<blockquote>


    …Of the Great Trials by Fire, perhaps the most famous, or infamous, is that presented in the previous aeonspan by the ‘Empress who Broke the Heavens’. It is famous because usually such trials are limited only to the younger generation; however, the Empress’s trial was made open to all who wished to challenge it, so long as they were below the realm of Dao Ascension. The rewards for succeeding were all treasures from her personal collection, so it goes without saying that the pride of ten thousand worlds attempted to challenge it. In the end, twelve victors were crowned and won tokens of personal favour from the Empress who, considering the trial a great success, had then returned to her seclusion – leaving others none the wiser as to why she had even held it.


    It is infamous because only bloodshed and carnage has followed the possessors of those twelve talismans since then. Shortly after the trial ended, as people tried to make sense of its goals, strange rumours and theories started to circulate that assembling all twelve is in fact the Empress’s true test. and that the one who claims all of them and stands before her will be acknowledged as her successor. As far as anyone is aware, the Empress has never interceded for any of the original talisman holders, and in the intervening aeons what was originally unfounded speculation seems to have become largely taken as fact, or at least something close enough to it. Subsequently various influences, having started to covet those relics, have waged various bloody wars and dark deeds, fuelled by those ideas. Currently, all but three of the talismans are accounted for. Those missing, their original possessors never knowingly robbed or slain, are the ‘Heaven Shifting Scale’, ‘Heaven Seizing Loom’ and possibly the most precious, the ‘Heaven Breaking Talisman’. As to the others, two are currently held by the Heavenly Ming, three by the Heavenly Kong, one by the Heavenly Tang, one by the Shu Heavenly clan, one by the Heavenly Solace Society and one by the Longevity Cult…


    </blockquote>


    Excerpt from ‘The Treasures of Heaven’


    ~By Myo Gwan Sung.


    <hr>


    <h3 style="text-align: center">~ Meng Fu & Cao Liang – Inner Valleys of Yin Eclipse (with deep regrets) ~


    <hr>


    “Oh sweet Fates who have sold your worlds, what is this hell!?!” Cao Liang screamed as the tribulation seemed to take a deep breath and then… intensified, proving that fresh hell was indeed capable of appearing in this place despite, or perhaps to spite, her disciple’s wishes.


    “Okay, I concede, this is a little bit much,” she muttered wanly, as he stared at her in horror.


    There was no point trying to deny or curse at this point, it was a wasted effort. Her clothing, much like the valley around them, was in tatters now, red-gold blood running from myriad wounds across her body. Her protection talisman had shrunk to barely cover them both. She had reinforced it with a second, creating a backup yin-yang core for the overall formation, but it was finally starting to deplete beyond the point of replenishment.


    She had one more, with a full charge, but that she intended to keep in reserve in case of the thunder, and especially the quasi-Heavenly Retribution lightning now spidering overhead, visible as ominous, chasm-like curtains of pale gold against the black starless dome of obliteration covering the whole sky… or another dimensional avalanche if the ruination above actually managed to inflict a second such feat on Yin Eclipse.


    -Indeed, seizing good fortune from a moment like this is never simple, she remonstrated with herself bitterly. Should have remained looking like an old fogy, that’s the mindset needed to survive this.


    Still, she had succeeded in what she set out to do, in part at least, and most importantly, they were still alive. The four swords of her own set, that were not in her disciple’s possession, were merged with the four from the Savage Corona sword set her mother had given her, all of them orbiting around them in a Primal Trigram formation.


    The formation core of her mother’s set—a two-handed sword hewn from ancient, pitch-black parasol wood, and a formidable safeguarding treasure in its own right— she held in her hand. Mostly as insurance in case she had to cut more bolts directly.


    The thunder howled in abject fury, echoing through the firmament as if spawned by some primordial god of old, hammering out their curse on the mountains and skies above Yin Eclipse as if they were some ancient foe it sought to render to pulp. The realm wall had long since collapsed under the onslaught and what was staring down at her now, from on high, shattering slowly apart, was another, rather different ‘wall’.


    It was a ‘wall’ that had no name for most people and, if told of it, wouldn’t even believe it could break. But here, now… before her eyes, those silver spiders of lightning were flaking away the darkness and beyond it, shards of unreality were starting to drift upwards, revealing a new sky beyond.


    “W-what is… th-this?” Cao Liang quavered, staring up at the awe-inspiring, if thoroughly terrifying sight.


    “The Star Ocean,” she replied, a little bitterly, wondering if despite everything, she had, in the end, been suckered by the lingering touch of the Yang Intent. “Remember that time you asked me what it looked like?”


    “I... I apologise, teacher, I have incurred a penalty!” her disciple wailed, now having completely shed his pride as a senior it seemed.


    With a soundless shift, the entire sky dome fell upwards, finally succumbing to—


    “What—!?” Cao Liang’s scream vanished into the soundless void.


    Her comprehension failed her momentarily as she watched the red and black tendrils descend into the world from that hellish, bitter ocean where even gods feared to walk.


    -Heaven Sprite Lightning…


    Slack-jawed, she could only watch the roiling hyper-dimensional quake that rippled out from it as it fully forced its way through their realm wall and entered in, a behemoth of shadow and lightning, its form reflecting a nightmarish cosmic sea-beast. Helpless, she could only stare in awe as its myriad tendrils swept towards the peaks around the Great Mount, its maw opening into a channel that was already twisting disturbingly.


    With a noiseless howl, the darkness rose, the suppression flowing out of the land and focusing around the Great Mount.


    As she looked on, the clouds that had been sheltering its peak surged upwards and the great crater edge finally became visible. Above it, like a jagged lance, was the rest of the watchtower, ghostly chains of darkness now twisting out of the subsidiary peaks…


    Space unravelled.


    No longer was she standing in a valley, but on the edge of a vast and terrible pit.


    The valleys were gone, not that anyone below Dao Ascension would know it—their realms were too low, insignificant even, in the face of this new manifestation. To them, it would merely seem like darkness had fallen, just another layer of incomprehensible chaos amid a world rapidly being buried in calamity. If they lived or died was up to their own fate… although it was being twisted such through all the trial talismans that she suspected the immediate death toll would be preposterously low unless the Heaven Sprite Lightning actually overcame the mountain.


    If that happened, however, never mind them, or their influences, the whole Great World would be buried without a whole corpse. She might survive such a calamity courtesy of her soul lamp back in Vast Obscurity Grove, but she would drop back to Dao Ascension for the price of a life stolen away—and she had no idea how it would impact her current cultivation.


