Every few minutes, I feel the sensation of a strange qi passing over me. The Movements of The Silent Monster seems to keep the qi from noticing my presence, and I hope it’ll stay that way.

  Men speaking in brisk tones pass by my hiding spot and anxiety runs through me as I wonder if they’ll discover me and I’ll be forced to kill them.

  Each minute stretches for an eternity as I wait for Shia. I focus on my breath to calm myself, counting the seconds as I breathe in, then out.

  In, then out.

  The spirit of the camp flows through me. The spirit is harsher than usual, ready, as if for a battle.

  Eventually, Shia returns, her form almost invisible in the darkness of the night. She travels up my offered arm and into my robes. I shiver at the sensation of her against my body.

  “What did you find?” I ask, standing from my meditative position.

  “Your master has dodged the arrow of death, it seems. They keep her in the mine.”

  My body collapses against the wall as relief fills me. She’s still alive.

  I close my eyes, crying a little before wiping the tears away. I hadn’t seen them kill her, but I didn’t want to hope….

  With a deep breath, I push myself away from the wall and stand up tall.

  “You know, little one, they would not leave one such as her unguarded.”

  “I know.” I answer as I walk through the camp.

  “You only put yourself in danger, with little chance of success, by continuing”

  “I know.” I repeat, my feet leading me to the entrance of the mineshaft.

  “Good. Then try not to die, little one. I’m starting to enjoy your company.”

  I unsheathe my sword in preparation, my breath even.

  Two men guard the entrance to the mineshaft, their qi lesser than mine.

  I have to kill them, or get past them without letting them warn the true monsters existing in this camp.

  They are too visible for me to kill them without alerting the whole camp, so I hum to hide my presence further as I walk between the both of them.

  “Do you hear that?” One of them asks, waking up the other.

  “Hear what?”

  “A humming.”

  I ignore their conversation, hoping they just assume they imagined it as I travel further into the mines.

  I lose my vision as we travel into the pitch black depths. Shia guides me, telling me when to turn. I memorize the steps in hopes of finding my way back out even without her guidance.

  A torch on the wall lights up a doorway at the end of the tunnel I’m walking, the light flickering in the darkness.

  I hold my sword at the ready as I walk up the door.

  As soon as I open the door, whoever is on the other side will know I’m here and I’ll have to kill whoever they are, in order to free my Master.

  Shia slides out of my robes, and some small part of me wonders if she is abandoning me now, leaving me alone to face whatever powerful cultivator is in the room through the door.

  I close my eyes one last time, preparing myself.

  Then I open them, and throw the door open.

  Two men turn to me, but I’m in motion, my feet carrying me to them in an instant. My sword slices through the first man’s neck as he reaches for his sword.

  The second pulls his sword out, and I recognize him from the attack on the caravan. He was one of the men who fought Qiu Tai, and his cultivation is much much stronger than mine.

  A wave of force hits me, throwing me against the wall.

  The man is in Middle Foundation Establishment,

  I roll back onto my feet, catching my breath as I sing in familiar, haunting tones.

  The First Requiem: Field of Blood.

  The world changes around us, as the enemy cultivator takes a step back.

  Blood flows over the rock under our feet.

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  Metal screeches against metal as men fight each other on the ancient battlefield.

  Screams echo out as men lose limbs, or are stabbed through.

  The warrior of the first requiem appears beside me, his sword drawn and covered in blood.

  The enemy cultivator looks at the battlefield, uneasy.

  To my surprise, the enemy cultivator pulls the blood of my illusion around him, solidifying it into arrows.

  And I know I’ve won.

  He’s fallen for the illusion and accepts it for reality.

  He shoots the arrows of blood at me, and the First Requiem Warrior steps in front of me. The Warrior slices through the arrows, returning them to blood.

  I focus on the illusion, calling on my qi. Then I change it.

  The warriors around us stop their battle, turning to the enemy cultivator. As one, they move in.

  The enemy cultivator fights valiantly, calling on the blood across the battlefield to kill those around him.

  But these warriors were cultivators from a time filled with bloodshed.

  They overwhelm him, and since he accepts the Requiem as reality, it becomes reality for him.

  He dies as the requiem ends, the illusionary swords through his chest disappearing as I stop singing.

  I collapse to the floor, gasping for breath. My qi reserves are nearly empty, but I managed it.

  I killed him.

  And a third man walks into the room from the door opposite of the one I just came through. His cultivation is as strong as the man I just killed.

  I laugh, smiling up at him from the floor I kneel on. “I’m not going to die just yet.” I say, my confidence unwavering.

  I stand up as he draws his sword. My ribs ache from the previous cultivator’s opening strike.

  The man raises his sword, slicing forward with his qi. I’m thrown back against the wall, the ring on my finger shattering. Then the man stops. He falls to the ground, familiar purple lines traveling up his ankles.

  Shia slithers over him, towards me. “No, it appears you aren’t, little one.” She grabs a ring of keys off of the poisoned man’s belt with her tail. She holds them out to me and I grab them from her. She slithers back into my robes.

