The platform of solidified air hummed beneath them as the world of Heaven's Gate fell away. Below, the orderly patchwork of farms and walled towns gave way to wilder lands, then to the scarred, husked remnants of what were once cities. Crumbling walls like broken teeth, roofs swallowed by vines, town squares silent under the open sky. The Disappeared Cities. A quiet testament to the chaos after the Damocles fell.
Gen and Liang sat at the front edge of the disk, legs dangling over nothing. Gen pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Look at that one. The central tower's still standing. Bet you a month of my chores I can hit that weathervane from here with a pebble."
"You have no chores, and I am not taking that bet," Liang said, squinting. "The wind shear at this height would make it impossible. Unless... you used a thread of **Shidow** to guide it?" He glanced at Gen, a challenge in his eyes.
Gen grinned. "Wouldn't even need it. Pure **Jingdao** flick. The force would nail it straight through."
"Boasting is not a cultivation technique."
"Who's boasting? It's a forecast."
Behind them, in the center of the platform, a different scene unfolded. Chubbs held court, his arms spread wide as if to encompass the horizon. "—and in my long and varied travels, I have seen a great many things! I have seen the Crystal Falls of the West that sing at dawn. I have seen a merchant prince try to buy the reflection of the moon in a lake. But never, in all my days, have I seen such grace and power combined as I see now! My lady's light, of course, a gentle sun. And you, Honored Madame! A mountain that moves with the silence of a shadow. It is a spectacle!"
Madame Su, seated with her usual straight-backed poise, allowed a small, genuine smile. "Your tongue is as nimble as a dancer's feet, Chubbs. I begin to understand why your lady permits such a... substantial presence to follow in her wake."
Lorel, sitting quietly beside her, looked down at her hands, a faint pink touching her cheeks. She said nothing, but the slight tilt of her head was not a denial.
Their journey was punctuated by the world below. A vast shadow passed over them, followed by a chorus of piercing, melodic cries. A flock of Star Eagles, their feathers the deep blue of a twilight sky and dappled with specks of silver like distant stars, swept past. Each was the size of a small horse—Infant Stage Milky Beasts, but as a flock, a formidable force. They banked as one, curious about the shimmering disk of energy, before diving towards a distant, glittering river, likely hunting Frost-Scale fish.
"Now *that*," Chubbs breathed, his theatrical tone replaced by real awe, "is a sight. They say their feathers can hold a charge of starlight for a year. A single one is worth a lord's ransom in the right market."
"Best not to think of ransoms when they could turn us into a light snack," Liang called back, watching the majestic predators fade into the distance.
***
Several hours later, as the sun bled into the western hills, Madame Su guided the platform down into a sheltered canyon. They found a wide, dry cave at its base, with a clear view of the entrance and a small, clean spring trickling in the back. As night fell, true dark never came; the heavens were too bright with the glow of the five Damocles and the sprawl of the Milky Way. It was a bright, watchful night.
Seated around a crackling fire, the comfortable silence of shared travel settled over them. Gen poked at the embers with a long stick, sending up sparks that danced like orange insects before winking out. His eyes tracked up from the fire to Madame Su, who sat observing them all, her face calm in the flickering light.
"You've grown up," Gen said suddenly, his voice cutting the quiet.
Madame Su's eyes flashed open, a shock of unguarded surprise—and something else, something sharp—crossing her features before it was ruthlessly suppressed.
Liang quickly waved his hands. "He means in strength! In cultivation! You have... grown up. In power. That is what he means." He shot Gen a look that clearly said *'You clumsy oaf.'*
Chubbs let out a roar of laughter that echoed in the cave. "This fool is a walking calamity! A fortune-teller of the obvious! My lady, you see, has grown in grace and wisdom. A gentle bloom. Madame Su has grown like... like an ancient tree, its roots now touching the bedrock! A different matter entirely!"
Lorel looked at Gen, her voice soft but clear. "You cannot seem to stay in one place. Even when sitting. It is too quiet for you."
Gen just shrugged, but he dropped the stick.
Madame Su stood up, her composure a solid wall once more. "Use this time. Meditate. Cycle your Qi. The night is long and the terrain ahead will not be forgiving. Do not waste the quiet." Her gaze swept over them, a silent command. "I will keep watch."
They all nodded, the moment of awkwardness passing. As she turned and walked out of the cave, her steps were silent on the stone.
Once outside, beyond the circle of firelight and the perception of the youths, her face changed. The calm mask shattered into a deep, worried frown. She closed her eyes, extending her senses into the bright night.
There. And there. And again, over the ridge.
