“What is it?” Lord Chen Liang asked. His killing intent receded slightly as his spirit sense told him who was beyond the doorway, and he grew curious enough to spare the guard’s life. At least for the moment.

  The guard stood and gestured to those who waited on the other side of the doorway. “Bring her in,” the guard said.

  The guards stepped aside and ushered Elder Chen Xing into the room. She carried a beautifully wrapped box tied with a purple ribbon in her hands.

  “Chen Xing? What is the meaning of this? Why were you not here earlier?” Lord Chen Liang asked.

  Elder Chen Xing looked up at Lord Chen Liang. Her normally sharp forest green eyes looked strangely vacant. “I have a gift for you,” she said with a hollow, brainless note to her voice.

  Lord Chen Liang’s fingers dug into the metal of his throne, warping it beneath his fingers.

  “Explain this. My patience is wearing thin,” he said coldly.

  “We found her outside the compound, my lord. She kept saying she had a gift for you… we used water affinity investigators to try and find what’s wrong with her and they say she’s bewitched, my lord. But they can’t find anything else,” said the guard.

  “Of course they found nothing,” Lord Chen Liang snapped, “It would take someone far beyond them to do this to an elder. Chen Gang. See what you can find.”

  Elder Chen Gang jumped up from his seat, his robes fluttered as his movement skill stirred the air around him. He landed beside Elder Chen Xing with smooth grace and readjusted his robes into perfect order. Elder Chen Gang raised a white gloved hand to her cheek as threads of blue energy streamed from his hand and wound around Elder Chen Xing’s head, snaking over her body.

  “My lord… I can find no more than they did. It doesn’t seem to be permanent… but whoever did this was both powerful and skilled,” Elder Chen Gang said.

  “I have a gift for you,” Elder Chen Xing said again, still looking vacantly at Lord Chen Liang.

  “Open it,” Lord Chen Liang said.

  “My lord… I cannot. It’s sealed with powerful qi… it will destroy the contents if anyone but you attempts to open it,” said Elder Chen Gang.

  “Then what good are you?” Lord Chen Liang snapped, his voice laced with venom.

  He stepped off his throne as fire engulfed his body and he shot through the air, leaving a trail of orange flames in his wake. In the blink of an eye, he solidified in front of Elder Chen Xing.

  Lord Chen Liang pulled the shimmering purple ribbon and it came undone, slipping free of the box impossibly smoothly as its power detected him and faded away into nothing.

  He frowned. He’d half-expected it to explode the second he did that.

  He lifted the lid slowly. Just enough to peek inside… and his body shivered with a mixture of disgust and rage.

  He threw the lid aside, revealing the box’s contents to everyone in the room. Almost as one, the room hissed and recoiled the moment he exposed the severed, rotting heads of four of his children and what he assumed to be Elder Kanev.

  A glowing purple jewel with flecks of blue was wedged between burnt, blackened teeth in what remained of Elder Kanev’s mouth.

  Lord Chen Liang pulled it free. It was a memory stone… but not like any he’d ever seen. This was… far more complicated. He had no question about who’d sent this… gift. But, he wasn’t sure how the girl had made this.

  He sent a sliver of his qi into it and it flared with purple and blue light, painting the entire room in otherworldly color as it cracked and broke apart in his grip.

  Purple smoke spilled from it, rushing outward over the room, and Lord Chen Liang stepped back, readying to defend himself. Only… no attack came. Rather, the purple smoke crept over the floor, up the walls and pillars, and spread over the ceiling until it covered the room in a thick, swirling cloud.

  Purple smoke boiled up from the floor, forming an image directly in front of Lord Chen Liang. He pushed Elder Chen Xing aside to better see it.

  Unlike most memory stones, it revealed its contents to the entire room at once as it resolved into the image of Elder Kanev. His face was contorted with horror and agony as clawed fingers pushed through his eyes. He screamed as he burned with the fury of the unmistakable qi of Liu Jie. Then, Lord Chen Liang watched four of his children killed… one by one… until it ended with Chen Huo.

  When it was done, the image shifted to one of Liu Jie. She was taller than the last time he’d seen her and looked far older too. Even so, he couldn’t help but recognize her instantly. He trembled with rage.

  Her image looked over the room with a haughty, dismissive arrogance and then at him. It shouldn’t be possible, but she looked him straight in the eyes as though she were right there.

  “Do you like my gift?” she asked as her lips twisted into a cruel smirk, “I wasn’t sure what to get you, but your pet told me you like memory stones and heads.”

  She paused and stared at him as though waiting for a response.

  No memory stone should be able to do this… he thought.

  “Nothing to say? Not even a thank you?” the image of Jie said, “and after all the trouble I went to? I’m hurt… though I suppose it’s to be expected. You are from the sticks, after all.”

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  She looked down her nose at their audience chamber as though the mere sight of it both bored and disgusted her.

  “Still… at least I have the manners to thank you for all you’ve done for me,” she continued, “I must say, I didn’t expect country bumpkins to know so much about my path. How did you know that killing my chosen feeds my growth? Thanks to you, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. Just a few more of my chosen to die and I’ll be strong enough to make my family proud. They have such high expectations of me, you know.”

  Icy fear crept down Lord Chen Liang’s spine. That was how she’d broken through so fast? The death of the Pan girl? He’d never heard of such a ferocious path…

  But clearly, their first suspicions were correct. She was a member of a great house. Royalty… perhaps even gods… she’d been asking about them often enough.

  She hadn’t revealed her bodyguards, but perhaps that was part of her ploy… he’d thought she was just a sniveling brat. Crying about her friend at the tournament… was everything… all of it a manipulation? Had they been tricked into killing her chosen as she called them?

