Even Ascendents cannot see the true peak of power. Growth matters more than strength. -a common saying from the southern coast

Motion became a blur, and in a fraction of the time it should have taken, I was at the Witch's side. My body was everywhere. I didn't know where my hands were. I didn't know where my feet were. I was fuzzy around the edges, but I knew I had to push her aside. Even in that state, adrenaline agitated my qi, and I used that energy and my instinct to shove her to the ground.

Lance-like talons raked mere inches over her head as Shouweiye screeched in rage. Its prey had evaded him, but he had caught something else: they'd raked across me. The pain was blinding, as it felt like my entire body was a giant wound. As a piece of the foggy shadows, I was nearly cut in two by the giant moth monster.

Panic filled me, and suddenly, I was solid again, tumbling several feet through the air only to land next to the Witch on the dais. I gasped, looking down at my chest where three patches of black blood were starting to stain my clothes. It was a relief, to be sure. Three small holes in my body were better than one massive one spanning the length and breadth of my ill-defined being, but it didn't account for the nausea that washed over me in the next breath.

There were some cultivation paths that allowed someone to turn into water or wind. Those, however, were not my path. For the first time ever, I'd been turned into a disembodied ball of void smoke, the feeling of being twisted, flattened, and bloated into a cloud all at once made my stomach rebel and the world spin around me. I fell to a knee, gasping for air.

"Tsuyuki?" the Spider Witch had a hand on my shoulder in an instant. "What's wrong? You…you're bleeding."

"No…time," I gasped out. "Just run. Shouweiye won't give up so easily."

"That thing has a name?!"

I glared at her and forced myself back to my feet. The ground was solid below my feet, and I focused on that as I took her hand and sprinted away from the dais. There had to be somewhere in the district where Shouweiye couldn't reach us.

A pulse in the air indicated that Shouweiye was right behind us. It shrieked and pounded its mighty wings as we raced into the alleyways between the buildings. Twice we were forced into dead ends, but Flashing Back to the beginning of our sprint gave me options. With only three tallies bleeding on my arm, we finally reached an estate where the walls were mostly intact.

The place was probably beautiful once, if the remnants of stone gardens and waterways were any indication. But like the rest of the district, it was now falling apart. Whatever family or sect lived here before, they were long gone. I raced through the courtyards and to the back where the kitchens were most likely to be.

"It's right overhead!?"

What irony for the spider to be scared of a moth, I thought before pulling her through the kitchens and to the back storerooms. Dust fell from the ceiling as Shouweiye landed on the roof. I ignored it, instead searching for what every estate, sect or clan, would have. I soon found it: a trap door.

I threw it open, threw the witch down, and dove down myself. I spied Shouweiye's beady eyes through a crack in the roof tiles just as I slammed the trap door shut and turned the latch. Taking the witch's hand, I hid us both behind a shelf.

I held the Witch close, my hand over her mouth as we listened to the creaking of the building overhead. She trembled, and I felt hot tears sliding down her cheeks to pool against my skin. Yet, the two of us remained perfectly still.

The groaning of wood from the Shouweiye's probing investigation persisted for several long minutes before the monster seemed to lose interest. It returned to wherever it had come from, disappearing as quickly as it had swooped down on us in the square. Smaller creaks followed, as the lesser void spirits returned to the scene in the hopes of finding something in Shouweiye's wake. We remained silent, lest one find us and their cries of glee and pain draw the rest of the swarm upon us once more.

I eyed the trap door. It held firm, the thick beam still locked in place. Though the latch itself was outside, the spirits didn't seem to notice it, making me wonder just how intelligent they really were. Though some seemed capable of speech through the voices of the void, none of them had even touched the mechanisms that served as the only line of defense between them and us, which made me wonder, was I actually hearing their words? Or were they simple manifestations of their thoughts being transmitted and translated by the nature of void qi?

