MY MOMMY. SHE WAS JUST PLAYING A CHARACTER!"
Silence.
Lord Ironhorn's metallic gray face underwent a transformation. The rage drained away, replaced by dawning horror. His eyes widened. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Several people on the street below had stopped walking. A vendor had dropped his cart of spiritual melons. A group of young cultivators had paused their conversation to stare upward with expressions of morbid fascination.
Lord Ironhorn stood frozen in the air, his Iron Rhinoceros Body gleaming in the afternoon sun, his domain pressing down on reality around him. For a long moment, the only sound was the distant murmur of a city trying very hard to pretend it had heard nothing.
Then his face contorted again.
"ALL GOLD CORE ELDERS!" Lord Ironhorn's voice boomed across Crimson Lotus City with renewed fury. "SILENCE THE PERVERT IMMEDIATELY!"
---
Three streets away, two Gold Core elders stood very still.
The white-robed woman gestured urgently toward the commotion.
Her companion, a heavy-set man carrying an iron club, shook his head apologetically.
"What?" he called out. "Did you say something? What's going on? My hearing isn't what it used to be!"
He was perhaps forty years old. His ears were large, symmetrical, and appeared to function perfectly well. The muscles of his jaw suggested he had never missed a single meal, let alone suffered any sort of physical deterioration.
She pointed at the sky, where their Sect Leader was currently chasing a flying cultivator in circles while screaming about things that he already deeply regretted saying.
"My vision isn't very good either!" he squinted. "Getting old! These things happen!"
The white-robed woman's eye twitched.
She pointed at herself, then at him, then at the ongoing catastrophe above the city.
"Ah!" The heavy-set man nodded sagely. "You want me to go assist the Sect Leader? But surely you should go instead. Everyone knows you cultivate listening techniques. Your hearing is legendary throughout the sect."
The white-robed woman's face went through several expressions in rapid succession.
"My hearing," she said through gritted teeth, "has also deteriorated recently."
"What a coincidence."
"Yes. What a coincidence."
They stood in contemplative silence for a moment.
"I did not hear any unspeakable secrets today," the heavy-set man announced to no one in particular.
The white-robed woman agreed. "I certainly did not hear anything about our Sect Leader."
"I must have missed the commotion taking my afternoon nap."
"I think I was asleep too."
They both turned and walked away, looking for a nearby bedroom.
---
Leo realized, after his fifth circuit around the Sect Leader, that this was actually excellent training.
Lord Ironhorn was slow for a Nascent Soul. Devastatingly powerful and virtually indestructible. But his domain had been cultivated specifically to compensate for his lack of speed, slowing enemies down when they got close.
It couldn't do much against an enemy who simply refused to engage in a fight.
At two hundred and fifty meters from Lord Ironhorn, the gravitational effect was barely noticeable. His Moonrider hummed along with ease.
At two hundred meters, he felt the first real resistance. Like flying through thickening air.
At one hundred fifty meters, each movement required deliberate effort. Time began to stretch, seconds lasting longer than they should.
He pulled back to the edge and circled.
"Your Ironhorn doesn't seem very iron!" Leo called out, enjoying the fun. "More like a Soft Horn, really!"
Lord Ironhorn's mouth opened. His face contorted. Strange sounds emerged, half-words and sputtering rage that threatened to coalesce into yet another devastating self-revelation.
Then he stopped.
His jaw clenched shut with visible effort. His hand reached into his storage ring and withdrew a strip of white cloth. With the deliberate movements of a man who had finally learned his lesson, Lord Ironhorn wrapped the bandage around his own head and gagged himself.
Leo paused in his circling, genuinely impressed.
Lord Ironhorn glared at him with murderous intent, but remained silent.
Leo resumed his attack runs.
Below them, Crimson Lotus City had become a ghost town. The streets lay empty. Shutters slammed closed up and down every avenue. Mothers pulled their children inside with desperate urgency, hands pressed firmly over small mouths. Doors locked. Curtains drawn tight.
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Faces pressed against gaps in the wood. Eyes peeked through cracks in curtains. Entire families huddled together, shoulders shaking, tears streaming down their faces, hands clamped over their own mouths to muffle the laughter threatening to escape.
Lord Ironhorn charged.
Leo evaded.
Lord Ironhorn wheeled around and charged again.
Leo drifted lazily to another section of the boundary.
The Sect Leader's determination was admirable, really. Lord Ironhorn refused to give up. He charged and charged and charged, his massive form plowing through the air with relentless persistence.
One hundred meters. The gravitational pull intensified. Leo's Moonrider's g-force bleeding formations were at max capacity as they fought against the domain's pressure.
He pulled back.
Lord Ironhorn charged at where he'd been.
Eighty meters on the next pass. Time stretched like warm candy. His movements became sluggish, dreamlike.
He pulled back.
Lord Ironhorn charged again.
Leo made a decision.
Instead of evading the next charge, he accelerated toward Lord Ironhorn. Just to see how close he could get and to test himself against the domain's full power.