    -That will take some explaining, a small voice in the back of her mind wailed: ‘Hi Mother, uh… don’t mind me, I’m just being revived from my soul lamp, by the way, Eastern Azure is a black hole now and everything we worked for there is dust… um… Oops? It was all the Kong clan’s fault—Probably?’


    Banishing that rather inauspicious thought—teased out by a combination of her currently being in her ‘younger’ form, and the lingering influence of the yang energies that plagued the regions around the Jasmine Gate— she redoubled her focus on keeping control over the treasures protecting them.


    -Now is not the time to be having ‘moments’, she scolded herself.


    All around her, land rose and the idiotically immense mountain rapidly collapsed away into a much more reasonable set of mountain peaks as spatial ‘overstack’ locked up in the land rapidly bled out into ‘reality’. At its heart was a great black spike, like a fragment of volcanic glass speared into the Great World—the world shrinking as it was pulled up by the suppression itself. The whole mountain range was fighting back now.


    This was also Yin Eclipse, but as it had been over two aeonspan ago, when she first set foot into this world. Above, now revealed to view once again, were the shattered remnants of the lands cast up when this relic of an ancient war between gods and monsters fell down. The ruin that speared the heart of the mountain''s great crater of peaks dimly visible against the sky.


    She fancied in that moment she could see a figure—who was not the guardian—standing on its peak. With one hand, it supported itself with a spear, pennant fluttering in red, white and gold. In the other, it was raising a short black sword to the sky, while above it, a shining circle of silver fire spun—


    The ghostly chains connecting the tower to the peaks of the forbidden land’s cardinal directions collapsed, becoming eight wings of shadow and light to join two more on the distant figure''s back, sweeping up through the sky as the pinnacle rose up directly to meet the descending judgement.


    With a single move, the figure slammed the spear-butt onto the ground, sending out a wave of ‘Intent’ that carried with it principles so esoteric that they made her eyes bleed and her soul shake just to witness it.


    ‘Karmic Inevitability’, she realised with awestruck dread, a fundamental force of all that was, is and could be made manifest…


    The force met the descending fury, and the two were frozen, impossibly—


    The figure swept the sword upwards.


    The intent behind the stab upwards with the sword was so mundane that it might have been ignored if it wasn’t for the veil of primordial confusion that came with it. She stared, enraptured, at what was almost certainly a manifestation of ‘Fundamental Division’, as it swept through the descending tendrils—


    In the same moment, the wings, manifest like a blazing corona around the distant figure, swirled and flowed outwards, transforming into a vast, twenty-four petalled, heaven spanning lotus that swept up all the dissociated lightning and somehow dispersed it directly.


    In response, the sky above twisted and the channel in the heart of the manifestation of Heaven Sprite Lightning quaked. Still more thunder in myriad colours howled down around the peak, like some cosmic hurricane. Dark rain slammed like meteors from the tears in the sky and now silver lightning was starting to fall.


    -So, it is indeed not mere meddling, or even someone poking at the heart of this place, that has provoked this, she realised, grimly, as she focused everything into the formation core for the sword sets, and its synergy with the defensive barrier protecting them. This is almost like a Divine Crossing!


    Unbidden, the tales depicted in their family’s sacred shrine in the depths of the Vast Obscurity Parasol Forest of the Hong Meng Treasure Realm came to mind. Of her revered ancestor’s ascension across that fabled threshold beyond the Venerable Realm, on the shores of the Star Ocean where the Flowers of the Worlds bloomed beneath the Mountains of the Elder Moon—


    Even as she dwelt momentarily on that, the dimensional shearing above her took on a new and terrifying angle as ‘Exterminating Intent’, every bit as profound as the forces that had just repelled the Heaven Sprite Lightning, descended out of the channel—


    “…”


    Beside her, Cao Liang just slumped down, barely able to support himself on her sword, his face pale, eyes distant, as the oppression drew inwards, focusing not on the mountain, but everything in the entire mountain range.


    -Or not, she groaned, as the very linkages with her swords and the nodes of her formation groaned ominously. Not a Divine Crossing. This isn’t a tribulation at all!


    Collecting herself, she manifested the full force of her foundation into the barrier, however, the howl of primal defiance that reverberated from the swords was simply eaten up, by the soundless calamity that gripped everything


    -Gods don’t suffer tribulations, they are tribulations, a terrified voice in the back of her mind reminded her as she spat blood onto her mother’s protection talisman, strengthening her affinity to it, in the face of what was almost certainly a ‘Declaration of Decimation’.


    A fundamental intent to exterminate all things within its auspice and blot them out of recorded knowledge.


    -Karmic Execution, aimed at a God by another God.


    It arrived; flickering in the channel the first of the bolts of formless total nihility descended, pulling the Heaven Sprite manifestation inside out and reforming it flawlessly in a single mandala-motion.


    Like a lidless eye, the Decimation Intent scoured the Great Mount, searching for something… something it didn’t seem able to find?


    She focused her soul symbol on ‘Obscurity’, melding it with the supreme comprehensions sealed within her mother’s talisman and the swords, endeavouring to shield them from view as best she could…


    However, before that searching eye could do anything, the intent rising out of the ancient land intensified, to a degree she had not even thought possible, despite all the years she had spent watching this place since it emerged.


    The heroic figure swept their sword up again and this time the strike that met that Decimation Intent also carried soul-shaking aspects of ‘Karmic Execution’—fusing it with a primordial intention to divide ''being'' from ''un-being'', ''reality'' from ''unreality'' that she could only feel as clearly as this because the one using it simply didn’t care anymore about ‘reserve’.


    The Decimation recoiled like a wounded beast, spewing lightning in an unceasing torrent at the shattered black pinnacle. Dimension quakes radiated out where they hammered down, even as the bolts themselves were deflected back by the wings of the white shadow in the broken space at the top of the watchtower.


    -Oh. No.


    In shock, then sudden horror, she watched as those deflected bolts instantly became directionless—orphaned from the clash above.


    Somewhat mercifully, that act also seemed to reduce their strength by at least a supreme step, as unchained, they radiated outwards—charging in every direction across the ancient landscape. Even so, each and every single one was still comparable to the final bolt of a Celestial Venerate realm ‘Execution Tribulation’.


    With a piercing cry, she infused the fire of her soul into her mother’s heirloom sword and cut the first one that came to seek them out—every shred of Intent, Truth and Power she could muster focused on deflecting them away.