Suddenly, I wished that I'd spent more time asking Reili about her kin. Before fleeing to the Black City, the only spirit of the void I knew of was Reili herself until my human body was stripped away and I joined their ranks. Reili had mentioned there being others, but could these really be them? She had always described them in the same way I would describe the Sun Queen's empire: a whole civilization that flourished in a place far from our doorstep. Yet, that which stalked and hunted us were little more than monsters.

The voices slowly began to die away, their owners growing bored and seeking prey elsewhere. Only after silence had reigned for a long time did I dare to relax, releasing my grip on the Spider Witch.

"I think they're gone," I whispered.

The Witch was still trembling, but at least she opened her eyes and glanced around at our darkened surroundings. Never once did she make a move to rise. It seemed that she was perfectly content to remain where I'd pulled her down in the chaos.

"I thought I was going to die," she muttered to no one in particular.

"I didn't think it was your first dance with a near-death experience," I answered.

She shook her head. "You nearly killed me once. The Hornet Queen once did, too."

"Yet, here you are."

Tears leaked from her eyes, and she pulled her knees close. Despite her manufactured body, her shoulders wracked with involuntary shudders, the kind which I expected from an actual, living body rather than a mere puppet.

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I put a hand on her shoulder, and she seemed to collapse. She buried her face in my shoulder and quietly sobbed. It was a pitiful sight, the look of someone who knew they shouldn't cry, knew that it was neither the time nor place, but couldn't stop even if they tried.

My heart ached for her. Despite the history between us, I hated seeing her cry. I hated seeing any girl cry, mostly because the only girls who'd cried much in my presence were my sisters. Feeling the tension and fear in her as she soaked my clothes in her tears, I couldn't help but imagine if it was Chouko or Aya in my arms.

Thinking of it that way, there was only one logical thing to do. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and held her tight.

"Shhh, it's okay. You made it through," I repeated again and again as she cried and cried.

She must have cried like that for nearly ten minutes. When the tears finally stopped flowing and her shoulders ceased their violent tremors, she looked up at me, eyes red.

"Why are you being nice to me?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"We're enemies."

I shrugged. "I make a point to learn the names of all my enemies by the second meeting. Since I don't know yours, you must not be my enemy."

She stared at me, and I could see her thoughts grinding together in confusion before she finally answered. "It's Lihua."

"Clan name, Miss Lihua?"

"Don't have one," she answered. "Mother never cared enough to remember any of her children, let alone give them names."

"Then, where did you get yours?"

Lihua blushed and looked away. "It…it was written on the tombstone of one of the bodies I used to make this form."

And here I thought she couldn't get any more morbid, I thought. Turns out, she can impress even me.

But, aloud I said. "That's…nice. I didn't realize you could read at that point."

"I taught myself."

"I see." I put a finger to her chin and pulled her gaze to mine. "Well, Miss Lihua, now that I know your name, are you still interested in being enemies?"

Blush crept into her cheeks, turning her freckled face as red as her hair. I had to admit, her body was far more real than I'd ever given it credit for. It took a stunning amount of qi just to animate a corpse. Even then, most often the result would be stiff, moving with great difficulty as the flesh tried and failed to remember its living habits. But, Lihua's body was nothing like that. Though her hands were colder than a living person, her body moved with the fluid grace of the living, even if she did stumble at times. That her eyes flowed with tears and her cheeks blushed at my touch only went to prove that she was an exceptional spirit artist and that her soul was very much alive.

"N-no," she said. "I never wanted to be enemies, just…wanted to have you as my knight."

I withdrew my hand swiftly, suddenly remembering why she'd creeped me out so much back in Heimian. If she was still hoping to reanimate my corpse as her perfect, pretty doll, then this was about to get extremely awkward.

"Right, that," I began, unsure of what else to say.

Lihua rolled her eyes. "I know when I'm out of my league, you know. I lack the skills to make you my knight. The version I'd raise would be," she paused, as she fought to control a tremor that had entered her voice, "a pale imitation at best."

"I'm glad you see that."

"My master could have done it," she said wistfully. "He promised he would."

