Radeon waited for the last rays to die. This was not the first time people had come here claiming the peak as prime land.

It may not be the center most land, but it sat westernmost and it was the tallest spine of stone in sight.

Traders from the central continent would see it first. Incoming merchants would use it like a landmark.

The crowd grew as minutes passed. Laughter and wagers thickened the air.

Men started betting how long the miners would last. Others came closer, curious where the confidence came from.

Radeon did not care. His eyes stayed on the sun. When the light thinned to a bleeding rim, he raised his voice.

"Ready your torches."

The sound rolled through near a thousand minds. Fay, Good Chip, Spice Cure, and Gauge Point drew out their own joss money.

The paper looked plain. People murmured. Some leaned in. One man, too bold and too curious, pushed close through the bodies.

Radeon met him with a flat look, warning without words. The man ignored it.

He reached toward a child, fingers spread to snatch the joss money from small hands.

Radeon did not let him. He drew his weapon. The eldritch cloak ate the shape of it, obscuring metal and mechanism from plain sight.

Ammunition slid into place. A single shot cracked. The man's head snapped back and opened. Blood sprayed and then pooled at his feet. He hit the ground like a sack of wet grain.

Panic surged. Shouts rose.

"Who did that?"

"Who dares?"

Radeon did not answer them. The sun slipped behind the earth. In that instant, he transmitted through soundless qi.

"Light them now. Turn off your torches."

Joss paper caught flame. Radeon counted fast. More than a thousand, including the beasts.

Small flames bloomed. Paper curled and blackened as offerings turned to ash.

Trouble arrived on cue. Hooded figures emerged from the dark, faces hidden by animal masks.

They moved with purpose, not curiosity.

Their intention was simple. If they could not have the mountain, no one could.

"Fay," Radeon sent, sharp and clipped. "Protect the folks. Keep the joss burning."

He moved before fear could spread. Campion's shield unfolded. Bamboo and hide flared into wings along its sides.

The bison rose. People stumbled back at the sight. Many had never seen a creature like it.

Some unaffiliated fighters hesitated, suddenly unsure if offending the white-haired man was wise.

Those with backing did not hesitate. They pushed forward. Radeon took to the air.

Shots rang out from above. He counted his breaths like steps.

One breath. Two. Three. Five breath tempering cultivator's head burst into chunks.

Another dropped before he understood he was being hunted. Radeon struck as he flew.

Cornerstone-setting cultivators reacted, wary now, hiding behind stone and trees.

A group of gilded core in masks gave chase, angry enough to forget caution. Radeon let them chase.

His bullets found the softer targets first. Breath tempering bodies fell in heaps as they tried to rush the summit.

Hundreds poured up the slope, chasing the miners for what pay they were offered.

They dropped like flies when the air around them punched sudden holes through brow or chest.

An archer of cornerstone setting peeked around rock, arrow half drawn.

Radeon took him down before the string could sing.

The gilded core masked ones snarled in rage. They pushed harder, trying to close distance, trying to make it a fight where their cultivation mattered more than his range.

Radeon rose higher. Into cloud. Cold wind bit his face. Campion beat the air with heavy wings, climbing.

Radeon chose the one with the least vitality among the gilded cores. Not the weakest link but the softer physique.

He went higher still. Then he folded the wings back into a shield.

Threads snapped out past the shield's edge, fast and almost invisible. They bound the target at the arms, the fingers, the calves.

They tightened until the cultivator's movement became a puppet's struggle. Radeon tugged the fingers each time he felt an invocation start.

Radeon pressed the shield down onto Campion's head. Wind caught the bison's hooves.

They dropped. The descent happened in a blink. The peak exploded on impact. Stone shattered.

The bound gilded core came apart like meat on a cleaver. Hands, arms, neck, legs, torso. Prime cuts flung outward in a wet spray.

Radeon snapped the shield back into wings and pulled up through the shockwave.

The cultivators who saw a gilded core dismembered in an instant. Some cursed him. Some screamed oaths. Most ran.

Radeon did not let them. To him they were only targets. More vulnerable now, backs turned, feet slipping on loose rock.

Below, joss paper continued to burn. Fay kept the miners tight, her teal flames lashed at any who broke through.

The offerings had to finish. That was the price. The last bundle of joss paper curled into ash.

The mountain rumbled. Fog began to seep from every orifice it had. Cracks. Cavities. Old vents that had never breathed.

It poured out thick and fast, a living thing rolling down the slope.

People who touched it went slack eyed. Their minds blurred at once. They stumbled like drunks, hands pawing at air, forgetting what direction meant.

Those who could still think ran. Those who could not stayed where the fog took them.

Campion crashed through the treeline. Radeon let the beast ram the softer trunks, caring about splinters or bark.

Campion's qi went slack, like a rope cut. The wings folded. Radeon could not feel the fog on his skin.

Because it was not on the skin. It clung to the soul.

He looked around and listened. Flesh hit rock somewhere below. Meat thudding against cliffside, bodies tumbling where the slope had no mercy.

The sound was ugly. The sound was useful. Radeon would not let a feast like this pass.

He moved through the haze and found the fallen gilded cores first. He devoured them.

Cores harvested fast, swallowed. Any corpse with fresh vitality, he took. Any breath still clinging in a throat, he stripped away.

His special physique pointed out the crowd's malice even through the soul fog, and his crystalline brain let him remember them all.

This was the only time he could trim enemies and cultivate at the same time, while everyone else's minds were smeared into mud.

He did not let them pass. He did not let them crawl away to become tomorrow's problem. In a couple of hours, over a thousand people died. More than his bullets had taken.

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