    <hr>


    <h3 style="text-align: center">~ Huang JiLao & Dun Lian Jing – Inner Valleys of Yin Eclipse ~


    <hr>


    Trembling, Huang JiLao stared up at the much calmer sky far above them.


    Finally, the calamity had subsided.


    Their group had survived… somehow.


    A part of him wanted to say it was utterly improbable, but he would take it, miraculous as it was.


    After the first wave of lightning bolts had scoured the ridgelines, they had fled for the nearest cover which was this sinkhole. It wasn’t that deep, but they had retreated inside as far as they dared. The rock overhead provided some comfort and protection against whatever was unfolding above. He had to reflect that it was like no tribulation he had ever experienced or heard of, and he was privy to some of the accounts of old ancestors’ supreme ascension tribulations.


    The flickers of black light and silver lightning that contained that boundless ''Principle of Ending'' had been shocking in their own right, but the red and black lightning?


    “That silver lightning was…?” Lian Jing had also come over to look at the sky, her face pale in the gloom.


    “I’ve never heard anything like that in any record…” Ran Hao, similarly shaken, also joined them.


    “The spatial distortion from whatever that was has completely broken the structure of this place,” Yan Ju groaned, pushing himself up and looking at the ruined divination compass in his hand.


    “It was a good call to make it into here, Miss Lu,” Tan Fang added behind them. “How did you know that this place would have these—” he gestured to the vein of strange matte crystal ore that ran across the back and roof of the cave floor.


    “—It’s Ignitic Arborundum,” Mo Lu replied, not looking up from whatever it was she was poking near the pool. “There are records of it in the Blue Pavilion Library. It’s apparently unworkable by anyone under Celestial Venerate, whatever realm that actually is.”


    “The stuff that ‘that jewellery’ and those artefacts in the southern continent''s ruins tend to be made of?” one of the other Blue Gate School disciples asked, sounding dazed.


    “Yes, that stuff,” Mo Lu said drily. “Its one unusual property is that it projects a stable field of qi that is almost unshakable by most worldly forces. Don’t ask me where they came by that information, though. It might be something from when the Blue Water Sage walked these lands. He did found the pavilion after all and left a lot of writings in it for the old ancestors there who helped him.”


    He glanced over at her.


    -Well, that is certainly not something we heard before, he sighed inwardly. And you throw it out so… offhandedly?


    In the course of their investigations, they had been able to discern that the Blue Pavilion had a much closer relationship to the Blue Gate School than any obvious record or intelligence either the Huang Clan or the Imperial Court had produced for him indicated, but the information that the old ancestors of the pavilion had personal writings of the Blue Water Sage…?


    Some part of him was tempted to relay that to ‘Imperial Teacher’ Dun Jian, if it was convenient, just for the supreme annoyance that it would likely cause the Imperial Uncle in trying to get anything out of Shan Lai. It was funny how he was starting to put undue emphasis on that title. Their relationship was fairly loose, not like Lian Jing, who was his actual sworn disciple. He was more of a visiting disciple if anything.


    “—Don’t get any weird ideas though,” Mo Bing, her sister, who had been listening in near by added. “It’s useless to get anything out of them unless you have family in the pavilion. It’s associated with Lady Xiao.”


    “T-that Lady Xiao!?!” someone else exclaimed.


    Nearby, Lian Jing, who was still brooding about the fate of the former headmaster''s orchid, dropped her pack. Ran Hao, meanwhile, nearly slid off his rock in shock...


    “Uhuh,” Mo Bing acknowledged, sounding largely unconcerned at the ‘revelation’ she had just divulged. “Our great-great-uncle is an Elder within the pavilion. For a bunch of young nobles from the central continent, you are surprisingly uninformed given you have been trying to turn the Blue Gate School upside down and back to front for almost a month.”


    “…”


    “We can go outside now, the danger has passed…” Mo Lu added, standing up with a sigh and completely ignoring the askance looks her sister''s comment had drawn. “The tribulation has been forcibly dispersed and whatever did it has also gone off to nurse a supreme headache, probably.”


    He was about to query that when one of the surviving mercenaries actually beat him to that question, a bit less respectfully than he would have phrased it. “How do you figure that, Miss Lu?”


    She flipped out a plate-sized compass carved of blue and white jade from somewhere and held it up for them all to look at – it was rock steady.


    “I…is that—!” It was Lian Jing''s turn to gasp now.


    “That is—!?” Yan Ju also gawped, his eyes growing wide... and a little greedy it had to be said as they flitted between the sisters.


    Quite a few other members of the White Storm Sept and even the Ran clan were staring at it with eyes that were respectful, but also just a touch hungry. He resisted the urge to rub his temples.


    -Just wonderful, another thing to worry about, he groaned inwardly. Mo Lu is useful enough and competent enough that I don’t want to have to worry about her being targeted by accidents or ill will and her sister Bing is no slouch either. If for no other reason than it will reflect very badly on me and Lian Jing if word ever gets out of it.


    “A Fate Shifting Compass. Yes,” Mo Lu answered, as blandly as if she were naming some root vegetable, not a priceless divination compass. “My great-great-uncle had the family protector give it to me before we came out here. He was worried that we were just going to be used as cannon fodder—”


    He winced quietly at her succinct estimation of the purpose of the Blue Gate School''s Inner Disciples, trying to ignore the side-eye many of them were now giving literally everyone else who Dun Jian had selected to accompany them.


    “—and wanted to give me a lifesaving treasure," Mo Lu continued.


    "Aye," her sister Bing added more archly. "So don''t think about stealing it, or trying to kill her for it, by the way. All of them originate from Lady Xiao''s personal patronage, and i don''t think your backing influences would take very well to being implicated in stealing her things!"


    -Ah. Fate-blessed monkeyshit. No, they would most definitely not, he thought with a wince.


    Even Lian Jing wouldn’t be able to hide under imperial protection from the anger of one of the twelve Heavenly Ladies of the Great Realm, of which Lady Xiao, for all that she was considered an ‘Imperial Advisor’ was very much in the ''problem causing – best left alone'' camp. She was not as bad as Lady Hua or the Mysterious Lady Mo or more recently Lady Kai, but she had enough of a reputation to raise eyebrows as far as he knew. Somewhat more pertinently, she was also known to act on margins of proof most would consider rather… ephemeral when it came to personal slights, something which had been worrying him a great deal the more he discovered about her roots in this region.


