"All is right with the world. A new heaven is now in place. Five Triumphant Immortals blossom into thrones as the New Lords of the Universe.

  Mentra, the Moondancer, Immortal of Sorcery, sat upon Lunar Heaven and granted Enlightenment for all. "

  From the Raging River, Calming Lake Sutra

  Tarramju, from the side, fired off a gunshot. Koago blocked the fire with his parasol. The angle they caught the bullet off of allowed the Lavender Shade of Bamboo's parasol to absorb the killing force of the bullet.

  Tarramju rose to his feet. Koago spun around after being shot, closed his parasol, and then opened it once again. The Killing Force of the bullet converted—by means of sacred syllabary and mantra-tech—into a lance of pure killing energy, and it sliced through back at Tarramju.

  The veteran bandit moved out of the way just in time to move the damage from his head to the top of his right shoulder. It would've torn a savage hole through that shoulder had he stayed in one place, but he had the battle intelligence to move lower to avoid the brunt of the attack. Undeterred, Tarramju reloaded his rifle, breaking it open by the breech and loading it with two bullets, before closing the breech. Koago raised an eyebrow—breechloaders were rare, and only really found around the cities, sure. It was new tech, used mostly by national armies and private august armies. To see Malachite Blade bandits armed with breechloaders... this did not bode well. Were the forces of Reaction and Liberalism finally able to procure more gunwrights to produce more firedrug to be mass-produced? Or perhaps... they've resorted to demon-path ways?

  No matter the answer, Koago did not need to answer down the barrel of a rifle. With a flex of his Lightness he was before the gun bandit. In the second instant, he parried down Tarramju's rifle just as he raised it, struck four times, with the fifth time a forced pull of the trigger. Tarramju shot his own feet.

  Another flurry, burst of visceral kinetic action. Tarramju was not a stranger to close quarters combat. They traded blows, scuffling, the sound of silk and cloth being pulled. Koago watched himself and Tarramju moved with a detached fatality. They exchanged grazes, glancing blows, until—there!—an opening only someone of Koago's advanced martial training could find. A sloppy diagonal smasher from Tarramju's right abdomen, crossing diagonally up to his left shoulder. It would be devastating if it would hit.

  Koago saw it coming. He stepped back, Tarramju stepped forward to follow the spacing. Koago closed in, so close that Tarramju did not realize that Koago's left leg was already in between both of his feet. Koago unleashed the smasher fist, but the angle was too weird. Koago was too close. And also, Tarramju was already falling to the ground as Koago easily swept him into a takedown.

  On the ground, Koago summoned his parasol blade and stabbed down.

  The blade went through Tarramju's jugular. Koago shuffled backwards, moving as if an owl floating upon the night winds. Tarramju flailed around in his last throes, trying to get anything with his hands... but there was nothing. He did not even have the mental awareness to pull out his knife in the brawl with Koago, who had fifty different counters at the ready for if he did.

  At the end of it all, martial arts was nothing but a guessing game. A game of strategies. And most importantly, of preparation and cultivation. Someone who has more counters against a single one of your attacks than you have counters against their counters has already decided your fate. It's a matter of how many hurts they will take before they finish the deed.

  An arrow flew overhead. Another arrow cut the sky and it sizzled with an explosive payload. Koago did not want another explosion here, so he flurried a bit of his Ardor, and imbued himself with it to perform...

  "Hyacinth Reality of Entropy: Serpent-Dragon Turns To Dust!" His pointer and middle fingers burgeoned and blazed lilac. He exploded upwards and caught the arrow in mid-air. The moment his fingers met the explosive arrow, it crumbled into its component dust motes, and those dust motes crumbled into its component atoms.

  An Unsurpassable Martial Art performed in the living world. Hyacinth Reality of Entropy was one of the Ultima Martial Arts of the Realms Belligerent. The pinnacle of martial practices. Things attainable only by living martial saints. The Ultima Martial Arts were excessively beyond mundane, supranatural in their philosophy.

