Li Deng lifted a hand, scattering drops of milky-white liquid through the air. Each droplet hung suspended, glimmering faintly as they floated outward in a broad web. Nothing stirred among them. Chi Shen swept his fan again, summoning another spiral of emerald winds that whorled through the space like searching serpents, but they met only empty air.

  Mo Jian joined them. They needed to strike quickly; the longer Hua Duzi dictated the rhythm, the faster they would lose ground.

  He gestured toward the Heaven Enshrouding Ding. The lid rose with a hollow clang, and immediately the violet clouds above deepened to black. Silver lightning threaded through them in thick, pulsing veins. He was preparing to summon a sweeping barrage, enough to scour the sky clean.

  But before he could release the strike, a cry split the air.

  Hua Duzi burst from the clouds, hands clamped over his face. The Gu beneath his feet twisted violently, its form writhing in pain. Smoke curled from Hua Duzi’s robes; the fabric hung in scorched tatters.

  For a heartbeat, everyone stared.

  Hua Duzi and his Gu had been hiding inside the clouds themselves, and been struck by Mo Jian’s lightning before he’d even released it.

  Li Deng’s eyes sharpened. “How did you pinpoint him, Brother Mo?”

  Mo Jian turned to him, still processing what he’d seen. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “I was going to scatter the lightning to flush him out. I… just got lucky.”

  All three of his companions stared at him, incredulous.

  “What?” Mo Jian asked defensively. “It’s the truth.”

  Li Deng blinked once, and then broke into laughter; a deep and helpless laughter that echoed through the air. “Ha! So the heavens really are on our side!”

  Jin Rong shook his head, but the brief moment of levity had steadied him. “Then they’d better start pulling their weight. Here, help me reform the trident.”

  Mo Jian had been on the verge of quipping that in his experience, such “heavenly favors” usually came with a price, but at Jin Rong’s words, all humor vanished. The Gu and its master were hurt and off-balance. They could not waste the moment.

  The trident took shape as the four of them wove their qi together once more, the converging strands of power bright and taut as drawn silk. In the next instant they released it.

  A blinding streak of light ripped through the sky.

  This time, it struck true. Mo Jian saw Hua Duzi’s eyes widen, just for a heartbeat, before he was consumed by a sphere of radiance. The orb hung suspended, burning like a newborn sun. It did not expand, but waves of spiritual pressure rolled outward, rattling their barrier even a mile away.

  “What is your trident made out of, Fellow Daoist Jin Rong?” Mo Jian asked as they watched the pulsing light. With luck, the strike would cripple the Gu; then they could finish the job.

  Jin Rong allowed himself a thin smile. “Dragon bone. It was my grandfather’s natal artifact before he passed it down to me. It’s how he rose to become a Core Formation cultivator and started the Blackrock Emporium as well. A dragon died in some territorial dispute in the Sword Trench and the corpse washed up at his feet. He claimed it of course, took what he needed for himself, and sold the rest for a fortune. My father was not as skilled, so he did not rise so high, but I have managed to recapture those heights. Perhaps I’ll pass it to Jin Rou someday, if he shows the talent.”

  Mo Jian nodded politely, masking his surprise. Passing down a natal artifact was hardly unheard of, but it was far from common. It required a Core Formation cultivator on the brink of death, willing to part with a piece of their soul, to transfer it to someone newly advanced. In theory, it offered a powerful inheritance; in practice, it often led to discord between cultivator and artifact. The imbalance could cripple one’s future path.

  Better, always, to forge one’s own. A cultivator could merge treasures into their natal artifact, and increase its power naturally. In fact, fragments of natal artifacts from long-deceased, powerful cultivators were highly sought after for that very reason; after all, who wouldn’t want an easy way to increase their strength?

  The way they did things here, in this section of the islands, was really quite different. Though, he supposed that was true of anywhere. The Yuan, for example, famously rejected spirit cultivation, relying entirely on beast cultivation. It made them formidable foes and that accompanying strength had allowed them to dominate the entire northern section of the continent, but at the same time, having a conversation with them was supposed to be like pulling teeth.