    In fact, it was fair to say that Lady Xiao was feared in certain circles almost as much as the Imperial Ancestor of the Seven Sovereigns School or the Four Hermetic Ancestors of the Shu Pavilion. Between her personal power and her young age, she was one of only a handful of quadruple generation ascenders still in the Great World. The other notable ones being Lady Hua—the Dewdrop Sage, Sect Master Tang—the current leader of the Moon Tomb Cult, Ancestral Peak Disciples Kai Bo and Shu Aoxu of the Shu Pavilion and Cao Liang and Lady Meng Yang of the Seven Sovereigns School. It was a source of extreme angst, politically speaking, that all of those were influences which, for various historical reasons, did not have lot of time for the Imperial Court either.


    He looked up at the sky, quietly discarding the idea of telling Dun Jian the next time they had to speak to him. He was already pretty certain the Imperial Uncle had known full well about the links between Lu Ji and Lady Xiao at this point and never bothered to tell them. If he hadn’t known… well that was a different matter, but someone in in that position should be aware of things like that, given how long he had been at the heart of Imperial Power. In a way, it was strange, as if a weight had dropped off of his shoulders as he made that decision. He had been scrupulously careful of the core elements of the Blue Gate School anyway since it became clear they were not simple, in the aftermath of the auction debacle, so he could only trust that his Uncle''s assertion that things could be smoothed over with Lady Xiao and the former headmaster would draw a line under things.


    “Should we tell him?” Lian Jing messaged him, putting a hand to his shoulder.


    The distortion above was still rippling away. Truly a convenient excuse.


    “Well, your talisman was broken, and mine can’t transmit,” he sent back.


    It was a lie, his would still transmit, to his own Uncle at least, but a convenient one now.


    “Uh… something feels off with the suppression…?” Tan Fang muttered after giving him a poke to get his attention.


    “Yeah… we are underground,” Mo Lu replied with a shrug. “That’s quite normal.”


    He nodded, wearily.


    It definitely felt like it had risen slightly. The stability of the space around them was reaching a point where he could barely teleport out of this sinkhole without exhausting himself of a good portion of his current qi reserves. Directly breaking space was a dream of mists and lights. The small mercy seemed to be that at least the realm suppression exerted on them was still the same.


    “Well then,” he said with as much mock gaiety as he could muster. “I guess we get to practice the ‘Dao of Rock Climbing’ for a bit.”


    Only Mo Bing laughed as they considered the sheer, slippery sides of the sinkhole they had taken refuge in.


    <hr>


    <h3 style="text-align: center">~ Meng Fu & Cao Liang – Inner Valleys of Yin Eclipse ~


    <hr>


    “We survived…”


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Her own words… and voice, Meng Fu thought, sounded slightly hollow to her ears, breathy even, as she looked around the lightning-cut chasm both she and Cao Liang had ended up in. Above her, the last fading echoes of thunder were still rumbling, even if the calamity had largely receded back into the firmament.


    As an ordeal, she could only describe the experience towards the end as harrowing; deflecting half a dozen of those orphaned bolts of lightning had been a far harsher test of her attainments than she was really comfortable with. That they had survived was purely down to her managing to outlast the ‘battle’ between the competing primordial forces.


    At least her natural vitality was largely undamaged by the whole ordeal. That was the key thing, besides refining her sword.


    “How long has it been since I was genuinely pushed like that?” she mused out loud, scanning the swirling grey clouds and mist above her for any lingering tell-tale surprises—any further surprises.


    Finding none, she sat down with a small sigh of relief and checked Cao Liang, who fortunately was just unconscious, thanks to sensory shock.


    It was rather ironic in this circumstance that being of a higher realm was… not actually a good thing. Most juniors would have survived with a barrier, thanks to the combination of the exceptional spatial integrity of the upper-most layer of Yin Eclipse, and because their duller senses didn’t expose them as much, unless they were unfortunate enough to be near a lightning bolt when it landed.


    For a Dao Ascendant like Liang, however, witnessing something like this, even while at her side, was rather like an Immortal standing in the midst’ of a Dao Ascendant’s crossing tribulation—or a mortal in a Dao Immortal’s.


    A barrier would probably have saved his life, but unless he fled into the depths of this place, his foundation would have been little better than Ji Ming’s at this point, had she not been here. And that was without factoring in that they had endured all this in a fate-thrashed prepared landscape.


    -It would have really been quite embarrassing to have my disciple killed in such a situation... especially after I said all those things…


    “…”


    With a deeper sigh, she looked around their surrounds again. Already she could feel the suppression was returning, although space felt… twisted and fragile in ways that made her deeply uncomfortable.


    “I guess we are still not teleporting out of here,” she grumbled, standing up and dusting off the worst of the ash on what was left of her robe.


    The climb did not look particularly difficult, just time consuming. Most spirit herbs with sense were hiding three feet down and the lightning had obliterated much of the spirit vegetation in the immediate vicinity.


    Their inadvertent trip to the bottom of the freshly wrought gorge-within-a-gorge they were now in, had actually been caused predominantly by Eastern Azure’s own petty clap-back to what had just unfolded. The heavens were quite predictable like that. They could always be relied upon to supply a few stray bolts of Retribution Lightning for ‘interesting’ onlookers, particularly ones like her who had a beyond dubious relationship with the current lot pulling the strings.


    Not to mention many of those old fate-cursed sell-outs coveted her blood lineage, not that they would dare put that into words. Those ‘stray bolts’ were something someone had tried to twist... at least two someone’s if her instincts during that hadn’t been clouded, and both in her general direction. Most of them had failed, unable to overcome the allure of the unending torrent of lightning from above or to avoid being neutralised by the bolts from Thunder Crest and East Fury. Apart from that one lightning bolt at the end.


    -Just another reason to find out who is party to this, she vowed to herself, grimly.


    Hopefully, they had felt her use her mother’s heirloom talisman to block that bolt. She had been very obvious about it and that talisman would record such attacks and make her mother aware directly of their ‘crime’. It was unlikely she would bother to act unless she pushed for it. However, it would hopefully serve as a further tidy reminder to those powers that while the heavens might be tilted heavily in their favour right now, other options were available.


    “Ohh look… it’s another group who managed to survive through some treasure talisman!” a voice shouted from above.


    “Ahhh little sister… let us give you a hand…” a second voice called out far too cheerfully.


