Water qi surged and flowed around Zhang Lifen. The Tidewalker Step carried her safely out of reach of the poison wind and corrupted shadow. As she faded away from her pursuer, she drew her bow of qilin horn and black wood. An arrow of water qi condensed, completing at the instant she reached a full draw. Her bowstring thrummed, and a river surged over its banks to drench the land. The Heart Piercing Black Rain split into nine arrows, then each into nine more. Then each of those into another nine. More than seven hundred arrows loosed from a single draw, backed with all her decades of killing intent, and the cultivation of a Sixth Realm expert.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  The second core user, this one only at the same advancement as Zhang Lifen—early Soul Refining—stepped from an explosion of life and loam. Countless branches twisted like claws reached for her as creeper vines sprang from the newly fertile soil and tried to wrap her limbs and pin her in place.

  She tapped her Dao of Grace and slipped between spaces too small for even her perception technique to find. Another volley leaped from her bow. She hit the ground, rolled to her feet, and flowed away on the currents of her movement technique. As she created distance between herself and her target, she cycled her cultivation base and poured qi into the second stage of her bow art. The gleaming arrow that formed this time was a thousand-year flood. A white-capped violent surge of water carrying the promise of cold silent depths. She layered her killing intent into the technique, cold and sharp. Her bowstring sang once more.

  The technique found its mark at the same time Ren Huang hit the core user and the thicket of thorns and vines they’d grown around themselves. Water and fire clashed in a gout of steam as wood turned to ash. Even with the unnatural power of a demon core at their disposal, the wood cultivator couldn’t stand up to Ren Huang’s sheer fury. With Zhang Lifen assisting? The core user didn’t have a chance. Not that it mattered.

  Each swing of Ren Huang’s black iron wolf-tooth club sent forth a river of flame. The core user fell back, frantically calling a never ending cascade of growth and soil to shield themselves from Ren Huang’s all-consuming fury. With the user on the back foot for now, Zhang Lifen activated her movement technique. Ren Huang did the same. In a burst of water and fire, they ran.

  Several li away, a mass of poison, wind, and shadow winked out under the uncompromising glare of Yi Xiurong’s spirit. Nine colorless stars lit the countryside like day. Zhang Lifen didn’t need to see what that light did to the land below—she’d witnessed it up close time enough. With the poison wind core user disabled for the moment, Yi Xiurong would be along shortly.

  Hopefully this time, they’d escape.

  It was a bitter wound in Zhang Lifen’s pride that they’d been forced to flee. Again. These two core users were new to their advancement, new to the power that demon cores bestowed upon their hosts. Yes, they were strong enough to eventually master Jin Xifeng’s gifts, but now they were as weak as they’d ever be. Now was the time to kill them—except that would only make things worse.

  Zhang Lifen had learned her lessons well. Better late than never, she thought with a bitter, internal laugh. She tried not to be too hard on herself. Tried not to blame herself. The sect elders had been the ones to come up with the plan. They’d been the ones that had ordered Kong Huizhong’s death.

  The death that had allowed Jin Xifeng to finally break free of the Dawn Palace.

  They’d had access to one of those cores. They’d studied it—that’s how they’d found Kong Huizhong. If there had been any way to know, they’d have known. Still, her thoughts kept turning back to the bloody red sky. To the pillar of heaven collapsing to earth. She should have known.

  They ran. Ran from foes best defeated, but whose deaths would only fuel the monster sitting on the Twilight Throne. Jin Xifeng, self-crowned empress of her Twilight Empire, had done exactly what Zhang Lifen had expected her to. She’d set about to grasping for more. More power. More wealth. Greater cultivation.

  It seemed every week there were dozens of new core users popping up in the east. Most of them succumbed, of course—the demon cores that consumed them returning to Jin Xifeng, adding their cultivation base to hers. Even though the price of failure was well known by now, there was no shortage of those willing to risk it all for a chance at more power.

  Besides, those that survived came to form the core of Jin Xifeng’s base of power in the new Twilight Empire. They were lavished with wealth and advancement resources. Given the holdings of the old clans who’d thought to challenge Jin Xifeng’s rule in those early days. They formed the core of her elite, most loyal soldiers. Service to the empress carried risks, yes. But for many, the rewards were more than worth it.

  Yi Xiurong arrived atop her peacock feather. “South,” was all she said.

  All three of them fled as fast as they could. No doubt Ren Huang had injured the wood cultivator enough that not even their core would allow them to follow. Yi Xiurong’s ability to disrupt others’ techniques had only grown with her advancement to late Soul Refining. For now, they’d bought themselves a window to escape—from foes their combined might could reliably defeat.

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  It was another three days before Yi Xiurong called a stop. There had been no signs of pursuit, and they were far enough away from any settlements that the risk of another core user happening across them was minimal. A nearby fishing village—abandoned and left to rot like so many other small settlements in the east—served as a place to rest and cultivate. It was an ideal spot for Zhang Lifen. The massive amount of water qi she could draw from the Eastern Sea wouldn’t simply restore her—it would push her even closer to reaching the middle Sixth Realm.

  “We should have stayed longer and crippled them,” Ren Huang said as the three sat down in the mostly intact remains of an old fisher’s hut. Outside, the light patter of a late spring rain began.