  This far south, they were more myth than real, but on the mainland, there were probably traders more accustomed to them, than they were to the ways of cultivation on the Thousand Shattered Islands.

  “Let’s reserve talks of the future for the future, Fellow Daoists,” Chi Shen said tersely. “Jin Rong, prepare another trident. As soon as the light fades, we strike.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Jin Rong grunted, weaving another illusory trident as they all poured their qi into it.

  Ahead, the blast from their attack finally dulled. The white light vanished, leaving a perfectly spherical patch of space, slightly greyed, as if the void itself had been burned and corroded. Smoke clung to its edges, tracing the circular outline, but refusing to drift inward.

  In the center of that void, the Gu revealed itself, completely broken. Its body was blackened and flopped in three detached pieces. It had been bisected down the middle, leaving two writhing sections, and part of its tail had torn free from the second half, leaving charred clumps of flesh between them. A faint, breathy keening escaped it, constant and mournful.

  Hua Duzi fared slightly better. He had clearly used the Gu as a shield, managing to keep all his limbs intact, but the combined strike of four Core Formation cultivators was no small matter for a Foundation Establishment cultivator. His skin was raw and red, veins bursting beneath it in jagged arcs of red, blue, and purple. Half his hair had burned away; the rest clung in singed tufts. His eyes were bloodshot, yet his expression remained unnervingly calm.

  The instant Mo Jian and the others assessed the situation, they acted. The trident hovering above their heads fired again. This time, Hua Duzi reacted faster. He slammed his hand down onto his shoulder like a sword. His left arm snapped off, a spray of blood erupting from the wound. The Gu beneath him snarled ravenously, and he flung the severed limb toward it. The creature devoured it in a single, vicious bite.

  Then the trident struck, a flash of light obscuring him once more. But this time it lasted only a second. The Gu had struck back, hurling the second half of its body into the trident. The two collided violently, obliterating each other in an instant.

  Hua Duzi clamped down on his shoulder, stemming the flow of blood with a hand wrapped in qi. His face, though, was contorted. The calm control that had defined him until now was unravelling; he was clearly struggling.

  Beneath him the Gu regenerated rapidly, the infusion of flesh and blood strengthening it. It writhed and bucked like a horse trying to throw a rider. Any Gu master only had tenuous control, a little like trying to leash and ride a tiger with a bridle made of straw, and now Hua Duzi’s leash was fraying.

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  He snarled, ripping his hand from his still-bleeding shoulder, and raised it in a clawed fist toward the Gu. “Obey me,” he cried, jaw clenched, as if fighting a great internal battle.

  Jin Rong seized the chance. Another trident bloomed above his head and he tried to launch it. Li Deng and Mo Jian moved as one. They strangled the qi before it could coalesce; the trident dissipated before it fully formed.

  “What are you two doing?” Jin Rong snarled, turning to them with thunder in his expression.

  “Hold, brother Jin Rong,” Li Deng said soothingly. “If we strike now, Hua Duzi will likely die and the Gu will devour whatever is left of him. Let him struggle for control. That fight will weaken both him and the Gu.”

  Mo Jian nodded. “A Gu that frees itself and devours its master grows stronger, though it doesn’t gain much intelligence until close to evolution. If we strike now, we risk making a stronger foe if we fail to kill the Gu outright. And seeing how fast it regenerates, I’m not confident a single hit will do it.”

  “And if he loses that struggle and gets eaten?” Chi Shen asked, eyes still fixed on Hua Duzi and the Gu.

  Li Deng shrugged, his tone fatalistic. “It doesn’t change our situation, does it? If it happens, it happens. No need to hasten it while there’s still a chance to avoid it.”

  But the fight was clearly slipping away from Hua Duzi. The Gu showed no signs of relenting; it thrashed violently in the air, snarling endlessly as its whip-like body lashed the air into violent currents. It was obvious that Hua Duzi was going to lose.

