Alex did his best to become one with the shadows and gloom of the darkened chamber he glided across on his leather shoes, searching for the branching corridor that would lead to his destination.

  Yet he found nothing of the sort. Only freshly lit lamps and the sound of rich laughter as he found himself taking a flight of stairs and down along a corridor far wider than it had been before. He froze, just before turning a corner, sensing at least a dozen men and women engaging in licentious acts where hedonism was worshiped to the most extreme degree. He frowned, spending a minute to take in his surroundings, pressing his hand against the finely polished hardwood, sensing the stone blocks just beyond.

  His eyes snapped open, immediately understanding. The dimly lit corridor had effectively been a passageway between buildings, and if the exotic perfumes and other aromatics he was smelling, along with the silk tapestries of sybaritic delights and leather recliners he caught a glimpse of just a short distance away were anything to go by, this establishment was perhaps even more exclusive than the one he had left beyond. Perhaps this one was for truly exclusive clientele or those who simply preferred a slightly different atmosphere. With a city population in the hundreds of thousands, he knew it shouldn’t be too surprising that the JiangHu sect would try to capitalize on them all, including different entrance and exit points, since discretion was probably sought after almost as much as vice itself.

  He gave a frustrated shake of his head.

  He was missing something. He knew it! But suddenly the laughter picked up in volume, Alex catching sight of several sensually swaying shadows belonging to tipsy women singing drunkenly with their arms wrapped around a powerfully built man with jaded eyes and a basic cultivator’s strength and stature. The client had the mien of a merchant celebrating a successful run in the split second Alex had to race back the way he had come, past the discrete sliding door panels leading to currently empty rooms that could only have one purpose, racing away as fast as his Quickness would allow with his growing air affinity assuring that no stray rustle of air would mark his passage.

  He stopped in the middle of the sunken passageway, cursing softly under his breath.

  If Nili was holed up with Chaoxiang in the upper floors of a second brothel, there’s no way he could get past both staff and clientele without being painfully obvious in ways that would either make it damned clear that he already had blood on his hands from tonight’s actions… or by walking a path of slaughter from which there was no turning back.

  He gave an angry shake of his head, fearing that a clever man’s tactics had gotten the best of him, and he’d have to wait like a good little pawn and pray that he could act in time if their foes revealed their claws in full and tried to strike Nili then and there. He sighed. Though it was galling to find himself waiting and praying to kind fortunes after talking such a tough game with a group of girls whose safety was now most definitely his burden… it seemed that the most prudent thing he could do now, raising the fewest flags of alarm, was to wait.

  He had left no trace of the pair of thugs he had taken out, after all. For all the hostess knew, the pair had enticed the girls to run away with them and start their own operation. Certainly no one had cause to think foul play at Alex’s hands. At least… not this early in the game, and hopefully not until Alex had done whatever needed doing.

  It was only then, when he accepted that was best served simply leaving the complex entirely and see if he could triangulate the second purple establishment that had to be nearby from the outside, perhaps infiltrating as a prospective customer, that he heard it.

  The soft whisper of what could have been nothing, yet the sense of Fate’s strings pulling so tightly made it clear was absolutely everything.

  So much was suddenly on the cusp of being lost forever.

  An unseen variable that could crumple unseen foundations. A crack in Wanshi’s walls from which so much blood and tears would fall.

  Alex shivered, doing his best to shake the surge of meaningless anxiety away. Sure it was that. Because his time of being the protagonist of anything was long gone. He was no longer some favored trump card thrown in play until the faded print of his soul faded to oblivion with such constant use. No. This was a fresh start, a new chance to embrace a life where he dodged the madness of…

  He froze, shivers tingling up and down the back of his spine, knowing what he heard.

  Even though the air was completely silent, the Wind whispered its endless secrets nonetheless.

  What he had heard had been a terrified cry.

  The plea of a child hidden in Shadow.

  Shadow a now hot-eyed Alex would allow to bar his way no longer. Slowly turning around, walking, then running to the middle of the shadowy corridor between buildings, where lack of throughtraffic meant that there was no reason to waste lamp lights here.

  Especially when the shadows could hide so many secrets.

  And that was when he spotted it… before it vanished like the flickering revelations of a dream you were on the cusp of recalling when...He frowned, at first failing to catch sight of the stone steps leading to the bowels of what was effectively a grand manor, so perfectly flush it was with the adjoining wall and corner. Yet now the breeze circulating fresh air through numerous cleverly placed air vents and ducts gave away so many secrets.

  For not even Shadow could hide completely from Wind’s teasing caress.

  Nor the desperate plea it contained.

  “Please let me go! I took a wrong turn. I’m not supposed to be here!”