  Zhang Lifen opted to cultivate rather than involve herself for now. Between the rain and the steady rush of waves, this was an opportunity she wouldn’t soon get again.

  “Too risky,” Yi Xiurong said. Even with her spirit pulled in and tightly restrained, the glow that clung to her like a candle’s flame made her hard to miss. Ren Huang wasn’t much better. Given how loud the three of them were when fighting together, there had almost certainly been more servants of the empire on the way.

  Both positions had their merits. Zhang Lifen didn’t doubt Yi Xiurong’s assessment—they’d been too close to the city. If they’d stuck around, it was almost a guarantee they’d have drawn more foes. They’d long since learned the best way to deal with a core user was to cripple their cultivation. Easier said than done unless the victim was far less advanced, but it was still doable. Fight them within an inch of their life, subdue them, then shatter their dantian. Simple—in theory.

  It took effort and coordination, but it was worth it. Crippling a core user’s cultivation base also crippled the demon core itself. Zhang Lifen suspected that once the newly mortal core user finally died, the demon core would still return what little qi they’d left to Jin Xifeng. But it was such a pitiful amount. The majority of what the core had already fed upon was lost when the host’s cultivation was shattered.

  She suspected it was this practice of crippling core users, rather than killing them, that had put such a high price on each of their heads. That, and their association with the Yi clan. At least what was left of the Yi clan. Which, as far as Zhang Lifen knew, amounted to just Yi Xiurong.

  “Where do we go next, then?” Zhang Lifen asked after the silence dragged on for a while longer than she liked.

  Ren Huang just grunted like he usually did. She couldn’t really blame him. Even before Jin Xifeng had returned, out of the core disciples, he always had the fewest connections outside the sect. All Zhang Lifen really knew about his past was that he came from the northern parts of the empire, and that he’d come south seeking a teacher before earning a spot in the sect nearly a hundred years ago.

  “I don’t think there’s much left for us here,” Yi Xiurong said. “With every passing year, Jin Xifeng’s grip tightens over the imperial center. The only thing we’ll find here are more core users.”

  “Well, at least they’ll keep funding us,” Zhang Lifen tried to put on an airy front as she said it, but she couldn’t even fool herself. The rain was getting to her, especially now that the drizzle had turned to a full storm since they’d taken shelter.

  Yi Xiurong was right. Although they’d been able to fuel their cultivation with the spoils taken from their defeated foes, every fight they started this close to the capital was a bigger risk than the last. It was only a matter of time before they pushed their luck too far.

  “West?” she asked after another stretch of silence. It was that, or south, really.

  “You’d go to the steppe?” Yi Xiurong asked. A bit of her imperial prejudice was in the words, but the character of the question suggested she’d might actually consider it.

  “Well, I’d thought perhaps we could take refuge in the Jade Kingdom. While Tan Zihao isn’t exactly in open defiance of Jin Xifeng, he’s not cooperating with her, either. Especially not with the succession still in question. But now that you’ve mentioned it, why not?”

  “We’re not abandoning the empire,” Yi Xiurong snapped. “We’re not abandoning our duty.”

  Zhang Lifen held up a placating hand. “I wasn’t suggesting we abandon anything,” she said. “But we can’t continue as we are. Three Soul Refining experts against the entire empire? Even before she took the throne, Jin Xifeng was beyond what all three of us could muster.”

  Ren Huang shot her a warning look. They’d had this conversation enough times, and they still weren’t any closer to resolving their differences. Yi Xiurong thought their duty was to carry on the sect’s mission. To resist Jin Xifeng and seek to contain her. Zhang Lifen didn’t object to it, in principle. Her position was just that they could best accomplish that by leaving the fight for later and growing stronger now.

  If there was one thing they all had an abundance of, it was time. As they were now, all within the Sixth Realm, they could live for well over a thousand years. By the standards of immortals, they were all still young, too. They could go somewhere they wouldn’t be bothered, and focus on advancement. Zhang Lifen had further defined her Dao—the Dao of Grace—with her advancement to Soul Refining. Ren Huang had done the same with his Dao of Wrath. Yi Xiurong had long since defined her Dao of Radiance. They were all on the path to the Divine Body Attainment stage.

  From there, they could manifest their Daoist Minds and reach the Eighth Realm. They could do it, if they were smart. They were the best the Shrouded Peaks Sect had once produced. Yi Xiurong was right, though. They couldn’t abandon their charge. They owed at least that much to the millions of souls they’d failed. And to all the souls they’d yet to fail.

  As the argument fell back into the same round of points and objections it always did, Zhang Lifen only half paid attention. She sat with her back to one wall, so she could look out over the ruined fishing village toward the coast, running far to the south. Hopefully, down there in the lands around the Shrouded Peaks and the great southern forest, He Yu still lived. Still struggled.

  She’d grown fond of the boy in the short time she’d known him. Hopefully, even without guidance and support from a mentor or a sect, he could still achieve some of the potential she’d seen. The potential he’d started to reach for when it had all come crashing down. If there was ever a time for a legend to rise, it was times such as these. For his sake, she hoped he was up to the task.