One hundred meters. The air thickened.
Sixty meters. The world became honey.
Thirty meters.
Leo's body stopped responding. The domain had him now, locked in gravitational amber, suspended in dilated time. He watched from third-person perspective as his physical form hung motionless in the air, lightsaber extended uselessly, Moonrider frozen besides him.
Lord Ironhorn's eyes narrowed with satisfaction.
The Sect Leader's fist drew back. His Iron Rhinoceros Body gleamed in the afternoon sun. Every ounce of accumulated frustration, every circuit of futile chasing, every shred of wounded dignity compressed into a single devastating strike.
But something was wrong.
Where there should have been a pulverized corpse, there was only fabric. Torn robes fluttered in the aftermath of the strike, drifting downward like autumn leaves. A single shoe tumbled end over end toward the distant street.
Lord Ironhorn's satisfaction quickly turned into worry.
---
Base Roxbury, Boston Catacombs
[14:59:59]
Leo pulled himself from the VR pod. His hands moved automatically, unscrewing a prepared thermos of T3 Spirit Calming Tea while his mind churned through what he'd just experienced.
He'd known Nascent Soul cultivators were dangerous. But he felt like he could handle everything. He even had merit stamps as proof.
The mountain domain was different. It completely countered his speed and agility.
Jimbo picked up on the second ring.
"Hey Leo, what's up?"
"I've been working on trying to beat the Mountain Domain, of the eighth trigrams system. But I'm having a lot of difficulties. It's like it perfectly counters me."
Jimbo laughed. "The Mountain Domain perfectly counters a lot of things. How can I help?"
"I'm just wondering if you have any advice?"
"Just stay out of the center. That should be pretty easy, right?"
"I mean advice on how to kill a Mountain Domain Lord. I have no idea how to approach this problem."
There was a pause on the other end.
"When you say you've been working on this problem," Jimbo said slowly, "are we talking 'I learned about it in class and now I'm worried' working on it? Or are we talking 'I'm Leo Chen and I'm working on getting drafted by the NFL before I turn nineteen'?"
"Well, probably somewhere in between. Maybe more like 'I'm Leo and I think I have a good chance at it.'"
"Hold on. Let me ask Zhao."
The line went quiet.
Surprisingly, Leo only had to wait a short while.
"Leo." Jimbo's voice had changed. Sharper. More focused. "Zhao wants to see you immediately."
"What?"
"As your Executive Officer I am ordering you to take a Tier Four flying boat back to Garrison Boston immediately. From there, make your way to Princeton."
Leo blinked. "Princeton? What's at Princeton?"
"Zhao is at Princeton doing his graduate studies. And apparently, whatever you're working on is important enough that he wants to discuss it in person."
---
Soon afterward, someone knocked on the door. Leo opened it to find a military aide in crisp fatigues, clipboard tucked under one arm.
"Cadet Sergeant Chen?" the aide asked. "Please follow me to the hangars. Your transport is being prepped."
They walked through corridors Leo had never seen before. Past security checkpoints that required the aide's badge and a retinal scan. Down an elevator that descended far deeper than the barracks level.
The hangar doors opened onto a cavern.
Leo stopped walking.
Vaulted ceilings rose fifty meters overhead, supported by massive concrete pillars stained with decades of exhaust residue. Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered in their dated housings. The walls were painted institutional green, the paint peeling in long strips near the moisture vents.
The aesthetic was unmistakably 1990s military industrial. Boxy control stations with CRT monitors. Faded safety posters warning about spiritual radiation poisoning. A bulletin board near the entrance still displayed a notice about the 2010 holiday schedule.
Dozens of Tier Four Flying Boats sat in their berths, each one a strange marriage of technologies. The hulls curved like traditional cultivation vessels, with flowing lines and formation-etched surfaces.
Mounted on each deck sat weapons that belonged in a different century entirely. A flak cannon the size of a small car and a giant Spiritual Qi Cannon capable of punching through domains.
"This way, Cadet Sergeant."
Leo followed the aide toward the nearest vessel, his mind automatically cataloging what he knew about these machines. Tom liked to talk about military hardware during the downtime of their drives.
Tier Four Flying Boats had been the backbone of American supernatural military power for decades. Each one required a crew of twelve cultivators to operate, with at least one Gold Core. They allowed lower realm cultivators to participate in T4 fights within the catacombs.
However they had also become obsolete.
Drones were the future, they were cheaper and required far less manpower. One operator versus a team of twelve. You could also fit more drones than flying boats onto a Dreadnought. And although Dreadnoughts primarily used T2 Spiritual Qi and diesel to move when not in combat, every dollar saved was another dollar that could be spent for the war effort.
But most importantly, due to the lifebond with the operator, drones were simply more powerful. It took ten Flying Boats working in perfect coordination to hold off a single Nascent Soul Lord. Four drone pilots could accomplish the same task alone.