  Wind enhanced Qi Perception check made! You sense the peril before you!

  Alex froze before he had taken more than three steps along the perfectly empty chamber he had descended down into. The room was bare, save for a few rice paper etchings hanging on the walls, the oil lamp that hardly broke up the gloom, the pair of hard-eyed men slipping through perfectly empty and innocuous shadows, and a slatted bamboo divider decorated with a pair of graceful cranes painted so vividly with a few strokes of dark ink.

  Alex frowned, wondering why he was so distressed by an empty room, struck by the sudden desperate compulsion to head toward better lit hallways. Which was strange, because with his Qi Perception he shouldn’t be affected by normal darkness at-- DUCK!

  The whistle of the wind’s passage was the only evidence that a pair of darts had been fired from compact blow pipes, streaking through the air where Alex had been standing to pierce the bamboo slats of the room divider which began to smoke and sizzle on contact. Soft sounds that were drowned out by the snarls and grunts of men lashing out in earnest, a pair of vicious looking bladed staves slashing and thrusting at the coldly smiling Ruidian whose features were no longer hidden at all. Yet their weapons failed to penetrate the guard of what should have been a far slower, more cumbersome fangtian ji, twisting to catch and trap the poison tipped blades between crescent axe heads and razor sharp spear point. Alex then roared and lunged, not holding back his strength when he plunged his fangtian ji right through his foe’s heart with such speed and ferocity that the weapon head tore right through the back of the body in a shower of blood, visceral, and steely scale tiles tinkling upon the fine hardwood slats.

  The second would-be assassin desperately slashed at Alex’s wrists in the heartbeat he was fully extended from his devastating lunge.

  Quickness Check successful! Your foe if effectively moving in slow motion!

  The swordsman’s look of contempt quickly became one of dismay when his bladed staff avoided with a cold smile before the crack of broken bones and a desperate cry made it clear that Alex had just shattered his forearms with his snap kick. His weapon slipped free of unresponsive limbs and the would-be killer was suddenly wheezing for breath, helplessly kicking the air, his arms in too much agony to even move as his icy blue-eyed opponent raised him effortlessly in the air.

  The sound of desperate gurgles temporarily stilled for a question given by one who wasn’t straining at all against the struggles of the doomed assassin in his grip.

  “Where is Chaoxiang?”

  The wild-eyed man choked out an unintelligible answer.

  Alex eased his steely grip the tiniest iota. “No games. Answer, or I tear out your throat.”

  “Please! He’s down the stairs. There’s no need for you to kill me! Clearly there’s been a—” The man’s only tell was the curl of a panicked lip that would have been a vindictive snarl as his punch dagger rammed under Alex’s ribs.

  Or would have, had superhuman quickness not allowed Alex to catch the man’s wrist, sensing an odd brace of Shadow somehow supporting the man’s limb just enough to allow for one final killing blow. A tiny part of Alex was impressed by the Qi manipulation and dearly would have loved to study it.

  But there was just no time.

  Strength check: Rank 2 Silver versus Rank 1 Bronze Vitality and Rank 3 Bronze Shadow arts.

  Piercing Strike effortlessly cleaves Shadow arts!

  You have effortlessly ruptured Shadow-Splint.

  You have shattered your opponent’s wrist! Wrist and forearm are now Crippled! Your foe is unable to move this limb without excruciating pain!

  The air thrummed with the sickening crunch of pulverized bone.

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  Yet before the killer could do more than jerk an inhaled breath for an agonized scream… all he could exhale was a gout of hot blood as Alex tore out his throat.

  The would-be killer’s final moments were spent in a dying daze as he fell to the ground, the glossy sheen of his crimson blood spraying everywhere soon became a midnight black pool of hideously chilly waters that he found himself plunging helplessly through, thoughts slowing to a crawl. Yet denied any rest, his spiritual skull ringing with the final dying wails of every man, woman, and child he had once happily butchered for coin.

  Alex shuddered and nearly stumbled as he collected both bodies and blood, making it all disappear, even if his Spirit Qi and affinity with those waters gave him a far more visceral sense of his foe’s plunge than he necessarily wanted to see. Yet he hardened himself as he slipped down into the bowels of the corridor that had been so well hidden by the sentinels’ Shadow arts.

  Fortunately, there was no one in the corridor he now walked along, and it was only when he found himself navigating it effortlessly, dim light, Qi Perception, and Wind Sense giving him a near perfect sense of the layout, that he understood that the hallway above had been a chillingly exquisite Shadow trap. At the time, he hadn’t even completely appreciated how odd it was that his visibility and senses had all been so completely limited to that of a confused mortal making their way through the gloom to the stairs beyond. Which wouldn’t have been at all unusual for a mortal courtesan being led to please and entertain her masters, but for a cultivator, it was unusual indeed. And Spirit Qi… to cloud even his mind, however temporarily...