    She turned and looked up above her... and found herself looking at the answer to the very question they had been pondering right before the lightning hit the great mount, namely, who had cleaned out the valley above and set up this prepared landscape.


    About two dozen cultivators were arrayed along the ledge above them. She could see they were wearing some kind of stealth talisman, but truthfully, the fact that they had managed to get this close was almost entirely down to the obscuring effect of the ash that covered everything right now. The thoroughly shaken spatial integrity of the surface layer of the mountain range wasn’t helping either. To her senses it felt like she was standing on a choppy pool, and the fact that nothing was actually moving visually only added to the dissonance there.


    She recognised a few of the sects… quite a few of the tokens were Shu Pavilion or other sects from the western continent.


    Except…


    She eyed a token dubiously. Cang Di had not behaved at all like there was a bunch of his fellow disciples from the Shu Pavilion in the next valley.


    “…”


    This far away, she couldn’t make out anything of their qi, or their foundations, thanks to the local ambience, and they were certainly doing their best to ‘look’ helpful, but there was no doubt in her mind that there was not a disciple from the actual Shu Pavilion among them.


    -So, they were actually lying in wait for Cang Di? I guess that explains why they put so much effort into the Prepared Land as well.


    She had to fight the urge to just laugh out loud at the absurdity, and their terrible luck.


    -Well, they have balls at least, she conceded, turning her attention back to Cao Liang and giving him a prod with her foot.


    “Wakey, wakey, Liang! Nightmare’s over!” she informed him. “We survived!”


    “…”


    When he didn’t stir, she gave him a harder poke, then realised belatedly, why the idiots above were staring.


    She had forgotten in the moment to reform her soul bound robes. As such, she was currently barefoot and more than half naked. There was no point in doing anything about it now, though. It would only spook the group above.


    Instead, she gave her disciple third, much harder shove with her foot, infusing a little bit of her qi into it to shake him out of his stunned state.


    With a gasp, he sat up. He still had his more youthful appearance as well, looking like a rather befuddled young scholar with a now singed beard.


    “Are you okay, little sister…?”


    “Little Saintess sure has had it hard….”


    She turned to find that the leader of the group had jumped down and was walking over to them. Now, she could see he was an Ancient Immortal, of some sixteen-hundred years, and was most definitely not a Shu Pavilion disciple, based on his foundation, which was layered with far too many cultivation laws to be from any first-rate sect, nevermind a hegemonic one.


    “—you sure have had it hard” the youth murmured, placing a hand on her arm as if Cao Liang was not even there and fixing her with what he probably thought was a warm, reassuring smile. “Why don’t you let us help you out a bit?”


    -What a moron, she rolled her eyes mentally, as she felt the tug of an art—Favour with a Smile, no less—try to settle over her, and fail.


    “How did you survive this, little sister?” another youth—a golden immortal, with again, a very… interesting cultivation foundation, dropped down to join them, also smiling ‘reassuringly’ at her as he took her other arm.


    Deciding to play along, she smiled wanly at them and accepted the ‘helping’ hands.


    “Did your old ancestors give you a really good treasure to keep you alive?” another called down with studious admiration.


    “Aiii we got lucky too, our sect master gave us a Dao Lord talisman!” a sandy-haired youth added.


    “Can you believe that lightning!”


    “—It was so shocking!”


    “I really had my horizons broadened…”


    “Invigorating!”


    -Invigorating my shapely ass, she sneered as three more attempts at using various ‘heart enchanting’ arts touched her, amidst their otherwise ‘jovial’ clamour.


    “Ahh little sister, let us help you out there.”


    “Yeah, hold on, little sister!”


    Watching three more, including the sandy haired one scramble down, she raised an inner eyebrow as she finally felt herself targeted by a ‘real’ subversion art—Serendipitous Meeting by Moonlight. She couldn’t see who used it, beyond it not being any of the group down here with her, but she could tell it was via a talisman, rather than an acquired art, and probably a sovereign realm one at that.


    Almost immediately, she felt her spiritual qi rather lethargically questioning whether it should in fact ‘leave’ her control.


    -Clearly they are taking no ‘chances’ with my realm, given they won’t be able to see through it, she reflected ruefully.


    Even compared to arts like ‘Favour with a Smile’, and belying its flowery name, ‘Serendipitous Meeting by Moonlight’ could be considered a proper ‘nasty’ art, designed to exert such a degree of control over its victim, that in effect it would turn its victim into little more than a beautiful living doll.


    Unfortunately for them, it was functionally useless on her, because it still relied on the victim possessing a standard cultivation foundation, not to mention, her soul’s Innate Destiny was entirely isolated from this world’s ‘Fate’ anyway. That second requirement also meant that Cao Liang was functionally unhindered by it.


    All her disciples in this era had severed their own Fate’s and Innate Destiny from that of Eastern Azure before Dao Immortal, as she had no intention of having their future prospects constrained by the whims of the Kong Heavenly clan.


    Still, in the aim of not rousing any suspicious just yet, she relinquished her ‘qi’ willingly, to the art, and just let it cling to her outward self like a particularly unpleasant cloak.


    “I… err… feel a bit...” she muttered, as she swooned a bit, feigning sudden weakness.


    “Aiii, little sister, come sit here, I’ll get you a tonic,” the youth who had taken her left arm reassured her dutifully, guiding her over to one of the fallen slabs of rock that lay at the foot of the shallow cliff.


    That was also karma, in its own fashion.


    -Live by misdeeds and misdeeds will eventually see you, she thought with an inner eye roll as she let them sit her down.


    Her wince as she did so was genuine, although more from the after-effects of her exertions, defending herself from the lightning.


    -Really though, as a strategy, it is obnoxious… she mused, pondering how far it was worth taking the whole farce. I suppose I can just keep feeding them rope and see how badly they hang themselves?


    One of the nearby ‘Shu Pavilion’ disciples ‘helped’ Cao Liang up, taking the opportunity to offer him a ‘healing’ pill. A very cursory glance at which pierced its disguise, revealing it in her eyes to be a nasty poison that would disperse what qi hadn’t been ‘grasped’ by the Fate Seizing Talisman.


    He groaned and sat up groggily, accepting the pill without even bothering to catch her eye.


    “Ahhh, little sister... little brother! Let us come down and help you...”


    She had to fight back a snigger as three more of the group hopped down to join them. Up above, more had arrived as well, to the point where the group looked to be almost thirty strong, with several Dao Immortals among their ranks. None of those had descended, she noted, and all of them had much more hardened, less casual attitudes.