The military still maintained its stockpile of flying boats. Currently they served primarily in rapid response roles, their speed being their remaining advantage. Flying Boats traveled twice as fast as Dreadnoughts at top speed, fast enough to keep pace with Nascent Soul Lords and T4 Flyers. They had been part of the first wave of reinforcements at the Battle of Kenway-Allston.
Leo climbed the boarding ramp.
The interior smelled of recycled air and spiritual residue. Formation lines glowed faintly along the bulkheads, dated but well-maintained. A crew member directed him to a passenger compartment near the stern.
"Flight time to Garrison Boston is approximately forty minutes," the aide informed him. "Ground transport will be waiting to take you to Princeton."
The engines hummed to life. The deck vibrated beneath Leo's feet. Through a small porthole, he watched the hangar floor drop away as the Flying Boat rose toward the launch tunnel.
---
Princeton University
William Zhao-Huntington looked completely different.
The last time Leo had seen Zhao was at the Yale Bulldogs practice facility a few months ago. Athletic confidence, practice gear, an easy grin after shaking hands. Pure jock energy.
Now Zhao stood outside the Frick Formations Laboratory in a white lab coat, reading glasses perched on his nose, a tablet tucked under one arm. His hair had grown longer and slightly unkempt. He looked like he belonged in a research paper rather than starting on a flying aces team.
Leo blinked several times.
"You look... different."
Zhao glanced down at himself and shrugged. "Clothes make the man, I suppose."
"I thought you would do flyer stuff after college. Professional leagues. Military command track. Something like that."
Zhao smiled. It was the same confident smile Leo remembered, just framed differently now.
"I have been doing flyer stuff," he said. "Just a different kind. Come on. I have some things to show you related to my research."
He led Leo through the building's entrance, past security checkpoints that seemed to recognize Zhao on sight, down hallways lined with doors bearing incomprehensible project names. They ended up in a small classroom, empty except for a projector system and a dozen chairs.
Zhao closed the door and gestured for Leo to sit.
"Before we begin," Zhao said, pulling up something on his tablet, "I need to understand what I'm working with. Jimbo tells me you have confidence in taking on a Mountain Domain. That's not something I expect to hear from a Qi Refining highschooler."
Leo shifted in his seat.
"The military will keep your secrets," Zhao continued. "People have secrets. It's common. Nobody will ask you to reveal anything. Nobody has asked why your Divine Sense grows so fast. But I need to understand what we're working with."
Leo considered his words carefully.
"I have a practice partner," Leo said. "And I'm not too afraid of death or accidents while training with said practice partner."
Zhao studied him for a long moment.
"Okay," he said finally. "Then this shouldn't be too hard for you to learn."
He connected his tablet to the projector. The screen flickered to life.
"I heard you skipped a lot of school. I'm going to start from the very basics."
The first slide appeared. The Boston Catacombs map Leo had studied countless times, but with a subterranean exit point circled and marked in bright red colors.
The header read: T3 SPIRITUAL VEIN CONDENSATION - MAJOR MILITARY OPERATION.
"We have identified the reason why the catacombs have been attacking with increased frequency," Zhao said. "The first Tier Three spirit veins have condensed, or are in the process of finishing condensation, all around the globe."
Leo leaned forward.
"America will bring out its trump card when you and your teammates commence the operation in late December."
"Wait." Leo held up a hand. "How do you know we'll be part of the operation? I thought as high school students we could pick and choose our missions."
Zhao's expression didn't change.
"Do you know about base merits and bonus merits?"
"Kind of," Leo's face of confusion betrayed him.
"Pull out your merit screen."
Leo reached for his phone, a small surge of pride rising in his chest. He'd been accumulating merits at an impressive rate. The number that appeared on screen was satisfyingly large.
"Now click on the little information icon next to your merit total."
Leo tapped it.
A breakdown appeared. Two categories: Base Merits and Bonus Merits. Below them, a note in small but perfectly legible text:
Bonus merits will only be converted to Base merits on January 1st, 2028, provided the soldier remains in good standing and participates in all Major Military Operations.
Leo stared at the numbers.
He'd been running between a 3x and 5x multiplier for the past few weeks. He'd thought he was farming merits at an unprecedented rate.
Over seventy-five percent of his merits were Bonus Merits.
Less than a quarter were real.
His face darkened. He took a screenshot and sent it to Tom without comment.
"Did you think Command would just give away free merits that easily?" Zhao asked. There was no mockery in his voice, just the flat delivery of someone stating obvious facts.
"Be careful of every free gift Command gives you. The government is incredibly stingy."
Leo added a frowning emoji to his message to Tom.
He couldn't believe it. He had transmigrated to another world, joined the military, fought Nascent Souls, and he still couldn't escape the terror of gacha game mechanics. Free gems versus paid gems. Base Merits versus Bonus Merits.
The universal constant of predatory reward systems had followed him across dimensions.
"So basically," Zhao continued again from where Leo cut him off, "America will bring out its trump card when you and your teammates commence the operation in late December."
Leo nodded in agreement.
