Chang-li and Joshi crossed the temporary rope and slat bridge to Petal 38. A pair of cultivators in Morning Mist robes, both with Brotherhood rosettes on their collars, waited on the other side of the bridge. They snapped to attention as Chang-li approached, put their hands together, and bowed.

  "Elder Brothe — ah, Senior Disciple Wu, greetings," one of the two said.

  "Report, Acolyte,” Chang-li prompted.

  The acolyte took in a deep breath, looking both worried and proud. "There's been no sign of movement in the last two hours. Before that, when we relieved the previous pair, they said they thought they saw some of the rubble two alleys down shifting right around dawn. We're certain the creature is still here, though, and hasn't escaped. We've had no sign of any other survivors, no cries for help or attempts to flee. Not since the ones yesterday."

  "Good," Chang-li said. He strode forward and drew his sword. Beside him. Joshi was wrapping his arms in red lux. A trio of orange lux spikes protruded from his right fist.

  It had been five days since the near disaster in Vardin City, and Chang-li, along with the rest of Morning Mist, had been busy chasing down stray tower beasts and rescuing survivors ever since. He'd snatched a few hours of sleep here and there, going from one battle to the next, as the cultivators worked to restore order in the city.

  Most of the city's inhabitants had retreated up to the Crown Ring, which the higher-ranked cultivators had quickly cleared and secured, or down into the Flotsam. The denizens of the floating raft community gathered around the base of the Riceflower stalk had pulled up their moorings or abandoned their rafts, fleeing to the shore at the edge of the lake to wait until the city was safe once more. Soon it would be over; they were down to just a few petals left to clear.

  Chang-li and Joshi had participated in over a dozen takedowns of escaped tower beasts and led the way in countless rescues. They had pulled merchants, craftsmen, laborers, and beggars out of the rubble, old men and young children, all of whom had been excited to see them, blessing their names and sect as they were pulled out.

  Chang-li might not have slept much in the last few days, but he had hardly ever had such a satisfying stretch of work. He had helped save dozens, perhaps hundreds of lives. He was making a difference here in this city, and that meant a lot.

  This petal had been home to several tanneries from the smell of things. Even now, with the workshops and sheds in splintered ruins, the harsh smell of the chemicals and tannins filled the air. The stench, like aged urine, lingered everywhere. Chang-li wrinkled his nose. Sometimes you could detect tower beasts by their smell, but he wasn't going to be able to smell anything over this.

  They passed a heap of broken wood that had once been a shop of some sort. Chang-li sent a thin wisp of lux questing out from his right hand into the ruin, a weave of green and blue meant to lure a tower beast out of hiding. By now, any escaped beast should be running very low on lux and be desperate for a taste. He and Joshi had coaxed several out of their hiding places this way in the last couple of days. It was a trick Noren had showed them on the first day after the eruption. How did the man have a technique for everything?

  There was no response to their lure. He withdrew his tendril as he prepared for a fight. As long as there were no survivors in the debris, he and Joshi would have the run of the place, no need to worry about bystanders. Even now, the junior disciples should be retreating back across the temporary bridge. Several more cultivators from Morning Mist were waiting on the far side as reinforcements, but Joshi and Chang-li wouldn't need their help.

  Joshi grunted and pointed. "There, I think I saw movement."

  Chang-li followed his finger. He didn't see anything different about this pile of rubble, but he sent a questing thread of lux forward anyway. As soon as it hit the pile of broken boards, they exploded upward, showering Chang-li with debris.

  Wood and dust fell all around him. His ears rang from the sudden explosive sound. Something moved. Blinking the dust out of his eyes, Chang-li whirled. The creature was behind him now. His sword infused with flame, Chang-li raced forward as he took it in. He hadn't noticed the creature because it was nearly the same color as the wooden debris that littered this pedal. Slats and boards clung to its caked and matted fur, further disguising it.

  A pair of enormous yellow eyes with slits for pupils stared back at him. There was a yowling, hissing sound as it opened its mouth and showed teeth like daggers. The beast leapt again, springing forward. This time, Chang-li got a glimpse of a lashing tail and pointed ears. It was an enormous cat, standing eight feet tall at its haunches and nearly twice that long, with a tail taller than he was.

  Joshi shouted and sent his Binding Chains attack lashing at the cat's front leg. Chains of blue lux wrapped around it, holding it tight. Chang-li rushed in, weaving a Firepot in his right hand, and hurling it up into the face of the angry tower beast. It exploded in a flash of color. The cat yowled and wrenched backward, pulling Joshi toward it.

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  Chang-li raised his sword and swung, catching the cat across its other paw. It lashed out at him, striking him in the torso and knocking him to one side. Chang-li twisted in the air as he fell, catching himself with one hand before flipping to land lightly on his feet. He instantly sprang forward again, sword high as he wove blue and green together with orange. An instant later, a replica of the sword in his left hand appeared in his right. His Mirage Blade technique still wasn't what he wanted it to be, but he attacked, slashing at the cat with both swords and got three hits in before the right-hand blade vanished and he was left with just the physical sword.

