The Blood Suckers took my nephew. I never saw him again. They probably used him to make the blood stones they insist on paying us merchants with. They’re a blight on the community, yet no one challenges them. The clans ignore them so long as their own aren’t targeted, and the righteous sects claim larger issues. I wonder how long until they’ve grown too large for either one to deal with.

  - A concerned mother in the Black City around the inception of the Blood Stalking Demon Sect.

  By the time we reached the inner gates of the Domain of Blood, I’d made several mental notes to first wash my shoes, then burn them. Hei Shenshou must have been of like mind, since seemed to exercise extreme care in keeping his tails several inches higher than he usually did, lest they accidentally brush against the blood stained ground.

  “Maybe they just spilled sriracha all over the floor?” he muttered to himself. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of spilled sriracha. Maybe they had a party with noodles and rice balls, and everyone was so drunk that they spilled all their sriracha.”

  “Across the entire estate?” I whispered back so the disciples couldn’t hear us.

  “Maybe they really love sriracha,” he answered.

  I fought back the smile that threatened to break my mask. Hei’s confidence at the gate had melted, leaving behind a scared looking kit pretending to be calm. Anxiety radiated from him in waves. Knowing him, he was probably reciting the recipe for his grandmother’s famous noodle soup in his head.

  Part of me wanted to pat him between the ears. Despite being at least four hundred years old—kitsune grow a new tail once every hundred years or so—he still had all the markings of youth. His cultivation was decent, but as an inner disciple of the Shattered Moon Sect, he’d been sheltered away from the rest of the world for centuries. It was only when he split from the sect and was forced to serve the community that he really began to see the world for what it was again.

  Some days, though, I wondered if Shenshou really wanted to be a cultivator. Despite his insistence that he would follow me into the very jaws of hell, he just didn’t seem the type. I would sooner picture him serving noodles as an elderly fox than challenging the heavens himself.

  It is the smallest and most unassuming caterpillars who grow to become butterflies, I reminded myself for the first time in an age. It was something Aya told me, and I, in turn, told to Chouko, when we were little. Whenever the other disciples of Heaven’s Blade would make fun of Chouko for her size or meager strength, I would tell her that she’d become the most beautiful butterfly of them all.

  At the end of the day, determination made a cultivator more than anything else. The will to do what was needed and defy fate was what drove Ascendants. Hei Shenshou had plenty of determination if he was willing to stand up to me directly. Perhaps all he needed was a push…

  The disciples led us up a grand set of stairs to the receiving hall. It was another grand display of wealth, but one that fell far short of intimidating us. Though living on the hill was certainly a show of strength, even the highest point in the Domain was still a few hundred feet below the lowest point of Half-Moon Manor.

  I was more worried about slipping on the stairs. Fresh crimson trickled down and pooled on each step, creating a truly hazardous path for would be intruders. In the end, I deemed the safety of my cohort more important than decorum. With a wave of my hand, moon qi surged forward and reality was altered. Where blood once dripped, the white stones were replaced with a reality where the stones were precisely cleaned every day, where they practically sparkled with cleanliness.

  One of the disciples glared at me, but I kept my eyes straight ahead. It was beneath me to acknowledge the feelings of a mere disciple. Even if I was supposed to care, it was my responsibility to ensure that Hei Shenshou and the others from Fate’s Eclipse made it out of here without cracking their skulls on the floor. If a hasty retreat was required, something I believed extremely likely, a clean escape would go a long way towards saving our lives.

  “Sect Leader Xue will see you now,” our guide said evenly, bowing respectfully to us.

  I lowered my voice, speaking only to Hei Shenshou. “Ears forward, tails relaxed, Shenshou. We’ll be just fine.”

  The kitsune cast a look of confusion at me before doing as he was told. A deep breath calmed his nerves and he donned his own mask, that of the confident sect leader. It was actually quite heartening to see. It had been a long time since I walked into a room with my own sect at my back, even if back then it was my master who was the sect leader.

