He Yu opened his eyes to the pale soft glow of spirit stone spires. His chest hurt. His meridians ached. His core had turned to a hollow pit while he was unconscious. He’d promised them he would pull through—so he had.

  Beside him, Chen Fei sat on the rough stone floor of the nest cavern. He gave her a sheepish a sheepish smile as he pushed himself up on one elbow.

  “About time,” sniffed Yan Shirong from somewhere nearby but out of He Yu’s field of vision.

  “Ow,” was all he could bring himself to respond with.

  Chen Fei handed him a drinking gourd filled with water. “Here. You’ve been out for a while.”

  After quenching his parched throat, He Yu looked down at himself. The repair formation in his robes had done their work. He poked around the scar that seemed far too small for how much the wound from Tan Xiaoling’s technique had hurt.

  “How long has it been?” he finally asked.

  Li Heng sat down next to him and shrugged. “Hard to say. Not really many easy ways to track time down here,” he said, motioning to the dark cavern and its meager illumination.

  “Fair.” He was hungry, which meant he’d been out for a while. “Do we know a way out?” he asked.

  “I’ve done some scouting,” Yan Shirong said. “There are a couple potential paths to the surface, but Chen Fei wouldn’t leave your side. I could have used her help.”

  “Leave her alone,” Tan Xiaoling said as she sauntered up to the rest of them. From the sharpness in her words, it sounded like a conversation they’d had too many times already.

  He Yu gave Chen Fei his thanks as he handed the gourd back to her. Pushing himself to his feet, he gave his shoulders and arms an experimental stretch. “Alright. Let’s get moving then.”

  Li Heng arched an eyebrow at him. “You sure? You just woke up.”

  “We can’t stay here,” he said. “We’ll need food eventually, and we need to get to the surface. I can cultivate as I we move, and I’ve got at least a pill or two to get me the rest of the way to good condition.”

  Chen Fei stepped up next to him. For a moment, she eyed him critically. Then she said, “If he thinks he’s fit, then let’s go.”

  Yan Shirong let them into the tunnels he’d mentioned without another word, clearly eager to leave as well. So far as He Yu could tell, the only reason Li Heng had objected was out of concern for him rather than any desire to stay. Once they’d arrived at the branched, gently upward sloping network of passages, Yan Shirong and Chen Fei got to work.

  Between Chen Fei’s sense for the qi of the mountains and earth, and Yan Shirong’s skill at geomancy, they soon settled on their best route. The softly glowing caves fell behind them, and they had to rely on Chen Fei’s formation for light. The sound of the underground river faded, too, falling away behind them as they climbed ever closer to what they hoped was the surface.

  They hiked for hours. Or days. It was hard to tell, as Li Heng had said. Eventually, the shine of daylight on the bare stone walls appeared before them. They picked up their pace, each of them as eager to be out from the underground as He Yu was. While cycling his cultivation base had prevented him from feeling too much discomfort at the literal mountain above him, he would be glad to be in the open air once again, and in an environment friendlier to his spirit than under tons of earth.

  They emerged into late afternoon. The sun had just touched the tops of the peaks to their west. To the east, the land fell away before flattening into the broad fertile plains of the northern sect territory. They turned south, and He Yu’s heart plunged into his gut.

  The familiar collection of mountains that had housed the sect proper lay in ruin. Based on what he’d seen both in his strange visions of the past and of Jin Xifeng’s attack itself, He Yu knew there was no point in searching for survivors.

  Li Heng was the first one to speak, asking that He Yu was certain was on everyone’s minds. “What now?”

  The answer came to him instantly. He truly had no other answer. There was no other option. No other course lay before him. His Way demanded as much of him—he demanded as much. He would challenge Jin Xifeng.

  “You can’t be serious,” Li Heng said once He Yu had told him what he intended.

  “There is no other way,” He Yu said. “She destroyed the sect. She killed thousands, and that’s just what we witnessed. It makes no accounting for what she’s done in the past, or what she’s done since the battle. Maybe we lucked out and the Dragon Emperor defeated her. Or the great ducal clans assembled and forced her back into a prison.”

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  “Or maybe she simply left,” Tan Xiaoling said. “The world is much larger than the Dragon Empire, you know. She could have gone elsewhere.”

  “She wanted the empire. Always has. Whether she stops there is another question.”

  Yan Shirong spoke next. “So you, a middle stage Golden Core with no backing from family or sect, are going to bring down a what—peak Eighth Realm expert who single-handedly wiped out one of the most prestigious sects in the entire empire? You’re delusional.”

  “A legend has to start somewhere,” He Yu shot back. Yan Shirong’s words had rubbed him the wrong way, even if he knew Yan Shirong was right.

  “Can’t be a legend if you’re dead,” Li Heng said.

  “Then I’ll get stronger. It’s what I’ve always done, haven’t I?” He Yu asked.

  “This is different and you know it,” Li Heng countered.

