The Grand Defile was astonishingly quiet now that thirty thousand screaming fighters had stampeded backward toward the country border.
A few minutes earlier, the valley had been choked with flying sword arrays, gold-trimmed battle banners, bronze siege engines, and the bellowing war chants of five traditional sects. Now, the sprawling meadow looked like an abandoned open-air festival ground after a sudden summer rainstorm. Discarded sword sheaths, brass magic charms, stitched silk pennants, dropped waterskins, and half-eaten cold buns littered the crushed clover. Twelve massive cloud galleons, their golden floating hulls gouged and scarred from colliding with the narrow granite canyon walls in their wild retreat, drifted drunkenly above the southern ridges like abandoned kites caught in a pine grove.
Lin Xiao stood alone in the center of the vast clearing.
He took a slow, deep breath, enjoying the crisp mountain air that swept down from the upper crags. For nearly two hours, Grand Elder Xuan Ji had been screeching righteous ultimatums through a golden voice-magnifying magic charm array. That created an ear-splitting feedback squeal that rattled pinecones loose from the boughs. The silence that followed was deeply refreshing.
Finally, Lin Xiao thought, rolling his shoulders with a quiet chuckle. Some peace and quiet. Fighters really need to learn indoor voices.
High above, however, the sky was anything but quiet.
The ten-thousand-li storm vortex had fully taken shape. It wasn’t a conventional weather system carrying moisture or hail. It was a deep-sea whirlpool of pure, ancient chaos-qi, blacker than crushed charcoal. It spun in silent cosmic fury. At its dead center, ten miles above the earth, a singular sky-slit burned with rainbow-bright violet light. Jagged veins of royal purple star-fire slithered through the cloud banks like glowing serpents, lighting up the jagged peaks in strange, rhythmic flashes of lavender and amethyst. The surrounding spiritual pressure was huge. It pressed down upon the forest canopy until hundred-year-old cedar boughs bowed toward the earth.
Lin Xiao looked down at his sleeves.
He was currently showed up in his eighteen-year-old human scholar avatar. A slender youth with silky raven hair tied neatly with a pale blue ribbon, wearing robes of azure linen stitched along the collar with delicate silver thread.
Wait a second, he realized, gently feeling the soft fabric of his left cuff. These robes are brand new. Su Ling’er spent three whole days sitting on the sunlit porch weaving this spirit-silk and tailoring the hem. If the lightning chars even one thread, she’s going to give me that quiet, deeply disappointed look for the rest of the month.
He could handle cosmic tribulations, starving beast hordes, and ancient blood cooking pots. But the quiet, pouting sorrow of a nine-tailed fox maiden who spent hours hemming linen was something he preferred to avoid at all costs.
“Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao murmured internally. “Can we safely store the wardrobe before the weather turns rough?”
“Affirmative, Host,” the sweet-sounding, cool voice of the Dao Spirit chimed in his mindscape. “Your internal Primordial Chaos Void dantian possesses total spatial solitude. Storage of non-organic textiles within the void outer edge guarantees zero heat degradation during high-order star-fire events.”
“Good. Let’s not ruin nice laundry.”
With a soft, shimmering ripple of sapphire light, Lin Xiao undid the linen sash. In a fraction of a heartbeat, the azure scholar robes, the cotton undershirt, the stitched belt. His soft cloth travel slippers vanished into the boundless pocket of his spatial void.
At the exact same instant, the load-bearing holding power of his human form dissolved.
His limbs softened. His shoulders smoothed. His torso curved inward. Within two seconds, the slender eighteen-year-old youth had happily collapsed into his favorite, most natural form. A plump, perfectly ball-shaped, semi-clear azure slime forty inches in width.
He dropped onto the soft green clover with a heard, rubbery gloop.
Lin Xiao let out a long, luxurious sigh that rippled through his fluid mantle like waves across a calm garden pond.
Ahhh. That feels so much better.
Having bones and joints was convenient for holding chopsticks, pouring tea, and wearing handsome clothes. But nothing compared to the easy freedom of being a ball of water-jelly. There was no spine to compress, no ankles to twist, and no stiff neck from sleeping on a hard wooden headrest. He was just a round, squishy orb of pure ancient fluid, perfectly balanced, floating, and fully free of physical aches.
Testing his stretch, Lin Xiao extended two plump blue pseudopods from his sides. He raised them high into the air, stretching them left, then right, then twisting his entire ball-shaped mass into an hourglass shape before snapping back into a round ball with a cheerful shhk-pop.
Left stretch, right stretch. Loosen up the core. Just like morning calisthenics before opening the kitchen.
He rolled forward three times across the clover, leaving tiny dewy tracks on the blades of grass. The soil was cool and rich beneath his membrane, fragrant with crushed wild thyme and damp loam. He stopped at the exact sharp-angled center of the Grand Defile. There, the canyon opened into a wide natural tiered arena surrounded by towering granite crags.
Directly above him, the swirling purple eye of the sky storm seemed to notice his presence.