Several auras. Powerful. Not the loose, wandering energy of beasts. This was the focused, contained pressure of human cultivators. At least five. And the way they moved—spreading out, encircling the canyon at a distance, their energies sharp and purposefully muted—this was not a friendly patrol. This was a hunting formation.
*Careless. I have been so careless.* The thought was a cold stone in her gut. Travelling with Gen and Liang for so long, she had fallen into a rhythm. Their combined strength, their knack for escaping trouble, her own rising power… it had made her lax. She had forgotten a fundamental truth.
Gen was still the Immortal's Son.
He was a symbol. A prize. A prime target for every resentful faction, every power-hungry clan, and every vengeful survivor in this broken world.
*Especially from that place.*
A phantom ache lanced across her back, a memory of wounds that had scarred over years ago but whose pain could be summoned by fear alone. She bit her lower lip hard enough to sting.
*He can never know. He must never know where I came from.*
With a final, steadying breath, she made her decision. She couldn't lead this fight to the cave. She shot upwards, a silent grey streak against the starry sky. As she rose, she deliberately let her own aura flare—not the hidden, abyssal depth of her true power, but the potent, unmistakable signature of a high-level Wheel cultivator. A beacon. She flew not deeper into the wilderness, but *back* the way they had come, towards a barren stretch of rocky hills, pulling the encircling hunters after her like iron filings to a magnet.
***
Inside the cave, the fire had burned down to a bed of pulsating coals. Gen opened his eyes from his meditation. The deep, resonant silence of the night felt different. It was missing a specific, familiar pressure.
He sat up. "Liang."
Liang, who had been nodding off, chin to his chest, jolted upright, hands coming up in a defensive stance before he blinked the sleep away. "Wha—? Oh. It's you. What's wrong?"
"Madame Su. She's not back."
Liang frowned, rubbing his face. "She is patrolling. She said she would keep watch. She could be a league away by now."
Lorel and Chubbs stirred. Lorel wiped the sleep from her eyes. "What is happening? The night is not yet half gone." Chubbs merely rolled over on his bedroll with a grunt, pulling a thin blanket over his head.
"Something is wrong," Gen said, his voice low. His senses, honed and expanded since opening his **Shidow**, stretched out into the darkness. It wasn't about seeing or hearing. It was about feeling the *texture* of the world. And now, he felt it: distant knots of coiled intent, like patches of ice in a cold river. "Auras. Several. Out there. Not close, but… positioned."
Liang was fully awake now. He closed his eyes, and the faint silver sheen of his **Master's Eyes** glimmered for a moment beneath his lids. When he opened them, his face was pale. "He is right. I can see the traces… like ripples in a pond. Qi was moved with purpose out there. Recently."
"Lorel," Gen said, turning. "Wake the lump."
Lorel knelt and shook Chubbs's shoulder. "Chubbs. We must move."
"Move where?" came the muffled reply. "The ground is perfectly good here. Tell the young master his nerves are too tight."
Gen walked over and delivered a solid, **Jingdao**-lightened kick to Chubbs's padded backside.
*"Ow!* By the forgotten gods, must you be a barbarian? A little gentle persuasion—" Chubbs's complaint died as he rolled over and saw their faces in the dim, coppery light. No jest. No mock annoyance. Just grim urgency. He sighed, a sound of profound suffering, and heaved his bulk upright. "Lead on, then. But if this is about a missing soup ladle, I am going back to sleep in a tree."
They slipped out of the cave. All of them knew **Jingdao**. The principle flowed through them, not for flashy strength, but for quiet efficiency. Muscles and tendons reinforced, bones lightened, they became more than human. They shot up the canyon wall in great, bounding leaps, silent as ghosts, finding purchase on sheer stone and leaping again, ascending into the bright night.
From the high ridge, the world was a tapestry of silver and deep blue. They moved through stunted, wind-bent trees, their enhanced hearing straining. At first, there was only the wind. Then, faintly, the rustle of cloth, the *shush* of a careful footfall on pine needles.
Gen's heart hammered against his ribs. He pushed faster, leaping from one treetop to the next, the others flowing behind him in a loose formation.
Then, voices. Carried on a cold updraft from the next valley over.
A man's voice, smooth, tinged with a mocking warmth: **"I am so happy to see you again, little Su. To think our paths would cross once more, and in such… rustic circumstances."**
The reply was Madame Su's, but strained, laced with a fury Gen had never heard from her: **"You bastard. How dare you call me by that disgusting name."**
The man's laugh was soft, unpleasant. **"You did not seem to mind it back then. Back at the Palace. The Lord's cultivation… well, it has never been quite the same, has it? Not since the Immortal…"**
He left the sentence hanging, a hook baited with poison.
In the trees, Gen froze, his blood turning to ice in his veins.