Uai Ta takes in the scent of salted waters, and revels in the vastness of the ocean.

  There are plenty of sights that might make even an immortal feel small, and the ocean is among the greatest of their number.

  It simply keeps going.

  She welcomes the feeling when it comes, it’s a reminder that despite the length of her life and measure of her cultivation, she is still nothing. There’s a strange hope in that realization, one that pushes her to continue her cultivation despite long reaching the plateau. Progress is abundant in the early years, once a cultivator anchors they’ll begin to realize the centuries it takes to advance. There are standouts, but even they take decades to reasonably progress. The paths are long, and each step means less and less the further you’ve traveled.

  It’s simple math really, and an unfortunate reality among older cultivators.

  That’s why finding new paths is essential, no matter how useless they seem, because then you’ve a new avenue to travel. Other than the seven main paths, there are twelve that are relegated to obscurity because they take too long to really start doing anything, and then there are the deviant paths.

  Uai Ta speculates that there’s no real end to the methods by which the soul grows, just in the creativity of those that search for them, and sanity. If only there were other methods to purge corruption than time and…spiritual osmosis.

  Uai Ta, immortal of ten millennia, born before Roguth’karrs wrath, witness of the near fall of humanity through the god of death and sunsets, woman who’s brought life to the dead, and leader of the greatest sect in the empire, shivers at the thought.

  There are simpler paths to insanity, less violent ones too.

  Like stuffing twelve immortals onto the same fucking barge, Uai Ta’s genuinly suprised this boat’s still floating, and impressed by the amount of trust that brat Jorick is placing in them. There are other boats, carrying hundreds of disciples from their respective sects, each and all well within integration.

  All gathered to converge on the poor city of Ralth, this certainly couldn’t end badly.

  Jorik is an idealist, he’s also an idiot, he’s the emperor because he’s the strongest despite following the path of a healer. The fool sent them all to the city of coin thinking they were going to help. Long time rivals, burdened with the mandate of peace, finally given the opportunity to just kill one another, and the almighty emperor doesn’t think they’re going to take it?

  Not that she’s any better, she came for the entertainment of it all, with her cultivation she’s practically impossible to kill, which means she can just sit back and get front row seats to witness the chaos. It’s not as though she’ll have an opportunity like this within the next century, might as well have some fun out of it.

  Besides, she’s the SCRIBE, it’s practically her duty to document the interesting, and wars like these certainly create plenty of unique advancements. All for her to discover and put to paper, she’s honestly vibrating with excitement.

  “Uai Ta,” says the searing of meat over hot stones, “enjoying the view are we?”

  Uai Ta sighs as she turns to witness a man of segmented stone, between them is exposed muscle that radiates heat, his eyes are like two small suns and his teeth granite as he gives her a wide smile.

  “Banzan,” she grumbles, “what do you want?”

  “Hah!” Banzan barks, “throughout the millennia you’ve managed to maintain yourself as a colossal bitch, how do you do it?”

  “Dealing with you has a tendency to sour my mood, and here I thought you’d keep to yourself for once, considering we’ve been sailing for two months and you’ve had the good sense to avoid me.”

  “Oh I just wanted to be close enough to the city that the disciples could still reach there in an acceptable time frame, just in case something happened to the boats.”

  “How considerate,” she says dryly.

  “Yes yes, I am magnanimous in my dealings,” he waves off, “no need to inflate my ego now, as fun as that is alongside annoying you, I came here with an actual purpose.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Well,” he starts, “you’re a smart cookie, I’m sure you’ve already surmised that shits going to get wild once we land in the city, what with all the rivalries present here.”

  “And?”

  “I want to propose an alliance,”

  Uai Ta snorts and it sounds like the rapid shuffling of pages, “and why would I do that you oaf.”

  “Because,” he says with a smile, “a lot of people are going to die. Like a lot a lot, if we want to bring peace we’re going to need at least some of us focused on the goal. I’ve already got Rotse’s agreement, now we just need a healer.”

  “And what did that whore demand of you? Another child?”

  Banzan shrugs, “she’s predictable.”

  “You two have had well over a hundred children, you might as well just get married already.”

  “Fuck no,” Banzan snorts, “you realize what that would do to our sects?”