The swirling clouds shuddered. The deep, grinding hum of the thunder paused for a single split second, as if the cosmic will governing the heavens was calibrating its targeting matrix. Then, with a blinding crackle of violet static, a focused shaft of radiant purple light beamed downward from the stratosphere.
It struck the meadow exactly where Lin Xiao sat.
It wasn’t an attack—not yet. It was a sky bright light, a pillar of lit up amethyst light eighty arm-lengths wide that bathed the meadow in surreal, rainbow-bright glare. In the center of that huge divine spotlight, lit up for twenty miles in every direction, sat a solitary, semi-clear blue blob, wobbling slightly as it settled comfortably into the grass.
A gentle chime echoed within Lin Xiao’s mind:
Lin Xiao examined the box with mild amusement. Preparation: Light body stretching and bouncing. Very dignified, Dao Spirit.
“Accuracy in archival documentation is the foundational principle of universal law, Host,” the Dao Spirit responded in her deadpan rhythm. “Plus, surrounding sky ozone concentrations have risen by four thousand two hundred percent. The surrounding air is fully soaked with spark-charged Yang-Thunder precursors.”
Lin Xiao drew in a small puff of the charged air through his surface membrane.
The sensation was fascinating. It didn’t smell like regular storm rain, which usually carried the scent of wet moss and petrichor. This ozone was pungent, sharp, and invigorating, prickling his fluid senses with a distinct culinary aroma.
Cracked black peppercorns, Lin Xiao noted happily. With a hint of toasted garlic and warm chili oil. It really does smell like the kitchen on a Friday evening when the woks are blazing.
A thousand yards away, perched atop a jagged granite pinnacle overlooking the defile, Sword Saint Gu Qingfeng sat cross-legged on the stone.
The old swordsman’s robes were rumpled and stained with spilled wine. In his right hand, he loosely held a slender, green willow twig stripped of all but three tender leaves. In his left hand, he cradled his beloved gourd of Jade-Dew Wine.
Gu Qingfeng took a slow sip. That let the sweet, chilled liquor soothe his throat. He watched the little blue jelly ball stretching its pseudopods beneath the spotlight of heaven.
The Sword Saint let out a soft, rasping laugh, his eyes twinkling with deep wonder.
“To face the supreme execution decree of the Heavenly Dao... Not with an ancient mountain-cleaving blade, not with old family magic charms or nine layers of dragon-scale armor, but as a plain, naked drop of pure spring water...”
Gu Qingfeng shook his head, raising his wine gourd toward the heavens in a quiet, solitary salute.
“Eighty years I wandered the mortal continents searching for the ultimate sword intent. I studied the brutal slaughter techniques of the northern warlords. I analyzed the cold, unbending iron dogma of Heavenly Sword Manor. But neither of them understood a damn thing. True strength isn’t about being harder than granite or sharper than steel. True strength is water. It yields to everything, fears nothing, nourishes all living things, and simply laughs when the thunder strikes.”
Down near the tree line, Xiao Hei lay sprawled across a bed of dry pine needles. The great wolf’s glossy black coat was dusted with crushed grass, but his stance was fully relaxed. His front paws were crossed, his massive black chin resting comfortably on the moss. His plumy tail gave two slow, rhythmic thumps against the earth. To Xiao Hei, whatever his master did was simply the natural order of the cosmos. If Lin Xiao wanted to sit in a giant purple spotlight and do jelly stretches, it was merely proof that the heavens knew their place.
Beside the wolf, Tie Shan leaned his seven-foot frame against his huge forging hammer, his thick iron-gray fur bristling slightly in the spark breeze.
“Old Bear,” Gu Qingfeng called down softly from the crag. “Aren’t you worried your little Sect Master is going to get scorched into steam?”
Tie Shan barked a deep, chest-rattling laugh that shook the boughs of the pine tree above him.
“Scorched? Little Brother Gu, that boy ate my hardest star-iron scrap. Just then, he was barely the size of a teacup! He drank molten fire melted rock waste like sweet porridge! If the sky thinks a few sparks can pop our Sect Master, then the sky has never tried chewing on an overcooked turnip.”
Further back along the ridge, standing upon the roof of the heavy dark rock watchtower, Su Ling’er stood watching the meadow. Her snow-white tails swayed behind her in gentle. She waved curves, catching the violet surrounding light like plumes of pale fire. Her ruby eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the little blue sphere. She didn’t speak. She merely adjusted the sleeves of her silk tunic and smoothed her hair, her expression filled with calm, rock-steady trust.
Out in the meadow, Lin Xiao finished his stretches.
He tightened his fluid mass until his water’s skin became glossy and firm, then relaxed. He settled into a neat, round dome. The air around him crackled with static, tiny violet sparks dancing along the tips of the grass blades like tiny fireflies.
Lin Xiao looked up into the swirling vortex, his curved white eyes forming cheerful crescents.
Well, he thought cheerfully. The table is set. The water is boiling. Let’s see what the chef is serving today.