  Xeija, who had fired the arrow, did not even know what she had just witnessed. Unsurpassable Martial Art and Ultima Magick Arts were one and the same to her.

  Koago sighed. He floated back down to the ground. That's my one use for today, he said. Hope it doesn't ping Heavens too much. Ah, but using it on such an inconsequential thing... I'm sure the Empyreal Administration will let it pass. I've been a good boy.

  Koago turned around and yelled: "Disciple Xing!"

  Xing yelled back: "I'm on it!"

  And she was. She ran through the path that the bandits themselves used and found herself in their encampment. Immediately, she found the archer—she found Xeija—and was upon her. Don't think, just do. Even morality is a conceptual thought.

  Her sword-axe Darkness Cleaving Sunrise swung in an impressive arc. Chopped down into Xeija. She screamed, pained. Blood spilled from the wound. Xing bit her lip, scared now. Xeija screamed in her face and Xing hesitated. But as we all know, hesitation is nothing but defeat.

  Xeija's pulled out a longknife and stabbed Xing with it as she doubted her strike. If Xing had finished the action and decapitated Xeija, she would not have to worry about this.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Now a searing pain blossomed from her belly. A blindspot in her mantra-lined shirt.

  A longknife now sticking out of it.

  The Realms Belligerent had another name. The World of Dogs and Civets. If you wish to not be eaten, you must eat them first. There was no other recourse. Could there ever be space for compassion in the Dogs-and-Civets World?

  The wound opened up a flurry of Breath to explode like a blossoming chrysanthemum within Xing's Ardor. Filled with the color of her ardor—a bright burning crimson—she stepped back, ripping the longknife away from Xeija's hands, and then cleaved down with her blade. Severing Xeija's head from her torso, and ending her miserable life once again.

  All that karma she will carry as a burden.

  But now she faced the truth of her own mortality.

  Xing fell backwards, clutching at the longknife. She had been taught the basics by her master Koago—if anything is lodged into you, do not pull it out. Or else, you will bleed out. She kept the crudely made longknife in her stomach. Though she could see the rustlines and rust-crusts of the blade. No doubt she'd have to battle and face a nasty infection too.

  "Help..." Xing cried out, meekly. Why was she still so weak? Why was a sneaky longknife all it took to send her reeling, to throw her back into the throes of death, which she had climbed out of after months. "M-Master... Koago.... Help..." She could feel her body failing. She looked up at the night sky. Perhaps... dying was better? Perhaps it meant that she could join her family, wherever they might be?

  No. Heaven deigned different plans for someone such as Xing. Or perhaps... heaven deigned no plans, and all things followed the ineffable law of Karma? The ineffable law of the effect of a cause?

  Koago was there, flying covered in a cloud of silks. He stepped onto the floor beside Xing, dainty, like a feather or a sky dancer. He dropped to his knees and said: "Not good. But thankfully, I'm prepared. I'd thought you'd make more mistakes than this, but you did not. I am proud of you, disciple Xing."

  Xing bit her lip. She could've cried right then and there, if she didn't have a longknife jutting out of her side. Three months of almost suicidal training to get to this point, the only time she'd been told she'd done a good job. Hell, it would've been enough to make a grown man cry.

  "This will hurt for a while, I am not great with anaesthetics. But I will try my best."

  Koago performed three mudras, and then touched with the tips of his fingers the ravaged wound. With his other hand, he pulled out the blade. Xing grunted as the steel slid out of her. It did not hurt as much as she thought it would. Koago's fingers numbed the sensation—was this acupoint anaesthetics? The healer's art?

  "There." He then performed three more one-handed mudras and then forced the wound shut with just his hands. He breathed into it, and his breath was warm and hot and soothing. Xing shuddered at it. It felt strange, a lancing fuzzy warmth moved through her. Her Ardor was stoked. Her Breath sent flurrying in every direction at first, and then concentrated on healing and suturing the deep wound. "Thankfully," said Koago after finishing the healing breath spell. "It did not cut through any vitals. Healing it will only take a few weeks time. Which we have. For the moment, however, you will need some vigor." He flipped his hand around and produced a silver flask. He handed it to Xing and said: "Here, drink."