  “Well, what are you offering me then? Get on with it, I’m practically vibrating with curiosity on what you think would make me work with you.”

  Banzan just smiles wide with his granite teeth as he manifests a scroll and hands it to her.

  Uai Tai grabs it irreverently and opens up its contents, two sentences in and her eyes go wide.

  “Land Ho!” calls out the spotter on the prow, “Ralth is dead ahead!”

  “Well?” Banzan asks with a smile.

  Uai Ta, stares at him, absolutely flabbergasted.

  “Fine.”

  -

  Yorin rubs the bone bead bracelet between his fingers.

  A simple thing made of beast bone and woven together with common thread, he got one for each of them when they fought in their first tide. Funny, Tantra never experienced a tide before then, and she ended up being a pretty big help.

  Not instrumental, she wasn’t that strong, but she contributed more than most.

  The vendor drove a hard bargain, despite their contributions, but Yorin can respect the hustle.

  Bracelets are a pretty common sign of friendship between peasants, not so much for cultivators he’s found. Cultivators aren’t really supposed to have friends, at least not the old ones, each eventually going their own ways to travel their respective paths alone, and how could a cultivator make a friend with someone who isn’t their equal?

  The imbalance is just too stark.

  Yorin finds the whole affair quite sad.

  It’s not like they don’t have company on the journey.

  It’s too long a road to travel alone, and we’re all only human, so each cultivator has their own orbit of disciples or mortals, can even make a pseudo-friendship with them, but Yorin’s learned that it isn’t really all that real.

  He tried making friends with the servants, and each gave kind words and proper pleasantries, but there was fear behind their eyes Yorin never really felt comfortable with, and Erick? He’s more of the group’s collective student than a friend, sure he isn’t afraid of them, but they are his teachers, and that imbalance is the crux of the problem at the end of the day.

  When he entered the Serpent’s Fang he didn’t really know the sacrifice that comes with being a cultivator, no one really told him, it was all idealistic stories that his foolish self aspired to embody, serving as some sort of protector for his village.

  He still wants that, but he knows now how alone he’ll be surrounded by the crowds.

  For all this time he succeeded where most failed, forming bonds that lasted through trails of blood, lasted through the waves of grief and solidified into something like steel. Brothers and sisters they were, a family not formed by blood but through common hardships and juvenile humor, and all was well in the collective embrace of each other.

  Until he drove his guandao through Kisrin’s skull

  He knows it was Kisrin and not some sort of demon playing at mimicry, he knows not because of the robes, or the bracelet. Perhaps those could have been copied, but not his token or storage artifact, those are bonded to the soul, and you can’t fake one of those. So it was Kisrin, changed somehow by forces he doesn’t understand, but it was him. Friend of seven years, half the merits for the weapon that would ultimately cut him down came from that man’s token.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He just stood there, and watched as it arced for his skull.

  Why?

  He could have dodged, after the display of speed and strength he showed he probably could have grabbed the haft of his guandao and tore out his heart.

  But instead he stayed still.

  He stayed still.

  Yu Mei’s alive, struggling to breathe still, what with whatever Kisrin tore out of her lung, but alive. So are the peasants that have gathered under his wing, trusting their little protector not to give up on them, and he hasn’t, he refuses to.

  So they’re all still alive, good for them.

  He’s surprised by how little he cares.

  He’s cried plenty, which spooked the peasants something fierce, that would honestly be funny if it weren’t for the circumstances. Come one come all, witness the horror of a cultivator brought to tears!

  Hilarious.

  He can’t really muster the strength to cry anymore, and isn’t that just cruel? He killed his friend, he brought his blade down into his skull, and he can’t be bothered to cry some more? Can’t be bothered to mourn properly…he…he.

  …

  …

  …

  It’s all just so pointless isn’t it?

  All this theater we have the audacity to call living, prancing around like ignorant fools of all the consequences that comes with life, reveling in whatever vices we can while we wait for the blade to come and bring us low.

  Everything that’s been collected in however many years of living, all the precious memories and accumulated choices, all ground down to nothing in the face of the grand thing that is the world.

  That’s what Kisrin is now.

  Nothing, just nothing.

  Why didn’t he move?

  Did he want to die? Why would he want to die? Why would he want Yorin to kill him?

  What did he do to deserve this burden?

