“Can you fly?” Luo asked in a flat tone.

  “No.” Jiang responded, shamefully and yet equally flat. Luo did not outwardly react to this information.

  “Then hop on my back and we will depart.”

  Luo positioned his arms to catch Jiang’s feet, who placed himself astride the junior brother. The junior brother rose into the air easily, almost without resistance, and they began rising rapidly until right as they began passing the outer-rightmost corner of the prison where the ceiling had collapsed where Luo’s head smashed into an invisible wall which should have fatally twisted a mortal’s neck, Luo, fortunately, was a cultivator with an improved body. A dull thud resounded as if the wall were made of thick clear plastic and Luo descended.

  “We’re too late.”

  Jiang nodded solemnly but didn’t care. What did it matter which band of thieves stole his personhood? All these sects were the same, recruiting men by cloak and by dagger into centuries of servitude at the behest of some soul-oath and promises of advancement ever-dangled just an inch away. Luo was nice enough, but the words meant nothing when the truth behind the promise was plainly-hidden, ever-sharpened and waiting for the moment of the oath’s passing as a dagger into Jiang’s back. He hopped down from Luo’s back, straightening his garments and patting them down as though they could acquire stains from the dander of Luo’s skin. Luo, meanwhile, was moving quickly in circles, posturing for the inevitable assault from whichever cultivator or cultivators were prepared to steal his elder.

  Jiang still wasn’t clear why they were recruiting him. Slavery? Indentured servitude? The man had said something about cycles and befores, but the meaning of his words was unclear. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact they seemed to be eagerly waiting for his prison to open and how quickly the cultivators descended like vultures to pick his corpse clean.

  “Prison?” Luo had said so surprised, as if he had expected to find a body.

  They were waiting at prisons to recruit elders and their cycles were caused by those named such as “Master Killdozer.”

  Ah. Jiang thought.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are!” a gruff male voice boomed.

  They’re recovering from a cyclic apocalypse caused by the inevitably world-spanning consequences of high-tier cultivators. But why hasn’t their liege stopped it?

  “This isn’t good,” Luo began shouting quickly, looking up and throwing his open hands back to motion Jiang to the far corner still protected by walls and ceiling.

  “It sounds like Ming Yifan, he’s Sequence Four-Two, I don’t know if I can protect you. Get down! Protect yourself!”

  Sequence 4-2? I have no idea what this guy’s talking about. Four probably means nascent soul, but I have no fucking clue what the two means.

  “Luo, what—”

  “Just get down!”

  Luo’s hands began glowing purple-green and his brown hair began spreading apart as if unbound by gravity. His robes began flapping as though there were a stiff breeze, though Jiang felt none.

  “I know you, Yifan! We meet at last!”

  The wall imploded, showering gray dust everywhere as if a bomb went off inside.

  “That does not save you, worm! Abandon the elder, he is mine!” the voice boomed.

  “I am no one’s to claim!” Jiang shouted weakly, coughing up dust.

  The booming voice laughed as it cleared.

  “You are mine!”

  Luo was still standing, his once spotless blue-gold robes now coated with gray dust.

  “You know that by the Givono Accords I have the right to this elder!” Luo objected, his voice stronger than Jiang’s but weak by comparison to Ming Yifan’s which resounded with the force of a bomb. Jiang stood, brushing off his robes while Luo spoke. Luo did not care about the dust, he was focused on locating Yifan.

  “And I know that by celestial law the truth and the right belongs to the strong. Who are you to deny me? The elder is mine, weak boy, leave him and I might spare you to prostrate yourself at my feet!” Yifan boomed.

  “He is strong, great elder, but I am perhaps stronger.” Luo firmly murmured.

  “You claim such strength and yet refuse to show yourself? How pathetic you prove yourself to be, junior brother!” Luo shouted, still shifting in place and looking for the source of the voice that would cut him down.

  Yifan laughed loudly, proud and mighty. The dust split in two and separated itself quickly outward as though severed by a column of air. The walls were totally gone.

  Behind the line of dust that now parted was a large shirtless man built like a refrigerator and with muscles equally to match. He was the jumbo model intended to store food for a fatass, but constructed from pure muscle. His frame was accented by piercing blue eyes that glowed almost like spotlights and waving curly blonde hair that came down to his shoulders. The only clothing Yifan wore were leather sandals and a bearskin pelt formed crudely into a kilt, making him look like a barbarian indeed.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Luo stared the man down, his thin and average frame a striking contrast to Yifan’s bodybuilder physique.

  “There you are! I see you’ve finally stopped cowering, Yifan.” Luo did not even register their size difference. So what if Yifan was bigger, his muscles meant nothing in a battle of qi. It was like bringing a sandwich to a gunfight. What are you even doing?

  The two men stared each other down, hands by the sides, Yifan’s lats flared like a posturing bird, Luo standing firm and reacting to Yifan’s display as though he were a posturing chicken.

  Luo spoke first,「Ashes to ashes, cinders to cinders」

  Yifan did not react.