  I walk to the door the last man walked through, placing my hand on the handle.

  At the last moment, I turn back around, and bow to the room full of the dead. “I’m sorry.”

  My heartfelt apology is met by the gurgling of the poisoned man’s final moments.

  My eyes close as a weight enters my stomach, then reopen my eyes with my conviction.

  I open the door into the next room.

  Cages line the walls. Men and women of all ages sit shackled in these cages, their eyes focusing on me as I walk into the room.

  I stare at the cages, unsure how to proceed.

  “Your master is at the end.” Shia says.

  I walk forward, my eyes catching the eyes of every prisoner I pass.

  I reach the end.

  Qiu Tai lies in her cage, her body battered with scrapes and cuts. Her shackles glow blue, absorbing the qi around and I assume, in her. Her eyes open as I approach, weakened.

  I sheathe my sword.

  I hold back my sobs as I kneel next to the cage and unlock it.

  She is alive. I- I couldn’t believe it. Fate is never that kind.

  Tears fall as I move to the strange shackles around her wrists.

  They fall to the floor and my body rocks with sobs.

  Arms reach around me and I let her pull me into her chest as I cry.

  Her body is thinner than I remember, her presence itself weakened, but her spirit- her spirit is the same. Her qi is weak, almost as if she’d fallen in her cultivation all the way to a mere Third Level Qi Awakened

  “Junior Sister. Jia.” Qiu Tai says. I pull back, wiping my face on my sleeve. “I’m sure you don’t have much time. We should hurry.”

  I nod, then stand up.

  Qiu Tai leans on me as I help her off the floor. My gaze catches on all of those still in cages.

  Freeing all of them would take so much of our limited time.

  I lean Qiu Tai against a cage as I unlock a cage with another cultivator trapped by those strange qi absorbing shackles, then I toss the keys to him. He has more energy than Qiu Tai and gets to work on his own shackles.

  I pass the choice on to the strange cultivator, but it’s the best I can do. I have no desire to let Qiu Tai get recaptured or to fall into Doma’s hands myself.

  I move back to Qiu Tai. Already, her complexion looks better, but she still leans on me as we leave the caged room and enter the room with the dead guards.

  Qiu Tai looks around at the dead men, smiling. She spits on one of them as we pass them.

  I ignore the action, focusing on leaving. I retrace my steps through the mines, not relying on Shia, since she prefers to keep her presence hidden. Already, Qiu Tai’s presence feels stronger than moments ago, up to the strength of an Eighth Level Qi Awakened disciple.

  The two guards still sit at the entrance to the mine, talking to each other in whispers. I pause, not sure how I want to get past them.

  Qiu Tai spits something into her hand. It’s the ring she wore all the time, her spatial ring. She puts it on her hand and stops leaning on me.

  Her sword of paper is pulled from her storage. She then walks up behind one of the soldiers. She stabs him through the back, then pulls her sword out and slices through the neck of the second soldier before he can react.

  They both fall to the floor dead.

  She looks down on them with pure hatred, before turning back to me and stumbling into my arms.

  I hold her up as we walk past the bodies.

  Now that we are out in the open, any cultivator who happens to be searching with their qi will discover us. My qi is still drained from the requiem, which means I won’t be able to produce too many illusions.

  Horses. If we’re going to escape, then we need horses to ride. We’ll ride to the portal and try to find a way through there.

  I lead Qiu Tai to the stable; it isn’t too hard to find with the sounds and smells it produces. I leave her against the wall as I kill the poor man watching the horses.

  I grab two mares, already saddled, then look back over the line of horses.

  “Shia, can you poison them enough so that they can’t follow us without killing them?”

  “I kill what I bite.” The snake says, slipping from my robes.

  “Then do what you have to.”

  A few moments later, I’m helping Qiu Tai mount one of the mares.

  Once she’s on the horse, I walk both horses towards the gate.

  That’s when the alarms go off.

  A shout, a ringing of a bell. The whole camp wakes up.

  I hop onto my horse with haste. I kick the horse into a gallop towards the gate, Qiu Tai’s mare following mine.

  How do we get through?

  I remember something I’d bought at the market of the sect, but never had the chance to use. I reach into a hidden, waterproof pocket of my robe, pulling out the talisman I’d bought all that time ago.

  A flame reaching to the sky is drawn on the talisman. In this moment, I know what it does, knowledge filling me as I read the talisman.

  As we gallop towards the gate, I channel qi into it. The talisman ignites, turning to dust in my hands.

  A bird made of fire flies out of the talisman, expanding until it is larger than the gate it is flying towards.

  It screeches, the sound sending every soldier and cultivator from this strange land stumbling to the ground. Then it crashes into the gate, burning it to a crisp as it flies through.

  Our horses follow it a moment later, fearless.

  Then we are out, galloping down the open road.

  Now all we have to do is reach the portal home.

  And sneak through an enemy camp to get there.