  It’s so heavy, like his soul is carrying a boulder, and all he can do is bear the weight.

  But he can’t, he can’t.

  -

  There’s too much noise.

  War cries and screams refusing to abate no matter how much she swings her kanabō. She doesn’t remember how to count the days, so instead she uses the reasonable metric of wounds to measure time. Yet here she stands, crying blood from everywhere but her eyes, killing and killing and killing.

  She never really kept count of how many she’s killed, she knows some of the more sadistic cultivators do that, measuring success through corpses, so it’s probably a good sign that it hasn’t crossed her mind right now? Definitely, she’s a moral murderer after all!

  Is it murder if it’s during a war?

  Does the difference really matter?

  Who knows, who cares? War is a thing that happens no matter what she has to say about it, and people will be dragged to the bloodshed whether they want to or not. Unwilling murderers, the lot of them, at least they all have that in common to lament about once this is all over.

  That or they can lament being dead.

  Tantra doesn’t know much about war, if she were honest, she just knows that it happens and that it’s usually a pretty good time to be a blacksmith. Otherwise she’s just heard stories, so she wasn’t really prepared for the things she’d see, though she did know it would be bad.

  Giving cultivators free reign over a city?

  There’s a very good reason why the cities without Sentinels have only one sect each, except for the very rare few that somehow manage peace in competition, the there’s sects like hers, too small to really afford protracted wars.

  So for her first war she’s firmly placing it in the ‘absolute dogshit’ category that she just made up, she expresses her dissatisfaction by caving in another skull, and of course receiving another cut in turn.

  Directly focused on her are…three?

  Yes, three.

  She doesn’t really know, it’s just a mass of bodies on both sides, all advertising the wondrous benefits of returning to the cycle through violent persuasion tactics. Not that Tantra’s any better, she’s actually become something of a symbol if you can believe it! She can’t, that’s for sure, feels a bit too surreal, she just wants to find her friends and go back to her godsdamned sect, how it spiralled into this is anyone's guess really.

  There goes another skull, now it’s just two. It’s kind of monotonous, always aiming for the head, but there isn’t really a point to aiming elsewhere, unless she needs to soften them up before delivering the killing blow.

  There’s a few of those, some of them she even needs the help from a few dozen peasants to defeat, but defeat them she has, slowly building a mountain of bodies for her to stand on. Isn’t that a wonder? She’s participating in a war, that’s something cultivatory indeed, she fucking hates it.

  Oop, a few others decided to join, and not from her side. Damn she’s pretty close to calling it quits if she were honest, she’s more open wounds than person right now, needing to pump Qi into her robes so they repair themselves and she doesn’t have to fight like some dumbass streaker. But still, she’s got wounds besides simple slashes and bruises.

  Like her fucking face, who gave her that anyway? She doesn’t really remember, but she’d like to have a long conversation with them about the importance of maintaining an image. Then there’s the necrosis on her shoulder her body’s been fighting to a standstill, a giant burn on her chest from some sort of steam technique, and most recently a part of her thigh has petrified to stone.

  There’s also the hanging guts but that’s not really all that special.

  She lines up three heads and pops them all at once like a fucking pro, maybe she should cut back on the excitement there, they did just die. Damn, is she becoming heartless? That wouldn’t be good, considering her dao.

  Heh.

  Yeah she’s pretty-

  A blade of gigantic proportions almost severs her arm as Tantra just barely side steps, letting it carve through the cobble like it were soft butter.

  Tantra blinks.

  Not this bitch again.

  She wastes no time in pushing her soul Qi into her heart and-

  You know what?

  She has an idea.

  She dashes into enemy lines and the madlady follows her without any hesitation, Tantra turns to face the woman and lets loose a large, mocking smile. Her expression gets just a hint of rage before she cleaves her blade in a wide horizontal strike.

  Tantra dodges.

  Many of the surrounding disciples do not, being bisected by who Tantra assumes is their senior. Tantra swings her kanabō and hits the woman's knee, doing practically nothing to the surprise of no one, but it’s enough to agitate her, which earns Tantra another swing.

  This time it’s a vertical so it only hits one of the disciples as Tantra continues to dodge, she trades another blow and dodges another swing.

  Doing this like a holy cycle until eventually-

  There’s no more disciples left.