Her voice was filled with regret and longing. Though this was the first time I'd ever heard of this mysterious master of hers, I got the feeling that the two were not as close as I'd been to my master back at Heaven's Blade.

"I didn't realize you had a master."

"He revived me in Heimian after you killed me the first time." Lihua sighed. "He asked me my heart's desire, and I told him it was you." She squeezed her legs tightly. "How foolish I was. As soon as he actually saw you, he…changed tune. I don't know why I expected anything different. Everyone loves you."

Lihua sighed again, and in that gesture, I saw the weariness and sorrow of a thousand lifetimes all compressed into a single moment. Then, as if remembering herself, she crawled aside, finally letting me stand. I did so, then helped her to her feet.

"So, where did you bring us?" she asked, looking around at the ruined basement.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But, this was one of only a few places with a basement that could still be barricaded. The surface looked like a sect estate, but I didn't see any symbols left."

Lihua crossed her arms. "Well, I'd rather not starve down here with only the forbidden fruit to keep me company in my final hours."

I rolled my eyes. None of this would be a problem if she'd just listened to me in the first place. The dark districts were abandoned for a reason, that reason being that anyone who didn't flee was swiftly killed and their souls doomed to wander the shadows for eternity…or worse, were eaten.

No wonder the Forgotten were so concerned about the power core. Vulnerable as shades were to changes in ambient qi, the array in their estates was likely the only thing keeping them from joining the spirits roaming in the dark.

"Listen, why did you steal the core?" I asked.

She glared at me. "You want to have that conversation, now? While we have bigger problems?"

"Do you see another way out besides going back into the dark?" I countered.

"Not yet, but give me a few minutes," she snapped.

Lihua clearly wasn't eager to answer my question just yet, but I'd get it in time. Her actions put people in danger. It was the only thing I could do to try and put things to right.

In the meantime, we began to search the basement. It sprawled beneath the complex above, with many rooms and passages. The place was clearly once used as storage for the sect's materials. Several barrels looked like they might have held food, once. Those days, though, had long since passed. Food had all turned to dust, scrolls crumbled at the slightest touch, and even the cobwebs dissolved upon breathing in their general direction. No creature had called this place home in millennia, of that, I was certain.

For her part, Lihua was feeling along the walls. I left her to her thoughts, watching with mild interest. Gingerly, she felt along every brick and mortar line with an expert touch. In the third storage room we found, she pressed her cheek to the wall. When she pulled away and dusted herself off, she turned to me.

"There. Something is behind here. Might be an escape."

I peered at the wall. It was certainly not unheard of for sects to have secret passages and tunnels that led out from their estates. In fact, it was a common practice. If a rival sect attacked, then the youngest disciples and the masters in charge of the sect's records and techniques could escape through the tunnels.

Yet, even as I stared at the wall, I saw nothing different than any other patch of wall. The mortar was solid, the bricks weren't cracked. I didn't even feel any sort of breeze in the dark and dank basement. Everything was still and silent.

"Trust me," Lihua said, rolling her eyes. "I might look human now, but I was born a spider."

"I seem to recall you being the size of a large dog," I countered. "Somehow I doubt you could have fit through a wall crack."

She shrugged. "Perhaps when we knew each other, but when I was young, I was much smaller." She tapped a finger against the wall. "Come on, break it here, Master void artist."

I sighed. With a flick of my wrist, I tossed a black sphere of qi filled with tiny voidlight stars at the wall. The stones hissed as they dissolved. Any protections that had previously guarded the stretch of wall had long since faded after exposure to the qi above. Soon, the entrance crumbled in a cascade of dust.

"Chiho? Can you make a breeze?" I asked. The pin trilled and separated from my hair. It whipped around me three times, summoning pink and green wind qi to stir the air within. The dust cleared, revealing a dark passage within.

"Won't you be my hero and go first?" Lihua's words were sweet but laced with a combination of fear and venom. Rather than argue the point, I lit a small light in my palm and stepped through the broken wall.

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