  Perhaps this was just a warning… maybe they could placate her… even get her to help them in their goals… yes… then once he had the master’s gift, he could betray the stupid girl and—

  “Unless…” said the image of Jie as she tapped one finger against her lips as though only now considering something, “…unless you didn’t know about my path. But that would mean that you tried to kill me… that you thought you killed a friend of mine? In that case… you’ve made a grave error.”

  The purple smoke lurched, engulfing the remainder of the room and everything swirled and shifted as though they were all transported somewhere else.

  They stood in the burned out remains of their audience hall. Its great pillars were now little more than broken, charred fragments. The sky was black with falling ash as the entire family compound burned around them. Their most ancient and sacred places had been reduced to cinders.

  All their family, their servants, and their slaves lay dead upon the earth like trash as everything their family had built. Everything they’d schemed, connived, and fought for over generations was brought to ruin.

  “I could have this done now…” Jie said as she gestured to the destruction surrounding them, “just give the order and have your whole pathetic family snuffed out.”

  She smiled sadistically as the flickering flames cast dancing shadows over her face.

  “But, where’s the fun in that? No… it’ll be much more enjoyable to do it with my own hands. To feel your life slip away as you beg and grovel. Just like your son,” Jie said.

  Lord Chen Liang glared at her and she laughed. It only served to further unsettle him. It should only be a recording… she shouldn’t be able to respond to him the way that she did.

  “What’s the matter?” she teased, “Are you impatient? That’s alright, just kill more of my chosen. Every time you do, I will surge with power and my cultivation will grow faster and faster. So, go on… you know you want to…”

  She stood there, staring at him with wild excitement in her vibrant blue eyes.

  When he said nothing, she pouted slightly like a sulking child then sighed and inspected the underside of her fingernails.

  “Or I suppose you could be boring and wait. Tell your family you’ll stop me. That you’ll save them. That you’ll save everything you and they hold dear. If you say it enough times… maybe you’ll believe it too,” she said.

  Jie looked over the room again and though she shouldn’t be able to see them, she still managed to look at all of them like they were nothing.

  Then, she turned her back and walked slowly away.

  “But, don’t worry,” she said as she confidently sauntered away, “No matter what you choose, I’ll save you till last. I wouldn’t want you to miss the defining moment of your entire family. The day I crush you beneath my heel.”

  She paused and looked over her shoulder at Lord Chen Liang with a vicious smirk on her lips and cold cruelty in her merciless blue eyes.

  “You should be thankful…” Jie said, “it’ll be the closest any of you will ever come to greatness.”

  With that, the vision broke apart like smoke in the wind and the destruction around them faded away to be replaced with the reassuring reality of their meeting chamber once again.

  The room was silent. As though nobody had the courage to speak.

  “I want the bounty on her head recalled. Tell everyone that anyone she has ever associated with is not to be killed. We can capture them… maybe use her precious chosen as bargaining chips… but if anyone kills even a single one, I will personally see to their punishment,” Lord Chen Liang said.

  “Are you sure my lord? This could be a bluff,” said Elder Chen Yong.

  “If it’s a bluff, how do you explain her sudden advancement into the middle dantian? And not just the first star either… she’s advancing through the middle dantian faster than the lower one! Each star should take her years. Maybe decades. And, look how far she’s come in a matter of days!” Lord Chen Liang snapped.

  He took in a steadying breath and ran a hand through his perfect hair.

  “No… bluff or not… we can’t risk accelerating her growth, and if we kill her, her family will kill us even faster. We have no choice but to play for time and use it so I might receive the master’s first gift,” Lord Chen Liang said.

  “I’m afraid we cannot recall the bounty on Liu Jie’s head, my lord,” said Elder Chen Gang.

  “What?” Lord Chen Liang snarled.

  Elder Chen Gang stood rigidly still. “We kept our identity hidden from the vendor, as you asked of us. They already have the money. The bounty can never be recalled. If we tried… we would only confirm that it was us who placed it,” he said.

  Lord Chen Liang’s jaw pulsed as he clenched his teeth. The polished tiles at his feet glowed with heat as smoke curled upward.

  Elder Chen Min shot to her feet. Her frightened, worried eyes were ringed with dark circles due to her path.

  “It may be just as well,” she said with her hoarse voice as black veins pulsed in stark contrast to her purple skin, “if they succeed and it can’t be traced back to us, it’s possible we may avoid repercussions. We don’t know how her family will react to her death. They might only punish those with blood on their hands. Especially if we’re so far removed from it that we can’t even recall it ourselves. We’ve already denounced Elder Kanev and the children involved in the attack. And, given that she saved Chen Jingren, we could claim that we had no reason to wish her ill.”

  Lord Chen Liang considered that. He still didn’t know why Jie had saved Chen Jingren. Perhaps she’d done so merely to toy with them.

  Or she’s turned him into a spy for her… perhaps it would be best to kill the boy. No. He might be one of her chosen now and killing him would only make her stronger.

  Still, I’ll have to ensure he’s monitored closely until we can be sure of his allegiance. We need to move fast. There’s no telling how quickly the bitch will advance. I must receive the master’s first gift… yet the task required is enormous. Lord Chen Liang thought darkly.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Lord Chen Liang said and Elder Chen Min visibly relaxed, “in that case… triple the bounty. And make sure it still can’t be traced back to us. But, no matter what happens… we’ll focus all our efforts on completing the first task. The only way we’ll be safe from that bitch and her family will be to gain strength.”

  Elder Chen Min and Elder Chen Gang bowed.

  Lord Chen Liang stormed away. “And fix your wife. I will not tolerate bewitched elders,” he spat.

  “As you wish, my lord,” Elder Chen Gang said and escorted his vacant-eyed wife from the audience chamber by her arm.

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