Jiang woke up in a trash heap. It was an endless gray pile of ash and dead bodies clouded with a thick and suffocating black smoke that reeked of death and burning plastic. He stood but his legs shook so badly he collapsed face-first back into the ash. Jiang closed his mouth, but it still came up his nose.

  With great effort he propped up his right arm and rolled over onto his back, staring at the blue or black or purple sky he couldn’t see through the smoke.

  Jiang opened his mouth, then closed it,

  opened it again,

  and sighed.

  He raised a trembling left arm to the smog and closed his fist, then he opened it again and closed it, allowing the arm to fall painfully back down. His tendons wouldn’t be damaged, but his qi was gone. He assumed his spirit-inside-the-brain had been destroyed and his qi totally wiped out, annihilating his sense of self inside the body.

  Jiang wondered how much time had passed. Did his body recover itself?

  Awake at last. A voice rumbled from beneath the earth. Jiang startled.

  “Who are you?” Jiang thought.

  「Azafir」it replied. The ash did not stir and Jiang realized the deity was speaking directly into his brain.

  “What do you want?”

  Swear yourself to me.

  Jiang chuckled silently but the chuckles hurt his ribs. He sputtered at first and then coughed violently, ash-stained bile coming out of the wet coughs and landing on his ash-stained and naked chest.

  He knew「Azafir」could bury him here.

  The ash suddenly cleared a path to the sky, black in the night and shimmering with stars.

  Swear your dao to my service.

  “You could not hold me for ten billion years.”

  “I would find a way out.”

  You would not survive so long.

  Jiang did not answer.

  Swear your dao to me until you rid this world of its pests and return it to me in its primordial state. I will release you at such time.

  “You weren’t alive when this world was molten!”

  Azafir did not answer.

  Jiang knew that if Azafir could revive him, it could also kill him just as easily, and keep him dead. The problem with gods was that while they could be ignored, if one took an interest in you there was nothing you could do at all to stop them from getting what they want.

  At least this oath had an escape condition.

  I swear my dao to your service,「Azafir」, under the condition you support me until such time as the release clause triggers, and that you swear yourself again to my service when this condition is met.

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  The ground rumbled as Azafir laughed mightily.

  No. I will grant you power but never again service.

  Jiang shrugged painfully, 「It is done.」— the ground shook again as their deal was set. It was quite lucky Ding Yi’s contract wasn’t so binding, but Azafir was born from Jiang’s expended essence, it was unsurprising he knew more of the Dao than some dread on a backwater.

  First question: how long has it been? Jiang needed to find out, but before he could stand Jiang needed to absorb qi. It had been weak at the game area, but over in the ash pit it was strong. It was possible Azafir was involved somehow and was allowing the qi in this area to be stronger than the others, but Jiang would have to confirm later. For now, the important part was that his techniques had been relying on the absorption and re-transmission of his enemies’ qi, but that wasn’t practical at all to rely on. If the enemy wasn’t releasing qi it meant he would be unable to use any active techniques, leaving him vulnerable to psychic and spiritual attacks.

  Jiang spent a minute or more sitting up, and a minute or more crossing his legs, every muscle trembling with the strain. His regeneration was total, but the new brain wasn’t quite used to controlling the body, and the total lack of qi reserves made it even more difficult.

  He sat up straight with a stiff back, hands on his calves with palms together, facing out, eyes closed.

  His mind was clear. The qi was dark and murky, like a rising tide washing over a dry beach or perhaps one strewn with rubble or filth. It wasn’t fit to be processed, but he knew it could be done. Jiang took deep breaths and felt a deep sense of inner peace. He couldn’t die here, there was nothing that could stop him. However slow his goals would progress they could not be stopped. Patience would allow him everything he desired given enough time.

  I will live.

  I will conquer.

  He repeated to himself, meditating on the dao he had chosen so long ago. It was much simpler than most paths others chose, and that was because Jiang knew the Dao was not static. It was not a single force that always acted the same way. The Dao was an approach, not a path carved in the wilderness. The Dao was a means to carve your own path through any jungle, not to follow ones others have made well-tread.

  Qi is a general power made specific by body and scripture as a manifestation of the living energy of all things under the Dao as they move forward through time and through space. To render qi specific is to reduce it: to render something greater into something lesser. Why would you take a waterfall and collect it under the mountain in a reservoir when your need for its power has not come? You should not. The water should be collected atop the mountain and allowed to fall only when the time is right.

  Jiang therefore only needed to collect qi, not to process it to any real extent. He would need to purify it, but there was no second step to convert it to be compatible with his scripture. Jiang opened himself to the Dao and it flowed inside him.

  His body opened and Jiang knew everyone could see. In his spiritual sight Jiang saw himself sitting there in the junkyard, a maelstrom of black and gray and brown swirling around him.

  All swirling down the celestial drain that had been opened before them.

  All swirling down the pit that should not exist here.

  The swirling grew more and more chaotic and frenetic as if gravity itself had been opened and punctured as a fabric, a heavy mass placed at the center— a hole placed where the center should be— and as all the inertia and mass of all the qi around Jiang found itself inexorably pulled towards his gravity— towards this void in the Dao that just so desperately needed to be filled. It poured inwards and inwards and did not stop but Jiang knew his qi capacity was more than this world could ever hope to give.

  Jiang was a broken cup that all the contents of the world could never fill; a lead cup that dragged all the qi down into its center and demanded it to fill all the way to the brim. But the brim remained dry. It would ever remain dry. It could not be filled.

  I will conquer.

  He would never stop. He would greedily drink and drink until all the qi of all the worlds was drained. There would be nothing left, and even still Jiang knew that he would not be satisfied.

  I will conquer.

  There was no ending clause. He would drink and drink and drink and his cup could never be filled.

  I will live.

  There was no room for death. He would live until the last star died out. Jiang would live until he was alone in the universe with no one left to mourn him in his cruel and eternal fate.

  I will conquer.

  And indeed the void would be his. There would be nothing left in all the universe that did not owe itself to him. It would be his dao that conquered all in the last instant.

  And there would be nothing else.