  The plaque over the door proudly declared the receiving hall as the “Hall of Demon’s Feast,” and it soon became apparent why they declared it such. It was just as messy as the stones outside, with a dozen yokai of a dozen varieties sitting at tables to either side of the room. They feasted on raw meat, and it was quite clear that they cared little for manners as they tore into their meat with reckless abandon. I didn’t want to think of what that meat was made of, but based on the size of the bones, I had my answer. I reaffirmed that I would never let either Lin or Xinya accompany me on one of these ventures until I could once again outlaw the consumption of humans.

  “They have quite the decadent lifestyle for a sect of cultivators,” Shenshou muttered.

  I was hardly in a position to judge those who favored indulgence over restraint, given my own struggles with vanity and bloodshed, but this was excessive. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the quiet agreement of several Fate’s Eclipse disciples. Demonic sects like Fate’s Eclipse often found themselves sharing the same space within the eyes of those who thought themselves better, but they were on a completely different level than this. A few of the disciples had pieces of jade or silver woven into their hair or clasped around their necks, but they looked upon the vileness of the Blood Stalking Demon Sect with disdain.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  Pity for them filled my heart. They might have volunteered for this mission, but I doubted they realized just how terrible the conditions of that mission would be. I’d sooner swim through a sewer than stay here a moment longer than I had to. My qi surged around me before extending to each of the younger cultivators with me. It would keep their clothes clean and the stones beneath their feet free of blood for the duration of our visit.

  “Sect Leader Xue,” Shenshou greeted politely. “Thank you for agreeing to see us today.”

  Xue Bashi sat upon a throne at the head of the hall, and to my surprise, he actually seemed to possess some measure of self-respect. Where his subordinates had sleeves drenched in the tailings of their fetid meal, his clothes were actually clean. Crimson sleeves with gold embroidery were arranged artfully as he lounged to one side, a goblet in his hand which I dearly hoped was filled with wine, even though I knew it probably wasn’t. Just because he looked human didn’t mean he was one.

  “So this is the one who claims relation to the Darkened Moon,” he mused softly, ignoring Hei Shenshou completely.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Shenshou’s bluff didn’t seem to be working, given that he skipped straight over a fellow sect leader to speak directly to me, and with none of the respect deserving of my station. The fox seemed to notice, because he took a step forward, ears lowering slightly to show his discontent.

  “With all due respect to the sect leader, but I am the leader of the Fate’s Eclipse Sect, and it is our sect who has come to petition the Blood Stalking Demon Sect for their aid in bettering the city.”

  My vision swam with a warning only moments before Xue Bashi spoke again. By the time the sect leader opened his mouth, I was already moving.

  “Silence, pup.”

  A lash of red launched at Shenshou with an edge keen enough to cleave his head from his shoulders. However, my hand was already on the kitsune’s collar, yanking him behind me and flinging a disk of moonlight where he stood. The red qi collided with the silvery blue of voidlight and was deflected just high enough to soar over the heads of my disciples. It collided with the ceiling, damaging the delicately molded patterns of blood.

  “Highness,” Shenshou began, but I shook my head. I didn’t need nor want his apologies. Even if he had confidence, I had no illusions in my mind as to how this would go. It was why both Xinya and Lin stood ready to enact their parts of the plan.

  “So, the legends are true,” Xue Bashi said, a smile crossing his face. “The Darkened Moon really does have the greatest luck.” Sickening arrogance echoed back to me through my Echo Chamber.

  “And a commensurate amount of skill, I assure you,” I answered calmly.

  “So, you do speak, after all.” He took a long sip from his goblet, but his eyes never left me.

  “When necessary.”

  “And you did not think it necessary to speak with the leader of the greatest sect in the Black City? Instead you leave it to some pup who hasn’t even reached Gold?” he sneered.