    There was quite a broad mix of talismans as well. Along with those sporting ones from the Shu Pavilion, Autumn Pagoda and Wise Gate, there was also the Argent Hall, Argent Dawn Sect, Golden Flame Sect, and even a few with Gan clan cultivation laws pretending to be members of a bunch of other sects. Off to the side, there was also a group from the Red Sovereign Sect— whose foundational arts did match their talismans.


    -Funny that they are here, she frowned, considering the Gan and Red Sovereign cultivators, at least until the leader of the group down with her strolled over and laid a ‘gentle’ hand on her shoulder.


    “Little sister, it seems my junior brothers are tiring you, why don’t you come with us while they look after your compan—”


    His head vanished as Cao Liang, finally tired of the farce, just tore it clean off with his hand, taking most of the Ancient Immortal’s spine with it, she noticed idly.


    “Really Liang, you just make everything no fun sometimes…” she grumbled. “Couldn’t you have at least let them believe that they had a chance?”


    The others staggered back, looking aghast. Up top, the Dao Immortals had all turned deathly pale as they focused their principles on Cao Liang—


    A Dao Sovereign, of all things, landed beside her, grasping her by the back of the neck, clearly intending to use her as a shield against Cao Liang in some fashion.


    “Don’t do—”


    Before he could say more than that, she turned and stood up, shrugging off his strength. Given she could now tell that he was the one who had just tried to use ‘Serendipitous Meeting by Moonlight’ on her, after recognising that the lesser arts had not ‘taken’, she had no reason to show any reserve.


    Touching his face with her hand, she sent a strand of her perception-infused Truth and Martial Intent into his mind. He tried to resist, for the briefest moment—someone had placed a fairly potent, if thoroughly generic, eight-trigrams based ‘Soul Guard’ on his Sea of Knowledge, but before her it was about as effective as a door made out of paper and she easily scattered it.


    ‘Gu family…’


    ‘Explore’… ‘Yin Eclipse’… ‘Secure’


    ‘Recruit…’


    ‘Prepared Landscapes…’


    ‘Collaboration’ … ‘Spirit Herbs’


    ‘Huang’… ‘Gan’ ‘Meng’


    ‘Frustration…’ ‘ Obfuscation’.


    ‘Young Lord Gan…’


    ‘—Dun Princess…’


    ‘Haste….’ ‘Idiots’… ‘Cang Di…’


    ‘Qing Dongmei’… ‘Liling Mei’


    ‘Impossible…’


    Knowledge and understanding, paltry as it was, flowed out of his trembling body, like a whispering cloud of frustrated voices, until there was nothing more for her gentle grasp to claim.


    “Really, you rampaged a lot, didn’t you,” she sighed, considering and organizing it all into a coherent overview of the various deeds the Dao Sovereign—Qin Gu Yang—had committed during, and in fact, for some time, before the trial.


    As it turned out, he had originally been one of a small group of carefully selected rogue cultivators from down-on-their-luck families and clans across half-a-dozen great worlds, someone had directed to enter Yin Eclipse almost seventy years ago. That hidden expert, or experts, the memories were unclear there, had tasked them to survey suitable paths, explore certain parts of the inner valleys and strike up mutually convenient alliances with suitable powers already lurking in this place.


    Most of the Dao Immortals present here were working for him, directly—recruited from various places over the last few decades, and it was they who had, over the last sixty-or-so years, set up the prepared land in this, and a few other strategically convenient valleys linking the outer and inner valleys. Much of the rest of that time had been spent gaining a lot of knowledge, both through legitimate endeavour and infiltration of various other influences and the Hunter Bureau, about the nature of Yin Eclipse and how to survive in it. They had also turned that information and their access to these valleys towards establishing one of the more lucrative herb smuggling setups in Teng Province.


    It was only recently, less than a year ago, in fact, that Qin Gu Yang and his subordinates had discovered that they were, in fact, working for some part of the Huang clan, when a group of youths—comprising a significant body of the rest of those standing frozen around her—


    with far less ‘information discipline’ than the hardened Dao Immortals rocked up and ‘took over’ the group. The Ancient Immortal Cao Liang had just decapitated—called Ye Gao Hong, was, in fact, one of the ‘leading personalities’ in that new group.


    It was that newer group that had liaised much more openly and incautiously with other ‘bandits’, including the Five Fan’s, much to Qin Gu Yang’s frustration. His memories of those meetings also further confirmed to her that that organization, of which she had been hearing a lot, of late, had deep roots within the Din clan. They also revealed to her that it was the Five Fan’s who had suggested using the specific generic method in the maintaining of the prepared lands, to lead others to suspect her clan’s involvement. During that time, they had also worked ‘with’, or more likely, been tolerated by, the Golden Mask, the Blood Moon Cult, the Jeo and Seo clans and several other older and more cautious rogue powers that haunted these lands in this era.


    In that light she was entirely unsurprised to learn that the attempted ambush of Cang Di, in this prepared land was entirely opportunistic, and pushed for heavily by Ye Gao Hong, who wanted to ‘see what the mettle’ of a ‘so called Tian of a lesser world’ was. The majority here had not even held Cang Di as the real target, being far more interested in Liling Mei, Qing Dongmei and the benefits they could gain from seizing them.


    As to the group’s actual goals she could not help but grimace at them. She had no love for the Dun clan, and had never had a high opinion of Dun Jian or the current Emperor, but what she saw reflected in the eyes of Qin Gu Yang, as relayed by those who had supplanted him in control over this band was just… entirely without class, or merit. That said, knowing about it would certainly come in handy, going forward.


    What they hoped to gain through Princess Lian Jing, specifically, even Qin Gu Yang didn’t know, however, except that it was sought by those supporting one of the current Young Sovereign Candidates within the Huang clan, Huang Gan Hao.


    -I guess I can only ask Cao Liang and the others about that, she reflected grimly.


    He had to be a newly emergent candidate that openly entered those turbid waters in the last few decades, because as far as she knew Huang Teng was the long-standing front-runner from within the Huang clan for that position since it became vacant a few centuries prior.


    -If I want to learn more, I’ll have to look at the memories of one of the Gan scions directly, it seems, she mused.


    “You… t-think you can g-get away… with this?” the youth nearest Qin Gu Yang, an ancient immortal pretending to be from the Shu clan, somehow managed to rasp out loud.