  Tantra blinks,

  What?

  She looks around and finds that she’s made it past the enemies backline, and the peasants are close behind, Tantra is almost too stunned to dodge the next swing that comes for her head, but dodge she does, the blade skinning off a bit of her right arm.

  She returns the favour by slamming her kanabō into the woman's chin disorienting her enough for Tantra to reposition herself so the disciples are behind her-

  Two large daggers jam into her lungs, carving them open and severing ribs as they're dragged down her back, Tantra sends her kanabō flying behind her as it collides with someone to make a sickening pop.

  She falls to her knees and hacks out so much blood.

  This fucking cunt takes the opening to bear down her massive blade unto her skull, but Tantra’s not so addled in the brain to let it connect, rolling to the side in a surprisingly smooth motion as she tracks blood on the cobble. The blade carves into the asshole that was behind her, alongside a few others.

  The giant blade lady (damn she really needs to get her name) lets out a frustrated huff and swings again, Tantra twists out of the way, gritting her teeth as this time as the disciples from whatever-the-fuck sect seemingly grow a brain and give the two space.

  That’s not how this needs to go.

  She back-dashes into the crowd, sacrificing a jian through the back to get close enough where the next swing will bisect an acceptable number of numbnuts. Damn she’s vulgar today.

  Must be all the pain.

  That’s a good enough excuse for her.

  Onto the more pressing issues, her plan worked with resounding success! About a dozen or more cultivators lay in two pieces while all Tantra has is a blade through the back and both lungs carved open (alongside all the previous wounds but we don’t count those). It’s almost enough to bring a smile to her face, until she realizes she’s celebrating the death of others.

  Then it’s just sad.

  Big bitch clearly knows what she’s doing, unless she’s blind as well as being a general pain in the derriere, but she keeps on going either way, killing dozens of her juniors with each swing. Tantra’s kind of impressed, they’ve probably killed at least a hundred yet she hasn’t managed to hit Tantra once.

  How did this woman manage to survive long enough to get to where she is?

  Ah well, a question for another time, when she isn’t actively at risk of dying and all that silly nonsense.

  The woman twists her hips, bringing forth another grand swing for Tantra to dodge as-

  She twists the blade. Several dozen pounds of steel shatters Tantra’s shoulder and sends her crashing into a group of watching disciples who are quick to move out of the way as a follow up swing comes bearing down on Tantra.

  Fuck, she had to jinx it, didn’t she?

  Tantra arcs her club with her left arm, pushing a large threads of world Qi through the appendage and the related muscles in her shoulder and back while maintaining serpent’s circulation and crashes her weapon into the slab of steels side, shifting it’s direction just enough that she can safely get out of the way.

  Despite another miss, the absolute bitch is smiling wide at Tantra.

  Tantra notices something behind the woman, or more accurately someone, and gives a wide smile of her own. The woman frowns at her as a hammer moves in slow motion to collide with her skull.

  This, unlike Tantra’s flailing, does real damage, because the beautiful bastard behind the blow knows how to infuse Qi into his weapon. The woman is stunned, clearly suffering from a concussion, and Tantra switches tactics.

  She charges, bringing her kanabō up to once again hit the woman in the chin, it does little to nothing, but it gives the man in navy blue robes the time to start another swing. The woman tries to turn, but Tantra forces her right arm to move, summoning her bone jian, and jamming it right into the woman’s eye and through her brain, stopping at the back of her skull.

  She twitches, but she doesn’t fall.

  That’s okay, it stops her long enough for the man with the hammer to hit her in the side, and Tantra can hear her beautiful bones cracking. She pulls out her blade and dodges a hasty swing, bringing her kanabō to collide with the woman's knee as the man prepares for another swing-

  The woman looks at Tantra with rage in her one eye and…runs away.

  Tantra just stares at her back as she moves through the crowds at a speed that the poor disciples can’t follow. It must look strange for the man in navy blue, one moment she’s there, the next, gone.

  Tantra shrugs and turns to the man.

  “Korthal!” Tantra coughs with a wide, bloody smile.

  “Tantra!” he bellows with merriment.

  Tantra’s so taken in by gratitude that for just a moment she stops sending soul Qi to her heart.

  This was a massive mistake.