  He shivered, jaw clenching as he tasted the barest whiff of an Infernal taint in the air, forced to wonder just how dark and corrupt was the game now being played, more anxious than ever to hunt down the source of the desperate plea still ringing in his head.

  His jaw clenched, heart hammering with genuine worry as he proceeded down the corridor with its roughshod brownstone walls. A part of him was desperate to feel ahead for Nili’s wellbeing with his senses, but he didn’t dare split his focus, having come so close to being ambushed. Even if a pair of Rank 1 Bronze should prove no threat, with poison needles that smelled quite similar to toxins he already had 100% resistance to, he refused to play the overconfident idiot that had been the defining characteristic of so many Silvers he had taken down himself.

  No. He’d proceed with caution, fangtian ji traded for a dao and a swirling shield of liquid ebony darkness as he slipped through to the end of the corridor, still fully infused by Potency Mastery, eyes widening when he realized the significance of what he had stumbled on to when he reached the corridor’s end, presented by another locked gate, this one of solid iron.

  Alex frowned and took a moment to carefully his surroundings as Qi Perception gave him a sense of the reclining guard in the chamber just beyond. He felt an uncomfortable chill when he sensed just how deep he was, and the nature of the rock overhead.

  His eyes widened when he sensed the deadfall trap just above his head. He cursed softly under his breath, a part of him now certain that the best move he could make would be to sprint right back up that corridor just as fast as he could.

  Instead he braced himself, slowly slipping the essence of Water Qi infused with Steely resilience and liquid darkness, carefully lining the pins to the sheer line as he slowly pulled down the latch of the reinforced door before him.

  The air filled with the softest of clicks.

  “Please stop! Please let me go!”

  And he was through.

  ***

  Qi Perception check made!

  Time seemed to slow with the racing of his heart as Alex poured his focus into his swirling shield of Wind, Water, Metal, and saturated Dark Qi while taking in his environment with desperate focus, ready for absolutely anything. He halfway expected a blast of Gold-tier God’s Fire that he feared would obliterate even his Dark Qi shield.

  Yet relief that he had not been turned to a blazing pyre transformed to ice outrage a heartbeat later when he caught sight of the back of the guard, even now forcefully tearing the clothes free of a shrieking young woman begging him to stop.

  “You thought you could use your Shadow arts against someone like me, foolish half-breed? Well now you’ll pay ultimate price before I cut your…”

  The man’s words died off in open-mouthed confusion, the powerful Bronze Cultivator completely unable to find the words he wanted to say as the young kitsune girl shrieked in the man’s confused grip. He opened his mouth one final time, blinking the blood out of his eyes as trembling fingers reached for the top of his skull that was no longer there.

  With a look of confused horror, the doomed guardsman collapsed, the remains of his lobotomized brain tearing completely free of its skull as it smacked against the cold stone tiles, his soul crashing into a colder river still.

  Black Swan!

  You have successfully bisected your foe’s skull!

  A sheering strike carefully calibrated to minimize risk of collateral damage allows your foe to appreciate his final moments of lobotomized awareness before embracing the death he so richly deserves!

  For a long moment there was only silence as Alex gazed into the wide-frightened eyes of the kitsune wearing the partially torn remains of tight-fitting leather armor that seemed to naturally blend in with her surroundings.

  “Are you alright?”

  Alex inwardly cringed, knowing it was a stupid thing to say. Of course she wasn’t alright. But far better an awkward query that showed his concern than to gaze at her at her most vulnerable with the cold eyes of a killer.

  The girl’s cheeks flushed, her carefully pinned bonnet torn free, revealing tangled curls and ears that perfectly matched those of Alex’s ultimate mentor.

  The young kitsune lowered her gaze, before giving a quick nod. “I… yes.” She swallowed “He did no worse than beat me and tear my mother’s leathers. But a few seconds longer… and it’s the Fox’s own luck I’m not already carrying that bastard’s child. Or worse, since he would have probably cut my throat, once he was done the deed.”

  Alex winced. “I’m sorry.”

  The girl chuckled softly, panic replaced by a Cheshire grin so fast it made Alex’s head spin. “Don’t be. You killed the bastard, after all, a gift for which I owe you my life. And believe you me, I’m a girl who always pays her debts. Just not…”

  “I understand,” Alex said with his gentlest smile.

  Her cheeks blazed. She quickly nodded, imploring eyes meeting his own. “It’s a miracle you’re even here. That anyone would even care to help some silly lost Kitsune girl when the whole world acts like we no longer even exist, so none of us ever dare show our ears in public. Not ever. Anyway, are you the boy I saw in my dreams? Is that why you came?”