    {Nine Heavens Punishment—


    -As expected, there is always one surprise, she mused, casually scattering the grasping, Dao Ascendant realm sealing art he had triggered at the same time with a half-draw of one of her swords.


    “See, this is why you shouldn’t break through to Immortal until your balls drop,” she giggled, running her gaze over the rest of the bandits, freezing them in stunned tableau as she stopped restraining the influence of her presence on everyone but her disciple.


    Just to be sure, however, and to avoid triggering anything awkward with trial talismans, she also leveraged the core of her mother’s Savage Corona sword set, thoroughly melting away their strength and severing all of their bound treasures in the process. The alternative was to risk them running, or another one producing a stupid treasure. Even in that moment when Qin Gu Yang tried to grasp her, she could see two had produced message talismans and a third, on the cliff top had even managed to actualize a soul-treasure.


    “Your ancestors should be ashamed at having a bunch of judgementally retarded morons like you to fly their flags,” she added, marking the ones Qin Gu Yang’s memories had indicated arrived with Ye Gao Hong.


    It really was remarkable how long that knowledge had been around. Yet despite that, every generation had invariably returned the same bunch of idiots – people who thought that they were somehow special enough that the fairly well-understood side effects of breaking through to the Immortal realm before puberty would not apply to them. All it led to was a bunch of children in adult bodies with ''self-control'' and ''judgement'' issues galore as their emotions and mental state took a hundred times longer to settle.


    All for the sake of not waiting a few years.


    It would be funny if it wasn''t quite so widespread.


    “Ill deeds will beget ill ends,” Cao Liang observed to her, tossing Ye Gao Hong’s head down on his crippled, broken body and wiping his hands casually on the robe of the youth who had been standing next to him.


    “Quite.” she agreed coldly, mostly for effect as she let the glassy-eyed Qin Gu Yang collapse to the ground. “I guess the Eyes of Heaven can see clearly at least twice a day.”


    Cao Liang gave her a sideways look, she matched with a return eyeroll.


    “—That said, don’t kill them,” she added with her immortal sense, just for her disciple’s ears. “There are some things in their memories I want to check. Especially among those—” she drew his attention to the ones she had marked a moment before.


    “Understood,” Cao Liang murmured, in reply, then jumped lightly up to the top of the cliff, and in what amounted to the blink of an eye, bisected the Dao Immortal from the Red Sovereigns who had actualized the soul bound treasure.


    Even suffering from soul shock, and with most of his qi depleted, he was still a Dao Ascendant, and the suppression was still paper thin and hovering at the Dao Step. Not to mention that his newly tempered Physique, while somewhat lacking in comparison to his theoretical peers on the Hong Meng Treasure Realm, was vastly superior to almost any junior in the current generation, even the likes of Cang Di.


    Leaving him to deal with the others up above, she walked over to the youth who had just attacked her, and casually cupped his chin with her hands—


    The idiot’s eyes dilated, and he nearly suffered a combined qi backlash and an emotional deviation under the full force of her natural beauty—akin to a phoenix in cultivator form. Even had the suppression been in full effect, it would have been able to do nothing to blunt that, nor could the furious strike from an ancestor’s protective art, that hung, frozen in her mind’s eye.


    “Gao family, from Black Lake Great World…?” she murmured, rather enjoying how utterly horrified he was at coming face to face with the consequences of his actions. “The Red Sovereign’s roots are like rock weed, huh?”


    In terms of prestige, the Gao were a ruling clan from that Huang controlled world, so there was no reason for one of their scions, even a lesser one like this, to come to Eastern Azure, unless big-picture politics was involved. Sadly, he knew next to nothing about the specifics of what the Gan were after, except that it would become Gan Hao’s trump card in his fight with Huang Teng.


    “If your ancestors could see how mediocre your talents for thievery are, they would split your ancestral shrine,” she mocked, casually sealing the idiot’s soul and tossing his body down by Qin Gu Yang.


    “Little Liang…!” she called playfully over to where he had just brutally crippled another of the Dao Immortals.


    “Yes Senior Sister?” he didn’t look back as he sank his hand into the chest of a horrified Golden Immortal.


    “Ancient and Golden Immortal Souls are kind of useful. So maybe don’t break them quite that much?” she suggested, idly arriving in front of her next target.


    He was also from the Gao, as it turned out, and was similarly wretched of deed and uninformed of purpose. An existence entirely lacking in merit, as her mother might have said.


    “Though, actually—” she paused after turning to the next youth, as another ancestral art briefly darkened the edges of her vision before scattering off her like water on granite.


    He was one of those who had learned ‘Favour with a Smile’ as well, and used it. A lot.


    “—I take that back,” she continued, considering the vile things he had done under the umbrella of his privilege, in the off chance there was something.


    As expected, there was not. He was even more ignorant than the last one, to the point where she found herself wondering if his being sent here was a ploy by his family to get his name off their books.


    “So… Anyone else have some famous old ancestor or sect founder or ancient uncle?” she called out with a smirk.


    There were no replies, just wild-eyed, fearful expressions, desperately trying to ask for mercy, yet much like the many victims of their crimes, now entirely without voices to articulate their plight.


    “I guess we can just get this over with, then—unless a mysterious master is going to come and shield you?” she asked, pausing for a moment as she lifted up the pallid youth in front of her by his neck.


    There was a notable lack of any old ghosts appearing.


    “Oh well,” she grinned, turning to Liang. “Discard their bodies and just take their heads,” she called over to him, simultaneously closing her fist on the youth’s throat, until her palm touched his spine. “If we have to carry this many back intact, it will be a pain.”


    So saying, she sealed his soul in his head, then twisted it sideways, off his body. His regeneration struggled in vain against the injury for a few moments, until she pushed her foot through his dantian, solving that issue.


    Kicking the body away, she gestured to take in the entire, frozen crowd, bloody head in hand.


    “Just tie them to a branch and make a standard out of them. The few of actual backing will make for nice bargaining chips.”


    “Of course, Senior Sister,” Cao Liang called back with a bright, cold smile, playing along admirably. “I was just so… angry, at how they dared lay hands on you, with these kinds of depraved intentions…”


    Rolling her eyes, she turned back to the remaining cultivators and waved her hand.


    Their bodies twisted as she sealed and decapitated them with a single gesture. Up above, Cao Liang followed suit, claiming the rest of their heads with a single flash of his martial intent, along with a suitable branch from a nearby tree that had somehow survived the worst of what the tribulation had to offer.