  “Should we just attack?” Jin Rong asked, his voice sharp. “If we destroy Hua Duzi’s body, we can deny the Gu a chance to grow stro-”

  His words were cut short as Hua Duzi suddenly stopped fighting. The calm and collected attitude he had displayed throughout the battle returned back to him. He wore an expression like a student faced with a particularly difficult question on an exam; slightly troubled but not deeply distressed. He gave a little sigh, and then, in a flash, exploded.

  His body burst apart in gobbets of flesh and bone, a fine mist of blood spraying out in all directions. The Gu wasted no time, immediately descending upon the remains and devouring them with single-minded hunger.

  The four cultivators watched in stunned silence.

  “He self-detonated?” Jin Rong asked, his voice a mix of contempt and confusion. “After all his grand speeches?”

  Chi Shen pursed his lips, his eyes narrowing. “Perhaps he saw the fight was lost and chose to go out with some dignity.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced, though.

  Mo Jian’s eyes narrowed further as he shook his head slowly. “Maybe. But it didn’t look like that to me. He seemed to have a way out. Perhaps we’re just not seeing it.”

  “We’re not,” Li Deng confirmed, his voice low and somber. “I suppose none of you have ever seen a cultivator self-detonate. You’ve only heard about it in stories, so it’s expected. But I have seen it before, and this definitely wasn’t a self-detonation. For one, it doesn’t look like that.” He shook his head. “I’ve lived a long time and seen more than most. His qi vanished entirely instead of fueling the blast, and all that was left was his body. No, this was an escape. He slipped away.”

  A grim silence fell over them, the weight of Li Deng’s words settling in.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jin Rong said at last. “We can track him down later. Our priority is to kill the Gu before it reaches a stage where it can kill us.”

  Sensible enough, Mo Jain thought. The four of them pooled their qi and moved as one. Mo Jian spared a thought for Bai Ning down below; he hoped her battles were going better than theirs. The wisp of spiritual sense he’d left with her hadn’t triggered, so she was likely safe for now.

  Another trident, also radiant white, and so vivid it seemed almost solid, blinked into existence above their combined barrier, then vanished.

  It reached the Gu in an instant and detonated. But this time, the Gu was free from its previous limitations. It no longer had to carry Hua Duzi or shield him. It didn’t have his cool, calculating intelligence, but the absence of a rider it had to protect and the raw, primal instincts it now relied on seemed to work in its favor. The Gu opened its mouth, stretching wider than should have been possible, and swallowed the trident whole. Its body swelled grotesquely like an overinflated balloon, a sight that would have been absurd under any other circumstances, but now, all that happened was that parts of its skin darkened and sloughed off, scorched from within.

  The power behind the trident vanished along with it. The Gu regenerated almost instantly, its skin knitting itself back together as new rings appeared along its body, making it look even more grotesque. Its mouth, once a slit, became a gaping hole, lined with spiraling rows of needle-sharp teeth.

  Jin Rong’s jaw dropped in disbelief. Then, rage flared in him as he forged another trident and hurled it toward the Gu. The creature surged forward, mouth wide open, and devoured it again. This time, it barely even swelled. Its skin blackened and peeled away in sheets, its body bursting in several places like hideous blisters popping. Its mouth seemed to melt in on itself. Yet, once again, it regenerated.

  Chi Shen clicked his tongue, unfurling his fan. A crescent of deep green wind shot forward like a blade, carving a shallow gash in the Gu’s flesh. Li Deng followed suit, unleashing the Amber Dripping Vial. A wave of translucent liquid poured over the Gu, attempting to dissolve it.

  The Gu didn’t even bother to dodge. Like the crescent of wind before it, the liquid barely left a mark. It seemed almost entirely unfazed.