  Xing did so. She wasn't in the position to argue, of course. She sipped, and then finished it. Downing it. It was a potent medicinal alcohol mixture, infused no doubt with barrier herbs and lifeplants. The moment the tonic settled on her stomach she felt immediately invigorated. As if a course of adrenaline burst through her offering her a second wind.

  "Can you stand?" asked Koago after giving the tonic.

  Xing nodded. "I-I think so." She still winced as one, final sear of pain cut through her abdomen. It scared her, but if no vitals were cut through, and all that had to be repaired were muscles and skin tissues, then she would live. Death would not grasp her yet.

  "Master," she asked as she stood. "What manner of medicinal arts did you employ to stop the pain?"

  Koago managed a cryptic smile. "Not medicinal arts, disciple. I've no knowledge of that. It's martial arts. An application of the first principles of Hyacinth Reality of Decay." Koago produced a fine gauze. "Do you mind lifting your shirt just enough so we can cover it?"

  Xing nodded. She lifted her shirt to reveal the damage done to her midriff—as well as the silk shirt. "Sorry about the shirt."

  "It is armor," said Koago. "It's supposed to do that. It buffeted much of the blow of the longknife. If you weren't wearing it, the longknife would've sliced much deeper, cutting your intestine and liver. That would spell the end of you." He set about to wrapping the gauze around Xing. Thankfully she wasn't very wide, and she wasn't very tall, so it was easy for Koago. Though of course Koago was also freakishly tall and had very long limbs.

  "Anyway, that's a martial art?" She looked down on her abdomen as Koago cleaned it. "Aren't martial arts all for fighting?"

  "All things are Violence, disciple," said Koago as he finished up the gauze wrapping. "The sooner you realize the nonduality between fighting and non-fighting, the closer you will be to awakening."

  "Thank you, guro," she said, performing the heart reverence. She let her shirt fall down and turned around. "Is there any info we can perhaps glean here?"

  "I've already seen something interesting," said Koago. He walked over to find a notebook. Within the notebook was a palm leaf scroll missive. When opened, it revealed the following message:

  `Last Job for this Week: Collect the Farmer's Daughters and bring them back to HQ within the week. Afterwards, your free for the month. Always keep your oath. Better to fight standing than die kneeling. - Rezar.`

  Xing furrowed her eyebrows. "Rezar...? Isn't that..."

  "The Sword Buddha of Selorong, Martyr-Savior of Revolution, Prime Disciple of Kafeng Masangwa," said Koago. "Almost a hundred years ago now."

  "Has he returned, like the cult leaders and the oracles have said?"

  Koago chuckled through his nose. "Maybe." He raised the folded note. "Or it could be a codename for one of the benefactors. Bureaucrats are clever people when it comes to fooling us, you see. It is why they stay at the top. They might be incompetent at everything else, but they are competent at manipulation." He turned the note to show the mantra mandala imprinted upon it.

  He walked over to the furnace pot fire. Threw it inside.

  Xing crossed her arms in front of her. "Why?"

  "That was tracking magick," said Koago. "One of the most basic of the magicks. Often a trap as well."

  Xing raised her eyebrows. "Why did you not just leave it, then? Wouldn't burning it cause them to know something is up?"

  Koago shook his head. "That mantra garland had two specific mantra lines. One that had the Sympathy-Capturing Mantra, which meant anyone that held the paper could be tracked from the paper. And the second one was the Self-Immolation Mantra, which meant that once whatever on the paper had been done, it was meant to burn up. This would end the tracking magick, and they would be expecting results. I just burned it up for them to think that, for at least a month or so, they managed to do what they needed to do."

  "I see." Xing was being enlightened. It was a grand feeling. "How interesting, great master."

  Koago shrugged. "But you did a good job, disciple Xing. Your Ardor will soon be at the level required for ascension to Emergence Stage. Now that Kabini is safe for now, let's enter into town and have some noodles. An alchemist within will help us consummate your Ardor Furnace."