About fifty leagues south of Coral Spike, a rift cut through the ocean. It was three miles wide and forty leagues long. A pillar of sword qi rose from five thousand fathoms below. Fifty paces of diamond-bright light pierced the clouds and left a gap of stars overhead. Five-foot waves parted where they met it.
Sword Sovereign Xiao had fought his last battle in this trench twelve hundred years earlier. The old histories said he’d used the Ocean-Severing Manganese Cleaver to kill three flood dragons. Then he’d sealed his palace, his manuals, and ten thousand flying swords under the seabed. The sword intent he left in the stone was supposed to keep the things below from reaching the surface.
The beast tide had broken the seal. Now the old blade’s force was reaching the sky.
Nearly eighteen hours after leaving Coral Spike at dawn, Pei Jing sat in the stern of his twelve-foot canoe made of cane and sealskin. Its patched sail bore no guild mark. The forty-pound Cloud-Splitter hummed inside its sheath in answer to the pillar.
The following current and a full sail had carried him nearly fifty leagues. A steady trickle of Water qi had kept him moving through the slack stretches. Now he let the current draw the canoe along the edge of the gathering fleet. Gu Feng had expected Jiao to send down his first group that night. The boats were still on the surface. The arks had held them at the line while Xuanji’s…
