Fifteen years had passed since lightning had found a home in a daughter of the Liao Clan. In those years, Hua had succoured on a variety of purified pills to enhance her body and quicken her towards awakening an awareness of Qi. It was a process that would have been ruinously expensive if not for the backing of a Great Clan that levied the taxes of an entire region and received tribute from their vassals.


    The fifteen years had made a powerful body to house lightning Qi and seen her learn various arts. Arts such as the quiet steps of an assassin needed to appear in a battle of warriors unnoticed until she spoke a single, simple word:


    “Enough.”


    Hua would give some credit where it was due. The strongest of them, the man with the spear, did not so much as care to look before retaliating blindly. He pushed the but of his spear to pivot it around his guiding hand, forcing it into a wide arc that would gut her if it reached.


    That was a good instinct. Attack the threat or run. Preferably both at the same time. And he did do both, stepping forward and away from her as the spear continued with his momentum.


    It was painfully slow. Slow enough for her to stare and almost see through him. He was in the Body Tempering stage. Anyone could technically reach that stage and many did so unconsciously, altering their body to something approaching human perfection. Qing had done it partly through her natural talent, partly following the mantra of her jade-carver father, and mostly by having Liao Hua as a playmate. This man felt like the waters of the Liao River. He was a rower, someone who had spent a lifetime parting the water with a paddle. Maybe he had been a child when he first realised a paddle could be a weapon as well. A skill that translated to learning how to use a spear.


    Foolish. A double halberd or wolf club would have been a better weapon. Expensive, yes, and she recognised the poor quality of his yellow robes but—


    Hua reached out and wrapped her hand around the place where wooden shaft became steel tip, abruptly stopping the spear’s momentum. The force didn’t even send vibrations through her arm.


    —sometimes investing in your equipment paid off. Hua snapped the head of the spear off and threw it. The point smashed into stone and embedded itself deeply. The high-pitched whine of it shaking in the wall punctuated the sudden silence that descended as fighters realised an apex predator had interfered in their battle.


    She glanced down at the man she had saved. He was handsome in a homely way, a face you wouldn’t mind seeing in whatever bookstore he worked. Vaguely trustworthy and maybe even pretty if he didn’t have a purple bruise blooming across his face and blood on his greying temple. He had a leather satchel attached to his waist of a quality notably greater than his decent robes.


    “Have you ever considered using a halberd?” Hua asked, returning her intent on the man still impotently clutching his snapped spear.


    That took all four men aback.


    He dropped his mostly useless weapon. It clattered to the ground with a twang. Hua would not have done the same. A spear without a tip was just as staff and those broke necks.


    “Honoured Daoist, this fool begs your forgiveness for pointing his weapon at you. He was unaware of the exalted presence that honoured him with her attention. In what way may this fool repent?”


    “By answering the question I asked.”


    The man lost all colour. He became as a beam of sunlight falling on snow, yellow robes covering pale flesh.


    “This Brother Di has never had the chance to be instructed in such a refined weapon, honoured Daoist.”


    “A shame. You would have been better suited to it over a standard spear. It might have even pushed you towards Qi Condensation if you mastered it. Would you like to see what you stopped yourself from reaching?”


    The man paled further, somehow, clenching his jaw so tight Hua was surprised his teeth did not break. “This Brother Di would be honoured.” Blood seeped past the seal of his lips, dribbling down his goatee as he spoke.


    Hua raised her hand and summoned the lightning she had been born to wield. Sparks crackled in the gaps between her fingers. It came to her so easily, the power of her elemental qi. Liquid lightning in her dantian, lighting up her meridians.


    Even these minor sparks were enough to remind them that one factor gave supremacy in the world. Qi. That which those blessed by heaven wielded. It felt like a curse today. What had Qi done but destroy the world Hua knew?


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    Faster than she had ever done before, like her body had become a conduit for lightning, she split Qi into its constituent parts, yin and yang, and rejoined them to form the Trigram Zhen.


    She struck with the force of thunder, her palm caving in the man’s chest. He staggered back, clutching at his chest. It was a precise thing she did, focusing the force of the thunderclap without sending him flying. As he fell to his knees, she considered whether simply punching his chest until it folded inward would have been a worthy trade-off for getting blood on her hands. She had never liked the effort it took to clean dried blood.


    He gasped out a stuttered breath, a whistling whine punctuating the air.


    She stared at the men, slowly looking between them. The first turned away entirely but though he twitched to move away, his compatriot held him by the elbow. That one stared carefully at a spot on her chin, refusing to meet her eyes that fell upon the characters written on his robes. The School of Yellow Faith. Hua had never heard of it but like the mortals, it only mattered as far as it was connected to the phantasm sitting on the wall, watching her.