  Alex blinked at this. “I came here to look after my friend. To make sure she’s alright. And once I know she’s safe, I’ll be taking care of this little problem the best way I know how.”

  The girl furrowed her brow. “You’re thinking of taking over this chapter? I don’t think these assholes are JiangHu at all,” she said, glaring down at the remains a heartbeat before Alex made it disappear with a gentle touch of his fingers… and the blood too.

  The girl’s eyes widened. “You’re definitely one of us, aren’t you, hero?”

  Alex smirked. “An old friend declared me her lieutenant, once. But I’m not seeking to reform this chapter.”

  “Then what are you…”

  His gaze hardened. “I’m going to purge it of every last member of Dongfang Hong’s little infestation. Punishing the bastard who thought he could use this sect to infiltrate and invade Wanshi city by embracing the same damned tactics he had used in so many other cities, however many seasons or centuries ago it might have been.”

  The kitsune girl gazed at him for long moments. “My name’s Lini,” she said at last, before giving a solemn bow. “I will lend you the cloak of my night and the edge of my blade for so long as you wish it, Liutenant.”

  Alex smirked. “Mine’s Alex. A pleasure to meet you, Lini. Your name’s quite similar to that of my friend, interestingly enough. Is there a naming convention among the kitsune clans I should know about?”

  But Lini was gazing at Alex in surprised disbelief. “Alex? Your parents actually named you…” Her features paled. “No. The old ones are dead! There’s no way you could actually be… and I was named after my mother.”

  Alex froze at those words. He swallowed his suddenly dry throat. “Lini…”

  “Yes, Eternal Disciple?” She smirked at his look. “I’m just kidding. But you must have heard the tales countless times in your childhood for your parents to have actually named you… why are you looking at me so strangely?”

  “What is your mother’s name?”

  She bit her lip. “Nili.”

  Alex blinked. “Of course it is. And why should I be surprised? You really do look just like her.”

  “And if she finds out I’m here when I should be safely holed up with my little brothers and sisters… wait, what do you mean ‘of course it is?’ Who do I look like?”

  Alex sighed. “Who do you think I’m here to look after?”

  Lini gazed at Alex for long moments. “Oh no.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  ! Lini’s eyes widened. “You know my mother? Oh no. Oh no, no, no! If she finds out I’m here, I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll keep my locked up until I’m old and grey” She then flinched, truly taking in what Alex had said. “Wait. She’s here? Then that means she’s in danger! These bastards aren’t JiangHu, and they’re kidnapping girls, I’m sure of it! I came here looking for proof, but now I just want to find her and get out of here!”

  “Agreed. And if we’re going to do that, we’re going to use our heads. Which means you keep your eyes opened, your ears perked toward me, and your words at a whisper. Or absolute silence when my blade is bare.”

  The girl flinched. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “Right now its about reconnaissance, and reuniting you with your mother. Then you two will leave and I will get to work.”

  Lini bit her lip, before slowly nodding. “Alright, I’ll go with you.” She flashed a brave smile. “I came here following threads of Fate, looking for my missing friend. I certainly wasn’t expecting these soldiers you mentioned, let alone men versed in Shadow Qi!”

  Alex flashed a cold smile. “Don’t look so surprised. My enemy had access to the cream of his crop, apparently, before he was exiled. So here he now is, with his overly talented psychopathic contingent, eager to carve an empire for himself in these hot desert sands, far away from any Sacred City. Now that I think about it, that’s probably more common than anyone ever admits aloud. So long as would-be tyrants leave Sacred Cities and the farming network they depend upon alone, no one cares what happens in the wilder parts of the world. And since most of the time I lived in a Sacred City, I never had any reason to care either. Until now.”

  Lini gave him an odd look. “I don’t entirely understand what you’re saying, but if this would-be king has access to powerful soldiers well-versed in Shadow Qi and other arts, then we really are in trouble.”

  Alex gave a measured nod of his head. “So the best thing we can do is find whatever weeds Dongfang Hong’s left to grow in his stead, and cut them all down to size.”

  Lini gave a fierce nod. “And I’ll help you.”

  “Yes. By making full use of your Shadow Qi, so we can track down your mother with the least amount of interference. But I expect you to leave any fighting to me.”

  “Gladly,” she said with a haunted look to her eyes as the shadows and gloom soon filled the corridor. Not quite as expertly done as Nili, let alone Jidihu, but that along with their suddenly soundless footsteps hopefully meant that they would have a chance to explore this underground maze of rooms without drawing too much attention, and hopefully find Lini’s mother before it was too late.