The clan compound floated above the clouds.

  Jade pavilions connected by bridges of condensed spiritual energy, gardens where spirit herbs grew in neat rows, waterfalls that flowed upward into the sky. The [??] Clan had built their home in the upper atmosphere where the qi was thick enough to taste, where mortal eyes could never reach.

  A barrier of golden light surrounded the entire compound. The clan’s protective array, powered by a hundred Soul stones and maintained by their strongest elders. It had stood for three thousand years. It had never been breached.

  I raised my hand.

  The golden light flickered once, then shattered like glass. The pieces fell through the clouds and disappeared.

  Inside the compound, someone started screaming.

  “THE ARRAY IS DOWN! THE ARRAY IS DOWN!”

  Three cultivators flew out to meet me before I even landed. The first one formed hand seals and launched a technique, a dragon made of compressed water qi that roared toward me with its jaws open. I caught it with one hand and crushed it. The water splashed across my robes.

  “[??] Dragon Wave?” I said. “That is the best you have?”

  The cultivator’s face went pale. He tried to retreat, but I was already in front of him. I put my hand through his chest and pulled out his heart. It was still beating when I dropped it.

  The second one screamed and swung his spirit sword at my neck. The blade shattered against my skin. I grabbed his face and squeezed until his skull cracked and his eyes burst from their sockets. The fluid ran down my fingers, warm and sticky.

  The third one turned to run. I let him get three steps before I appeared in front of him.

  “Where are you going?”

  He fell to his knees. “Please, young lord, I have a family—”

  I tore his head off. The body stayed upright for a moment, blood fountaining from the neck, before it toppled over.

  I smiled. Three down. Forty-five to go.

  “EVERYONE PREPARE THE SECONDARY FORMATION!”

  I stepped through the space where the barrier had been and landed on the main courtyard. The jade tiles cracked under my feet. The spiritual pressure I was releasing was too much for them.

  Cultivators poured out of the pavilions. I could feel the qi of everyone present. Forty-five now. No, forty-six. One of them was hiding in a pocket dimension beneath the main hall. I would get to that one later.

  Five more came at me. One launched a Flame Serpent technique, fire qi coiling through the air. Another formed ice spears that shot toward my chest. A third tried to bind me with golden chains made of pure spiritual energy. The fourth and fifth attacked together, their swords moving in perfect coordination.

  I walked through all of it. The flames parted around me. The ice shattered against my body. The chains dissolved when they touched my skin. The swords broke.

  I killed them one by one. The first I burned with his own flames, turning his technique back on him until his skin blackened and peeled. The second I froze solid with a touch, then shattered with a flick of my finger. The third I strangled with his own chains. The fourth and fifth I grabbed by their throats and smashed their heads together until there was nothing left but pulp.

  Their blood was warm on my hands. I liked the feeling.

  An old man flew toward me, his robes billowing with spiritual energy. Grey hair, clan elder insignia, hands trembling despite the power radiating from his body. He landed and bowed low.

  “Young lord Jie Han. Whatever offense our clan has committed, we are willing to make amends. Please, let us discuss—”

  “Your nephew,” I said. “The one with the scar on his chin. He sparred with my friend three days ago.”

  The elder’s face went white.

  “That was a sanctioned spar. Both parties agreed to the terms. Your friend received only a small wound, a scratch that healed within the hour. Surely this does not warrant—”

  “He bled.”

  “Young lord, please be reasonable—”

  “A mere [??] realm cultivator dares to make my friend bleed?” I tilted my head. “Why should I be reasonable?”

  The elder’s mouth opened and closed.

  “I do not understand,” I said. “He hurt my friend. Why are you all so upset?”

  “Young lord, it was a spar. Both parties agreed—”

  “I did not agree.”

  “You were not present—”

  “So?”

  The elder stared at me. I watched him try to find words, try to find logic, and I did not understand why he was struggling. It was simple. My friend bled. Someone had to pay. This was going to be fun.

  “We have young ones here,” he said. His voice cracked. “Elders who had nothing to do with the spar. If you must punish someone, take my nephew. Take me. Spare the rest.”

  I looked at him for a moment.

  “Why?”

  “They are innocent—”

  “So?”

  The elder’s face twisted. Tears were running down his cheeks now. “Please. I am begging you. They have done nothing wrong.”

