The man in charge of the emperor's staff, the chief of staff, was the chancellor. He made his way to our little group and I could see him shaking hands on his way. Kobayashi was also watching him.

  By the time the man made it through enough robes and hair that would make a housewife blush, he was looking refreshed.

  "Sir," I said, trying to get his focus on me as well as telling my group to pay attention.

  "Joseph Pidge," the man said. His smooth voice was a hard contrast with his announcer voice. "I understand that you have been talked to by the protocol office about your... minor slip up."

  The man looked like he was holding back a chuckle. Behind him another tray of food was being passed around and it was exactly the stick eat buns I longed for. But I was here for a reason and there were plenty of meat bun vendors outside.

  "Sir."

  "As it pertains to our ongoing professional relationship, it is of little import."

  Of course he would say that after making a point to mention it. What a standup guy.

  "What is important is that our head of security would like a word with you, in private."

  "Chancellor," I said. "If I may speak freely."

  He stepped backwards, and then composed himself.

  "I suppose."

  "The tree of this court has at least one foul fruit," I said, doing my best to lay on a quick metaphor.

  It could be that they knew that they had such a man here. I wasn't entirely sure. They probably had suspicions.

  I knew.

  I really wanted to tell them directly but the presence of a fucking problem was stopping me. I wanted to gauge the chancellors strength, but that seemed to be the exact wrong thing at the moment.

  "That is a rather odd thing to say, but this court shall take it under advisement. I have asked the head of security to speak with you shortly," he said.

  Have you ever gotten a sinking feeling that everything was about to go sideways? When a man with short cropped hair walked over to join our little trip, my hair went on edge. I turned to see that all of my fears had been realized.

  The man walking over to brief me on the next phase of the plan had a big old ultraviolet fang tattoo covering half of his face. Underneath the multiple scars-a strong choice- the man looked like he had just gotten out of maximum security prison and I was the first decent bagel he had seen.

  The man was hungry.

  At this point, I was thinking, what would happen if I caused a scene here in the emperor's court? What if I took down the head of the Ming dynasties security forces upon meeting him?

  I gripped the chancellors arm as the man strode towards us. I knew he knew what was going on and if he reached me? It was over. He might be fifth realm or higher but he at least matched my strength.

  "Plan Zoo," I said, dropping to one knee. "Chancellor, please forgive my rash actions, but your head of security is an agent of the Red Fang."

  There is a moment that separates men from boys. It's when you decide to live for others despite the things going on in your life.

  There's an even more important moment that separates dumb evil guys from smart men. A dumb evil guy would have stayed and attempted to teach the head of security a lesson. Me? Once operation zoo was in the picture, I was sprinting all out.

  I was heading towards the door as fast as humanly possible behind my people. Somehow, the elder Kang had gotten swept up into this and I was glad. Without his assist, his daughter might have been too slow.

  He was clearly dumping qi into her directly through some formulation. He might have a deep pool but she was using every drop of what he fed her.

  Xueyie was next to them, darting between little cliques inexorably away.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see several guards begin to move.

  They might think that this was some sort of heist or something. I ducked between two people who were reaching for more oerderves.

  Then I had a straight away and I began to dump qi into my own dantian. Out of my full to bursting core, I pushed myself to the limit. Min even felt like she was doing her best to not borrow any qi through our bond.

  We burst through the exit door of the court, moving faster than any sprinter had the right to be.

  I could see Xueyie nod to me as she broke left. Moon Lee tagged along with her. The two of them could take care against such a cultivator. I wouldn't be able to take him down myself.

  I passed a marble column, then another. Row upon row of columns went up, each one spaced equally well.

  I just needed one little push to get past this. Then... Then what?

  "How do we get out of here?" I said.

  "We need to get away from the capital!" Min said. "Maybe the elder Kang knows the way?"

  "It's possible!"

  By this time I had gotten caught up with them.

  "Do you have any shortcuts?" I said realizing that we were running through a large open courtyard. Every court has to has a courtyard, right? Well this one definitely did. And of course it was the time when everyone was out there doing martial arts practice in lined rows that were all very distinct and clear to see. We were the other ones out running down the well traversed middle path.

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  Every six feet there was another spiritual artist doing their best to work through some form or another. Lee and Xueyie closed the gap and we were all running behind Egiyas father.

  "What the hell is going on?" He said.

  Ahead of us, a cloud of smoke boomed up ahead.

  "What's going on? We don't have time!" I said.

  "The TLDR edition, then!" Egiya said.

  I was acutely aware how many people were looking at us right? Then. It took a lot of work to not watch the five people running, but somebody was doing it. Just not the people around us.

  "Security guy is demon! Run fast!" I yelled.

  In the smoke, the single man stood out. Clearly he was itching for a fight.

  "Hey you said....Do you have any formations that will let me temporarily jump a level of cultivation?" I said. "I think we need to fight him."

  The man looked stricken.

  "I..." He said. "I can make you better in a short area but it's going to take ten seconds and-" he said.

  "Do it!" I said.

  His hands moved impossibly fast. Min jumped to him and had to be back seat driving it. Lee and Xueyie got into a fighting stance. I could feel Lee's deep well of qi overflowing.

  Xueyie was looking for a fight. She had missed several chances on our last time here. Now, she was going to get her pound of flesh, given the chance.

  "You! You come in here and make a mockery of this court!" The man's voice boomed, as he walked forward. "You dishonor the emperor so as you rabble come in and try to pretend that you could do a tenth of what I could do."

  He pulled his aura out.

  Fifth realm.

  Well shit.

  Today was a good day to die.