  Chang-li pushed yellow lux out through his right hand, accompanied by enough green to help the physical lux through the channels on that side of the body, which he now had optimized for the more spiritual luxes. The green and yellow together combined and began to seep into the cat's blood. He forced blue into the mix, A nasty little weave he had learned from the Morning Mist scrolls called Bloodflame Toxin. The cat hissed and batted at him with its paw. He darted away, leaving the Bloodflame Toxin time to work.

  Chang-li darted away as Joshi let go of his Binding Chain and leapt high into the air. The bald barbarian came down atop the cat behind its neck. He got his left hand hooked around its throat, while his right hand plunged into the side of the cat's neck, burying his orange lux spikes deep into the beast.

  The cat was angry and wounded now. It dropped to the ground and rolled over, attempting to crush Joshi, but he let go and leapt clear, landing on the far side of a crushed hut, and Chang-li seized the opportunity.

  He raced in, sword ready, and cut a long, deep line down the cat's stomach. Then he hit it again with Bloodflame Toxin. This time, the repetition of the technique bound with his first, infusing the cat's body. Chang-li pulled his sword into his soul space and prepared techniques in both hands. With his left, he kept pushing Bloodflame Toxin. With his right, he called on the spiritual luxes to activate the poison.

  The cat yowled and ripped at its own flesh as it caught fire from inside. Chang-li sprang backward. Joshi threw another Binding Chain around the cat's front legs, lashing them to its hind paws, keeping it from moving as the flame raced through its veins, tracing it with lines of fire.

  A moment later, the cat glowed like it had swallowed an enormous furnace. Chang-li sensed the conflagration of lux. He ran toward the edge, Joshi on his heels.

  The cat exploded behind them, sending bits of tower beast flesh and waves of lux across the pedal, pelting Chang-li with debris. The two cultivators crouched low, using lux to anchor them to the petal as the shockwave washed over them. Now the stench of burnt fur added to the rank urine smell.

  The cat was gone. Chang-li sent a strand of questing lux forward to confirm that it was really dead. There was no sign of the beast, its body having been completely consumed in the blast.

  He took a deep breath and dropped into the Purification of Mind and Soul cycling technique, feeling the tension of the battle washing from him as he drew in new lux from the air. Since the Emperor had appeared and repaired the damage to the Riceflower Tower, the concentration of lux in the air had been dropping, but it was nowhere close to what Chang-li thought of as normal. From what Noren and the other high-ranked cultivators here said, it would not diminish for decades to come.

  When Prism Eri had lured Prism Nai Hong into the tower and then murdered him, the tower had been flooded with too much lux for it to contain, and Chang-li suspected, probably uncracked Lumos from the Prism's personal store. Towers were supposed to process Lumos into lux, but from what he understood, they did that by taking it in from the outside and creating lux. It seemed like having Lumos brought inside and released was a very bad thing as far as towers went.

  Vardin City would be suffering from the effects for years to come, though in some cases they would be beneficial. More lux in the region meant potentially the citizens of Vardin City could cultivate a little on their own, making them stronger and healthier, but much more prone to lux taint. Already, the governor of Vardin City, Chang-li's brother-in-law, was arranging for massive shipments of purification tablets. Those involved in a tower cull who had not yet reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement used the tablets to purge their bodies of lux impurities, and now the people of Vardin City would be forced to do the same Vardin City once a week until the imperial officials in charge of such matters ruled that the lux contamination in the area was reduced.

  In the long term, it would all work out. In the short term, Chang-li worried it would give Riceflower Province a lever to control its citizens. Already, Min's brother had spoken of the need to raise tax rates in order to pay for the purification rations. While there was no doubt some justification to that, when Chang-li looked around and saw the devastation of the city, he couldn't help but think its people were suffering under a heavy enough burden as it was.

  But it was a burden for them to carry. The governor of Riceflower Province would take care of matters. It was an internal affair. The Emperor had already done his duty by keeping the tower from exploding, which would have destroyed Vardin City and a large chunk of the fertile Riceflower Province around it, not to mention Chang-li, his friends, his wife, his sect.

  Joshi was looking at him. "You all right?"

  Chang-li shook himself. "Yeah. Fine. That one was fun,” he admitted.

  Joshi gave him a knowing grin. "Don't know what we'll do for amusement now that the beasts are mostly handled."

  "I'm sure we could find work clearing the debris," Chang-li said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

  Joshi laughed, and they strode together back across the temporary bridge to join the acolytes waiting for them. The junior members of Morning Mist hailed them as heroes and couldn't stop talking excitedly all the way back to sect headquarters, but Chang-li just felt drained. It had been a hard few days, but good ones.

  Now that the dangerous but exciting work was done, he needed to get back to his training. He should be excited, but instead his stomach twisted. The Peak of Spiritual Refinement lay ahead, and he didn’t know how to get there.