  There was something in Li Heng’s features He Yu didn’t care for. A mix of sadness and regret. He felt the beginnings of an itch at the back of his mind. A suspicion of what was coming next.

  It was Tan Xiaoling who eventually broached the subject. After a bit more back and forth between He Yu on one side, and Li Heng and Yan Shirong and the other, she stepped forward and held up a hand for silence.

  “I need to return home,” she announced. “My duty is to the Jade Kingdom.”

  He Yu wasn’t surprised that she’d been the first. Tan Xiaoling had always insisted that her duty was to her family and her kingdom first. What she hoped to accomplish by returning home exactly, he couldn’t have said. He didn’t try to argue with her. She wouldn’t have listened, and he knew it. Besides, the only thing he knew that might convince her was the conflict with her uncle—the fact that she’d be walking into certain death. Her uncle, Tan Qingsheng, was a Fifth Realm. He Yu knew as well as she did what exactly that meant. She couldn’t beat him as she was.

  Yan Shirong came next. “The Ministry of Information will be busy. I’m certain I’ll be needed.” At least he had the decency to look regretful.

  He Yu grimaced, but said nothing. The memory of standing on a lonely mountaintop returned, and he did his best to shove aside all the complicated feelings of his youth and an imagined future that came with it. He managed well enough until it was Li Heng’s turn.

  “No doubt my father will want to make moves of his own. My grandfather may even emerge from seclusion. I need to return to the Western Passage.”

  That was too much for He Yu. “For what purpose?” he asked, desperately aware how much it sounded like pleading. “Li Renshu is only at the middle stage of Divine Body Attainment! Even he can’t stand against Jin Xifeng.”

  “There’s more we can do than face her directly,” Li Heng said. His expression was hard, but there was a softness—a regret—in his eyes. He Yu knew him well enough. He didn’t want to go, but he felt it was his duty.

  He Yu turned away. “Fine,” he said. “I understand.”

  “Yu,” Li Heng said. He turned. Li Heng had one hand outstretched. He Yu gripped him by the forearm. “You’ll be welcome if you come,” he said.

  Then he turned and left. Yan Shirong and Tan Xiaoling followed, the three of them heading north together. For the time being. He Yu sat down on a nearby rock and held his head in his hands. This was more or less what he’d been trying to avoid. He’d always thought his allies—his friends—would come to the peak with him.

  Chen Fei sat down next to him and patted him on the shoulder. Her eyes were fixed to the north, but on the backs of their retreating friends. She looked to somewhere further off. Somewhere far more distant and small.

  “You’re not going to leave, too, are you?” he asked.

  “Only if you want me to.”

  A few days, or a few weeks ago, he would have told her it was up to her. After seeing what an expert like Jin Xifeng was capable of? An immortal’s lifespan suddenly seemed far too short.

  “I’d like it if you stayed,” he finally said.

  “I’d like to stay.”

  They sat together for some time. Each in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. The sun moved past the peaks in the west, casting first shadows then twilight then darkness across the two immortals and the land. The stars wheeled overhead. Dawn broke, the sun casting golden rays that crept over the land inching ever westward. Ever to the peaks.

  “Were will we go?” Chen Fei asked, standing.

  He Yu joined her. As he started walking, he said, “I’ve only got one idea, and I’m not sure if it’ll work out.”

  Like the others before them, they headed north. At least at first. They kept their pace leisurely. Neither had fully recovered from the weeks’ long ordeal they’d just been through. They didn’t want to attract any undue attention, either. Although this had once been sect land, things had changed, even if they didn’t know how. They were, for all purposes, rogue cultivators now. What did that mean for them? He Yu couldn’t have said. They were, at least, in agreement that caution was a good idea.

  Chen Fei kept things light—sticking to topics like hunting and plants and the like. He Yu appreciated it. He still felt empty and betrayed at the others’ departure, even if he understood their reasons. He needed time to come to terms with it, and Chen Fei’s talk of simple things kept him from dwelling on it. He suspected she needed the distraction as much as he did. Even if he wasn’t an equal participant in their talk, he could at least listen while she mostly distracted herself. Over the next few days, the mood lightened as they adjusted.

  They soon reached their destination. A winding path let up the slopes of the mountain with a temple carved into its face. The place looked just as He Yu remembered it—abandoned. Statues of a winged god carrying a mallet and a drum decorated the entryway. Columns, cracked and broken, disappeared into the darkness beyond. As they approached the entrance, the pair of bronze braziers on either side were the only evidence of habitation. They remained lit and in perfect condition, showing no signs of age or dirt.

  He Yu gave a salute and bowed at the entryway, then he waited. Chen Fei did likewise. They did not wait long.

  A Fifth Realm spirit appeared from nothing. Nearly seven feet tall, the spirit wore the robes and cap of a scholar. Its substance was that of a storm cloud, flickering with heaven. Vaguely human-shaped, the spirit returned the salute as best its cloudy hands were able.

  “Welcome, Child of Storms.” Yongnian said. “Enter and be welcome. There is much to discuss, is there not?”

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