  Dozens of spiritual artists ran away from the man, more were simply pushed out like a wave of force pushing in all directions.

  I could feel several formations take hold.

  I desperately wanted to see what he was doing, but I couldn't take my eyes off the man. He was...taking his damn time.

  "You common street trash," he spat to his side, leaving a ditch. "Of course if comes to me to take you out. It's been too long since I've been able to cut loose."

  He was even stealing my lines as he got closer. He was definitely monologuing to try and throw everyone else off of his scent.

  Fuck it, cards on the table.

  "Demon!" I yelled. "I will take you down in the name of the emperor. No longer will you kill his people for your gratification."

  I swear the man was liable to throw a coronary at that exact moment. He eyes bugged out as his muscles clenched all over his body. He looked like he was holding back a fart at a wrestling show, as one of the performers.

  "You dare!" He bellowed, as the gravity began to switch.

  At this moment, I was hoping that the damn emperor or chancellor might get involved. This was clearly an execution style attempted manslaughter.

  I wasn't going to give him the chance. I had two options, if this new power that I was getting from The elder kang meant anything.

  It was at that exact moment that a second stream of energy hit me. Egiya and Min were working together on some complicated formations and I could feel how tapped out both were as I felt my dream qi spike.

  They were hoping, beyond hope. That hope became dream aura and as I breathed in I felt it. I was electric.

  My enemy kept moving but now was finally looking slow. Or if now slow, at least partially slow motion. I was going to get exactly one shot at this.

  The man droned on about hating the little guy and it wasn't even bad I just needed him to get into range.

  "Girls?" I said.

  "On it," Lee said.

  "...and that's why I'm going to take you down in the name of the emperor and-"

  A circle of cultivators around me all cowed against the pressure that I faced head on.

  I didn't have a five finger death punch. All I had was the inception of pulling him into his own dream and as I hit him in the chest I took that image of the cultivators running away and formed the dreamscape.

  I floated above as he hammered into a dream clone of me. He wasn't even realizing that he was in the dream world. The man probably was going to have a coronary anyway.

  "That's weird," he said. "I thought you would be more solid. Turns out that you're just a smear on the pavement here."

  The dream Lee and Xueyie both advanced upon him and attempted to get him to submit. Xueyies sword fly whisk looked gorgeous for the moment it was unveiled as it takes across his body, stinging him both in the dream and what had to be in reality.

  Min had to be giving her the okay by play, or something. I hoped that my recent investment into qi dampening metals was about to pay off bigly.

  Dream Moon Lee was keeping his attention. That would be Mins extra work making it look realistic. Lee would be devastated in reality.

  Honestly, I was surprised at how well articulated she was. That in itself felt like the little nudge I was going to need to make it to the actual fifth realm. Not this temporary quick fix that would probably set us back a day if not a week.

  The damn emperor needed to show up in real life right now to sort out his people. That he hadn't yet was bugging me beyond belief. It was like the man didn't want to deal with the petty squabbles of lower ranked cultivators. I would have like him to do his damn job.

  If he was the protector the land, maybe I could...

  The emperor showed up in the dream world. I carefully made certain to make him appear powerless. It was as if he had been stepping through the damn dreamscape.

  Instantly the head of security turned on the emperor.

  Fuck.

  Was I going to have to act out his part? Mood: disturbed.

  It was like being out into a place where you had to play the part that you have never rehearsed. I didn't want to be the emperor. I just wanted him to do the right thing.

  For all I knew, he could be like a the modern day equivalent of Robert Moses- benign if you were part of the in crowd, but terrible otherwise. There were enough cliques, clubs, civic organizations and even sects around for him to have authority over.

  "Sire! I have killed the dog," he said. I had both Xueyie and Egiya stand back to give the fake emperor full run of the area. Little did the dreamscape know the truth. If the emperor was actually here, he would probably be able to undo anything that I was actually doing.

  That was about the time when the man's energy began to drop precipitously. The girls had caught on, at least the ones in the real world.

  As I distracted his mind, they were putting the traps on around his body. They had to have several chains in place before this was even viable. Then he looked confused and I pushed to knock the fucker out.

  "What is the meaning of this?" A chill voice came across the air around me. I couldn't pinpoint it's direction.

  And then I saw it. Golden and purple robes flowed. I had to crane my head up in reality to see the new thing that fate had in store for me that day.

  It was the man himself, arriving two acts too late, trying to get a handle on things.

  I hadn't done it before, but this time I knelt over the nearly powerless head of security.

  "Sire, I bring you a demonic cultivator, I suppose that the regular rates will apply on this unorthodox catch?"

  "This is a strong claim," the emperor said, his voice letting me know that he wasn't going to broker any jokes. Not a one.

  I itched to tell him something, anything.

  "You can have his pathway tested. It's how I helped purge your blue robes."

  I was surprised by how normal I felt in his presence. The man should have felt so much more powerful, but he only ended up feeling like he was an everyday person. I had to pinch myself to make sure that I was outside of the dream world.

  I was, but it was still strange. Xueyie and Egiya both knelt next to me as the head of security dozed off. It was the perfect way to get him tied him up for inspection.

  Instead of waiting for someone else though, the empty just stepped over to the man and breathed.

  The longest minute of my life passed as he pressed a palm against the man's chest. He examined the man as only an expert could.

  I could see other court functionaries appearing around the periphery.

  He exhaled deeply, like a cat being asked to move out of a treasured spot.

  "He shall be made an example of," the emperor said. "I should thank you again, but perhaps that will take some time. A cultivator of this level, making it to the top of my security services... This is troubling."