  Shenshou’s ears drooped, and the limited patience I had for this conversation waned. By my count, Xinya would be enacting her phase of the plan any minute now. It could not come soon enough.

  I summoned a fan of voidlight to my hand, letting the threads of misfortune spread around me. In my own eyes, it was an intimidating display, but no one but myself—and sometimes Lin—could see the strands of fate weaving themselves around the room like a dozen hungry serpents. It was a precautionary measure. We’d need to flee soon.

  “It seems my information was out of date, then,” I answered, fanning myself gently. “I was under the impression that the Storm Chaser Sect was the strongest within the Black City.” The twitch in Xue Bashi’s eye only encouraged me. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m simply not used to living on such a small scale. It seems like only yesterday that the Heaven’s Blade and Black Star Sects were considered rivals for the title of greatest sect, but that was when this still held the lofty name of Half-Moon Hearth instead of the rather uninspired name of Black City.”

  “It seems the legends failed to capture your arrogance.”

  “And it seems that your reputation perfectly captured yours.”

  The room went silent. Even the masters dining on their horrible meal cast their glances between me and Xue Bashi.

  For my part, it took all my effort not to sigh at my own dramatics. All that time I lectured Xinya on not mouthing off to those of higher rank, and I did exactly that. I could tell myself the situation was different, that I was playing up my role as the fallen Ascendant, but that didn’t make my actions any less dangerous.

  “What is it you want?” Xue Bashi asked curtly.

  I could see him calculating the odds. Was I actually the Ascendant? If I was, would it be better to kill me while I was weak, or curry favor until I assumed my throne once more to reap the benefits.

  “I’ve been working to restore the city’s defensive arrays as a way of combatting the blackouts,” I explained. “Due to the damage of time, I’ve been reconfiguring the arrays to accept more varied qi as fuel.”

  He took another sip from his goblet. “The master defense array is in the Dark Palace. Are you claiming you’ve survived that place?”

  “I built Half-Moon Manor from the ground up. It was a simple matter of disabling my own traps.”

  “And what can this humble sect do for you, Conqueror of the Palace?” His words dripped with sarcasm, and I fought back the urge to punch him. He might have looked clean, but given the rest of the building, I wasn’t convinced that I wouldn’t contract some terrible blood plague from punching him. As it was, I was going to have a very long bath, and have Hua Zhen heat the water to scalding.

  “I understand you have an artifact that you use to stabilize the qi in your rituals.” I kept careful hold over my mask of indifference. There was only one way this conversation ended. “I need that artifact to merge the qi forms and stabilize the system.”

  As I anticipated, Xue Bashi burst out laughing. It was a loud, raucous sound that roused the amusement of his subordinates until we were at the center of a pack of cackling hyenas. Shenshou and the other Fate’s Eclipse disciples edged closer to me, fearing the malice and cruelty behind the eyes of our hosts.

  “The legends did not mention that the Darkened Moon had such a sense of humor!”

  “I wasn’t joking.”

  “Then surely I misheard you,” he snarled. “You come in here, mock our ways by removing the blood from beneath your feet, then you have the audacity to ask for the Demon’s Heart? You must surely have the thickest face to ask all that as a mere Gold.”

  I fanned myself gently. The threads of voidlight misfortune coiled around the wrists and ankles of several of the gathered masters.

  “You’re bold to speak to me that way,” I mused. “Even a single moon moth can change the fates of gods.”

  Before Xue Bashi could lift his lips to sneer again, my attention was drawn away by two simultaneous occurrences. Not far, a terrible CRASH! thundered through the air followed by the sound of stones crumbling and disciples screaming. Xinya had finally made her move with the Chikara. The plan was officially underway.

  However, at the same time as Xinya’s lightning struck down the wicked amongst the Blood Stalking Demon Sect, a pain lashed across my wrist. I only had just enough time to see several bleeding gashes form together before my vision was swept away by prophecy.