  They didn’t relent. Mo Jian, lacking any major offensive capabilities to harm the Gu, focused on funneling his qi into the formation. Jin Rong continued to craft trident after trident, each one capable of obliterating mountains or boiling away sections of the sea, but they achieved nothing. The Gu swallowed everything, as though the attacks were nothing more than a banquet laid out before it.

  The creature only struck once, vomiting clouds of toxic purple poison from its mouth. But Chi Shen’s winds swept the poison away effortlessly, preventing it from even getting close to them. This, Mo Jian realized, was likely why Hua Duzi had stuck to physical strikes rather than relying on such attacks.

  Mo Jian finally let his arms fall. His qi was nearly exhausted, and he was forced to pull out one of the mid-grade spirit stones to replenish his reserves.

  “Don’t stop! Keep attacking. We have it on the ropes!” Jin Rong bellowed, urging Chi Shen and Li Deng to continue their assault. But both of them were showing signs of exhaustion, too.

  The instant their barrage of attacks slowed, the Gu retaliated. It vanished once more, and this time, it was faster. At the start of the battle, Mo Jian had found it quick, but with each passing moment, he had grown accustomed to its speed. Yet, now, as he watched it flicker to his side, he barely managed to tighten the barrier in time before the Gu slammed into it.

  It was a repeat of the earlier attack. The four of them were sent hurtling through the air, struggling to regain control of their flight, before the Gu struck the barrier again. The force it wielded wasn’t any greater, but the creature was faster now, or at least moving at its full natural speed, free from Hua Duzi’s restraint.

  Another three blows landed in quick succession, each one more brutal than the last. They barely managed to fire another trident, but in the blink of an eye, it, too, was swallowed by the Gu’s insatiable maw. Frustration mounted as Mo Jian realized they had no answer for it now.

  “This isn’t working,” Mo Jian muttered, his voice thick with frustration. “It’s too fast. We can’t keep up. We need to split up and stall it long enough for Jin Rong to strike. That’s our only chance.”

  Chi Shen and Li Deng exchanged a sharp look before nodding in silent agreement. Even Jin Rong, brow furrowed with grim determination, gave a reluctant nod.

  Without wasting another moment, Mo Jian shot forward, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding at his side. He veered right, spiraling through the air in a wide arc, preparing to flank the beast. Li Deng surged ahead, the Amber Dripping Vial alive with power, releasing a flood of liquid that twisted and writhed into the shape of a serpentine dragon, lunging at the Gu with predatory force. On the left, Chi Shen opened his Mountains and Birds Folding Fan wide, summoning a whirlwind of deep green winds that whirled and twisted into a colossal tornado, roaring with the fury of a thousand storms.

  The Gu gave another shrill, ear-splitting cry, the sound like a blade scraping against stone. In a flash, it vanished. It chose a target; its maw, dark and fathomless, locked onto Mo Jian, and shot forward with terrifying speed, aiming to devour him in one fell swoop.

  Too late, Mo Jian realized, that as the most powerful cultivator here, the Gu was naturally targeting him. To it, they were all food, so it went for the tastiest, most nutritious morsel arrayed in front of it.

  The world seemed to freeze for a moment as the Gu barreled toward him. Mo Jian barely had time to react. He had not been expecting to bear the Gu’s strike all on his own. He took the most expedient option available, and dove into the Heaven Enshrouding Ding, slamming the lid shut just as the Gu’s overwhelming force collided with it.

  Pain exploded through him. It was so immense, so all-consuming, that it felt as if the world itself had split open. The side of the ding caved in like paper, the force bending it in an impossible arc. Mo Jian was crushed against the opposite side, and his body jolted violently with the impact. Blood erupted from his eyes, nostrils, and ears, the force so immense that it felt as though his very bones were being pulverized.

  A scream tore from his throat-once, twice-and then it became a continuous, ragged cry. The ringing of his own voice, the only thing he could hear in the chaos, was drowned out by the roaring storm inside the ding as it was blasted backward, tumbling through the air like a child's toy caught in a tempest.

  Mercifully, it was around this time that he blacked out.