    It did not make her feel better. Ending this fight before further blood was shed changed nothing in a way that mattered. Qing was still gone. She could turn the oceans red with mortal blood, and it would not return Qing to her. Saving mortals would give her nothing of worth. But she needed space and time and resources to Cultivate. Pills and artefacts, teachings and Scriptures. To grow stronger, she could not spend time worrying about where her next meal would come from or when the mortals would next riot. Space and time and resources would be granted only from a from a prosperous city.


    In the distance, great clouds of smoke drew her attention. Those were the fields burning. Scorching the Amber Sea that fed the province. Already, winter’s chill cut through her simple clothes. Too many would die, she realised. Far, far too many.


    She turned her gaze to the last two men in yellow. They froze in further terror when they met her leonine gaze. She waited a beat, two, before the smarter of the two dropped to his knees, dragging his companion to the ground. They did not dare look up again even as she let the silence build.


    “The Liao Clan still stands. It will not stand for this behaviour. Yield or join your fellow in repentance.”


    “Many blessings, honoured Daoist. Our brother thanks you for your instruction on the Thunder Palm. We would gladly follow your commands.”


    She very much doubted a dying man would thank his killer. But who really knew with peasants. Theirs were strange ways with stranger beliefs. A true Cultivator would be swearing eternal vengeance. Bridging the gap between where he knelt, and her Qi Condensation, was much simpler than bridging the gap between heaven and earth.


    Dismissing them, she walked forward. Past the corpse. Past the kneeling men.


    “Young Mistress Liao,” the man said loudly, rudely. She graced him with her attention. He did not buckle under a Cultivator’s attention. A seal adorned his dirty robes, tied at his waist. She read the characters with mild curiosity. The School of Doubting Antiquity.


    Had he been under attack because of a disagreement between scholarly schools? It seemed a silly reason to die over paper whilst the city burned and flooded in equal measure. Well, she also hadn’t realised scholars also studied the martial arts.


    “What does a sceptic of history wish of me?”


    “Young Mistress Liao, this sceptic would serve you if you would have me.”


    “In what capacity would a sceptic serve? Tell me, what need do I have for a historian? What role do you fulfil that the vassals of my Clan cannot?”


    “This one has served as assistant, messenger, and scribe for many great lords. One does not claim to have served one of such great stature as a daughter of Liao, but one would succeed or one would take his own life. That would be my oath as a new vassal.”


    One of the men kneeling hissed out a curse.


    “Yes? Speak.”


    “Honoured Mistress Liao, this humble servant cannot remain silent as a charlatan attempts to draw close to you in search of false valour. That Sceptic is a scoundrel of great disrepute. It would taint the name Liao to have such a foreigner walking beside you.”


    She gave Liu Xin another look. Ah, he had prominent ears and his hair a bit wavier than most, tinting red in the right light. Foreign blood. Likely the Jurchen tribes. It mattered greatly to the mortals, she knew. Hua also could care less from what stock a mortal came from. That he remained undaunted, facing her without fear; such a quality was what mattered.


    “What is your name?”


    “This Scribe is honoured to be called Liu Xin.”


    There was no Liu Clan of any prominence in Liaojiangkou despite his inherited title. A few families with that name, some even boasting a lineage of a century, but nothing truly noteworthy. Perhaps his foreign parent or ancestor had married into them for trade reasons.


    Hua found she did not care.


    “For what reason do you have to pledge yourself to this Young Mistress?”


    “There is no higher calling than service to the Liao Clan and to the one who wields the great Thunder Palm technique,” he said, bowing over his hands. “This one would find a life of service to you a life worth living.


    That little trick?


    “Come,” she spoke, and set forth. “Prove your worth.”


    It mattered little his reason for following. So long as he obeyed it would be enough. He fell in behind her, having the audacity to stand only two steps behind her. Such temerity. Only a mortal with nothing to lose would dare.


    She found herself admiring it. It was the same kind of bravery as punching someone from a Great Clan without a hint of remorse.


    Qing would have found you interesting. Maybe Hua as well could find something interesting in him.


    “Do you know how fucked we are?” one of the two remaining scholars whispered, following at a remove from her. Mortals very often didn’t grasp how advanced a Cultivator’s senses could be.


    “She’s a Cultivator, I know.”


    “No, you shithead, she has silver hair. We’ll be fucking lucky if she kills us quick.”


    Rude. Hua rarely had reason to torture people. She found it boring and there were members of her Clan who were much more proficient in it than she could ever be. Leaving the experts to do their thing was advice her grandmother gave her, and it had yet to steer her wrong.


    “Why?”


    “Because crimson smiles follow silver hair. I’d like to avoid having a slit throat.”