  「And when the ashes fall, nothing remains」

  The words felt almost burning in Jiang’s skull, penetrating deeper than his ears, resounding deeper than his brain. He felt the words in his soul, and in that moment he knew that it was Luo’s scripture. It was brief, like Jiang’s, but unlike Jiang’s the words had a clear purpose: the twice-burned log is immune to fire; the twice-resurrected man no longer afraid of death. His scripture was intended to protect things that were already damaged, preventing them from being damaged any more.

  And yet despite how resistant ashes are to fire, they can still be incinerated if the temperature becomes hot enough, and they will inevitably blow away when the fire dies out. This meant Luo’s scripture was composed of a clear mantra— “protection of an object” — as well as a clear bane — “the object will be destroyed.”

  Yifan responded in kind, knowing that his scripture would be enhanced by his opponent’s knowledge of it.

  「Beneath the surface of the water leaves scatter on the mirror’s edge」

  「Staring at ourselves expecting to see an other’s face」

  The meaning of the words was vague and yet Jiang could generally understand. It was saying that reality was a mirror and what falls on it exists on the boundary between the real and the reflected. We look at ourselves as we are and expect to see something different as though a reflection of reality was anything less than the truth. We fall on the surface of reality and feel our skin pressing against it, unable to discern that what is real is not the reflection, unable to distinguish the feeling of the mirror and the water from an other’s touch.

  The second line was on a different topic than the first, clearly expanding on it and building towards a larger meaning not explained in the scripture. Jiang supposed the final piece would make Yifan Sequence IV-III, but dared not guess at its content. All that mattered now was what the scripture meant as a matter of practice.

  The only thing that was certain was that Jiang understood immediately what kind of danger Yifan may pose. A scripture like Luo’s was powerful, the ability to turn any ordinary object into a temporary but unbreakable shield was an incredible power, but with specificity came limitations. A scripture such as

  「I can produce 10-thousand degree fire with my hands that doesn’t burn me, stays concentrated when thrown, can be thrown, and will instantly incinerate my enemies」

  Might be outwardly powerful, but even against Luo would become useless. It would strike his shield and seeing as it was not an enemy, just a plain object, would have no effect. The shield would stop the fire and Luo would effortlessly defeat the foe. Even something like

  「My enemies instantly die when I look at them」

  Would be useless and costly despite the appearance of power. What is an enemy? What is death? What is “looking at them?” There were efforts in Jiang’s day to get around these limitations with ever-longer scriptures, often dozens or hundreds of lines long, but these became impossible to wield. Yifan, then, wielded something far more dangerous than instant death: amorphous power. It was useless in the wrong hands, but in the right ones…

  “Luo!” Jiang shouted, “I need you to stay put and listen to me.”

  Luo turned his head around to look at Jiang. Yifan laughed, lurching forward. Jiang moved his eyes to Yifan and shot holes through his chest.

  “And you! Usurper! I know the nature of your power!”

  Yifan’s talons burrowed into the ground, tilling the earth and stopping him dead some fifty feet from Luo. The chicken landed uneventfully despite squawking Kentucky-fried nothings about how he would make Jiang pay dearly for this transgression. Jiang didn’t care.

  The junior brothers looked to him expectantly, breaths baited with his words, bodies poised to kill each other should Jiang provide such an opportunity. Jiang smiled eagerly, spreading his hands out in front of him, gesturing to the two men.

  “Brothers, there’s no need for this. Brother Yifan is right, the path of the righteous belongs to the strong, and while Brother Luo claims the law is on his side, his martial stance acknowledges that he knows the sound of truth. Ultimately, this will come down to combat, and seeing as I know your capabilities and weaknesses, you ought to kowtow to me in order that I might grant you the mercy and grace of my presence.”

  Ming Yifan laughed brutishly, “If you had such strength and wisdom, you would have demonstrated it already.”

  “You betray your stupidity, Brother Yifan,” Luo said mockingly, “We all know you’re here because of the green light that penetrated heaven. If you didn’t believe in the revered ancestor’s strength you’d have lunged at me by now. The fact you have not betrays your fear, junior brother.”

  Yifan silently moved his eyes toward Jiang, a clear opening presented towards Brother Luo and a demonstration of the brute’s confidence in himself.

  “You think I’m scared? Here, I dare you to try me.” he screamed in his eyes.

  Jiang laughed. I need to play up my strength.

  “It’s always the same posturing with you worms.”

  “A million years may pass but you’re all the same.”

  “Always scurrying to the shade of what you perceive to be a corpse.”

  “So stupid you can’t differentiate the outline of a boot in the sky from a dying bird.”

  “You, the stupid worms lusting after swan-meat from the ground, greeting inevitable death from above when it was never possible to find anything else.”

  “Your scripture is weak and pathetic, a clear demonstration of your lacking will to the thrones above the sky. All of you claiming the will to power, you’re all dying in the making of claims you cannot back.”

  “Scripture is a reflection of who you are. It is a summary of your values. If all you are is a checklist of conditions and lofty poetry then what claim can you possibly make about the world and your right to rule it?”

  “My scripture is simple, and I hope you will find inspiration from it. Kowtow to me, you ignorant worms, for I will show you the meat of a swan.”

  Jiang projected his voice and almost screamed the words.

  「I will live」

  「I will conquer」

  “There is nothing else.”