    Pausing only to collect Qin Gu Yang and Ye Gao Hong’s heads, she jumped up to join him, she found he had already attached most of them by their hair to the branch, transforming it into a macabre banner.


    “Y-you can’t do this—!"


    “W-we’re... Disciples of—”


    “The Young Sov—”


    “Huang won’t—”


    “M-mother…!”


    “How dare—!”


    “Heaven has—!”


    The pathetic chorus of their souls’ cries tugged at the air for a moment, until Cao Liang silenced them by inscribing a seal directly onto the branch.


    She was just about to pass him the bundle of heads she held, when an ominous ripple within bled through their surrounds.


    “Uh…” Cao Liang’s gaze roved uneasily across their surroundings—


    “Oh. Motherless—!”


    She dashed over to his side and grasped him by the arm.


    Everything twisted and turned into strange hues and blurred outlines.


    Staggering, her protection talisman snapped back into focus, she found herself looking up at the Great Mount, just in time to see its slopes distort, then slowly start to roll outwards.


    “Oh fates, may you be cursed to dance tricks before the grave of gravity!” she cursed, snatching the staff and heads from him and along with her own, transferring them to her inner world.


    Beneath them, the dimension quake rippled out, shaking the valleys around them like a flag caught in a hurricane.


    Before her eyes, the singular mountain became myriad—a mandala of shifting mountains—as the quake transformed into a full-blown spatial avalanche, the integrity of the valleys, already tormented and battered by the onslaught of the decimation they had endured failed, catastrophically. Like a house that had had its foundations washed away by a flood.


    Rolling waves of dissociating space swirled around the former peak of the Great Mount before surging out across the whole mountain range in a fantastical aurora. For a split second, there were two mountain ranges, mirroring between heaven and earth with an immense plain and deserts between them.


    The world around them rolled into the sky and then back in on itself.


    At the point in which those mirror mountains met, the Great Mount briefly reformed, then wavered and shattered outwards into untold billions of shards.


    The valleys around them blurred and unspooled even as the entire landscape within the suppression zone fluctuated and buckled; mountains reconfigured themselves, distances changed, weird smashed valleys and odd landscapes transformed and oscillated – Plains opened up in valleys and deserts amid arid canyons, rainforests coated mountains.


    When the world finished reordering itself around them the Great Mount was gone.


    In its place was a grand vale, the montane valleys leading into it wreathed in mist and cloud. Five immense ruined towers loomed over its entrance, a fortress of ruins in a style alien to this world and yet oddly familiar to her, who had seen records of certain other places far from these starry skies.


    A great complex of buildings rose up the immense peak at the heart of the vale, red and white towers with roofs tiled in a hundred colours, both ruined and not. Two realities ground against each other like titanic sheets of ice or rock for a few realm plane jarring moments. Their current location was already flowing away from that vale, mountains rolling up out of ridges between them to either side.


    She found herself staring into a jagged wound in the heart of the mountain on the far side of the vale, amid the ruins of a great clock tower, within which was yet another, different, inherently twisted starry sky.


    Even though it was only extant for a few heartbeats before it started to fade away, it still took all her strength to resist the lure of that hellish rift. With its vanishing came mists, and the landscape twisted around them, radially spooling out in every direction.


    Still gasping from the pressure exerted by that horrible rift, she pulled out a dull grey crystal talisman from her inner world. Upon it was marked in a crude if subtly esoteric style a golden bell-like symbol that rearranged itself in her mind so she could read it.


    She stared at it for a long second, then, at last, decisively triggered it.


    *clank*


    *Clonk*


    *Clong*


    {Heaven Breaking Seal}


    The strange, dull and tuneless tones of the phantasmal bell rang out in pitches not quite meant for any sane world. They were now firmly within the vale once again, the mists swirling around the heights of the valley. Within the ruins above them, she saw a great pagoda, still intact amid the ghostly remnants of ancient ruins. At its peak stood an ethereal figure, arms behind her back, long white hair plaited in a loose style. Eyes like silver moons, and a robe like the starry sky.


    Everyone else was frozen, lost in the moment it seemed. That distant, regal figure held her gaze for a moment, then seemed to smile, and bow her head faintly.


    The mists dispersed, and the world shifted slightly.


    Her feet found purchase on nothing.


    Burying a grimace, she grabbed Liang more tightly, so he wouldn’t drift away from her.


    With a final look at the ancient charm—the primary reason why she had been so willing to venture into those mountains in the first place—and returned it back to her inner world.


    If one of those idiots, trying to put strings on things from outside, saw it, they would absolutely wilfully misunderstand and use it to cause problems.


    Twisting in the void, she turned to stare down at the Eastern Azure Great World.


    A vast maelstrom swirled below them, pulling up its celestial gyre from the star ocean, a dimensional shift removed from this reality. The after-effects of whatever had just occurred could still be read in the ripples passing through it.


    With another soundless sigh, she focused her qi and teleported.


    They landed in a rice paddy which promptly turned into a bowl-shaped depression twenty metres across, sending the nearby spirit herb farmers fleeing in terror for the nearest cover.


    With a wave of her hand, she restructured the land and returned their crop harvest to how it had been, before strolling through the air, still carrying Cao Liang to deposit him on a convenient rock by the roadway through the paddy fields.


    In the distance, the outer valley region of the Yin Eclipse Mountain range was visible as a towering stormfront, shedding billowing rain clouds and the occasional stray bolt of lightning arcing down to strike a hidden peak.


    Behind her, the distant ocean was a blue-grey shadow, split by the rising pagodas of Blue Water City.


    Cao Liang vomited onto the ground.


    “Did… we?”


    “Take a trip outside?” she nodded, patting him on the back.


    “And… before?” he groaned. “What… beneath the accursed fates was…?”


    She stared at the distant mountains for a long moment, then just sighed.


    “Nothing good. Never mention what you just saw of the totality of the heart of there. If it gets out,we will be in for a whole world of trouble.”


    Looking around, Cao Liang noted the absence of their prisoners and groaned. “It seems that Heaven may have left a way for that bunch of morons…”


    “Alas, for them, the eyes of heaven do look twice,” she murmured drily, transferring the heads and the branch back out of her inner world.


    Ignoring their horrified, staring expressions, she tied her bundle onto branch then stuck it in the ground.


    She chuckled nastily, looking around. “It would be a waste not to ensure that such idiots serve an actual use now that they have gone to all this effort to pull off their little plan.”