  I did not understand why he was crying. I did not understand why any of this was so complicated. But I let him cry for a while longer before I answered.

  “No,” I said.

  I raised my hand.

  The secondary formation activated. Blue light erupted from runes carved into the jade tiles, and I felt the qi of twelve cultivators feeding into it from different points around the courtyard. They were hovering in the air, their hands forming seals, their faces twisted with concentration. A binding formation meant to lock space itself.

  “Hold him!” someone shouted. “The formation will—”

  The Void Collapsing Technique did not make noise. The air in front of my palm folded inward, and everything within that fold ceased to exist. The formation vanished. The twelve cultivators feeding it vanished. The section of pavilion behind them vanished.

  Where they had been standing there was nothing. Just a smooth curved absence in the world, and at the edges of that absence, the parts of them that had not been inside the fold. Half a torso here, still twitching, spiritual energy leaking from the severed meridians. A leg there, the bone white where it had been sheared clean. A hand gripping a jade talisman, the fingers still curled tight, the arm ending in nothing above the elbow.

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  Someone screamed.

  I laughed. Twelve of them, gone in an instant.

  A woman flew toward one of the bodies, or what was left of it. She was screaming a name, over and over, and she landed beside the half-torso and tried to hold it together, tried to push the organs back inside, her hands slipping in the blood.

  I walked past her.

  They came at me in groups. Three from the left with spirit swords drawn, two from the right with spear techniques already forming, one dropping from above with a blade aimed at my neck. Their combined cultivation was impressive for a minor clan. It meant nothing to me.

  “Die, demon! You [??] monster!”

  I raised my hand and the air folded. The three on the left were gone. One of them had been mid-swing, and his sword arm remained behind, still gripping the blade, the shoulder joint exposed and dripping, spiritual energy sparking from the severed channels. The two on the right turned to run and I folded the space behind them, and they ran into nothing and disappeared. The one from above I caught with my other hand, grabbed him out of the air by the throat, and held him there while he kicked and choked.

  He was young. Maybe sixteen. His eyes were wide and wet, and he was pissing himself, the urine running down his leg and dripping onto the jade tiles.

  “P-please,” he managed. “I have a mother—”

  “Everyone has a mother,” I said.

  I squeezed. His neck snapped, and I dropped him. He hit the ground and his body kept twitching, his legs kicking at nothing, his eyes still open and staring.

  A woman screamed from somewhere behind me. “MY SON! MY SON!”

  I kept walking.

  The main pavilion was ahead. It floated slightly above the rest of the compound, surrounded by layers of defensive formations that glowed faintly in the air. I could feel the remaining clan members gathered inside. Twenty-three. Some of them were the younger generation, barely trained. I could hear them crying through the jade walls, the young ones wailing, the elders trying to shush them.

  The elder appeared in front of me again. He had blood on his robes now, and his face was wet with tears and snot. He fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the jade tiles.

  “Why?” he asked. “Over a scratch in a spar. Why?”

  “Your nephew touched what was mine.”

  “He is dead. I felt his qi vanish. Is that not enough?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want? Tell me what you want and I will give it to you. Anything. Everything we have. Our spirit stones, our techniques, our treasures. Just spare the young generation.”

  I thought about it. I did not understand why he kept asking. The answer was obvious.

  “I want them dead,” I said.

  I let the words hang there.

  The elder made a sound.

  I raised my hand toward the main pavilion.

  “Please.” He grabbed my robes. “Please. They are just disciples. Some of them have not even started cultivating yet. Please.”

  “Let go of my robes.”

  He did not let go. He was sobbing now, his whole body shaking, his fingers twisted in the fabric.

  “I will do anything. I will kill myself right here. I will scatter my own soul. Just spare them. Please. Please.”

  I looked down at him. I did not understand why he was so upset. They were just the younger generation. There would be more. There were always more.

  I let him beg for a while longer.

  “They carry your blood,” I said. “That is enough.”

  The air folded.

  The main pavilion collapsed inward, the jade walls and the spirit formations and everything inside crumpling into a point of nothing. The screams lasted less than a second. I heard them, high and thin, and then they were gone. Where the pavilion had been there was a smooth empty crater in the sky, perfectly round, perfectly clean. The clouds swirled around its edges.

  That was the best part. The silence after. The sudden absence of all those lives, all those voices, all those heartbeats. It was peaceful.

  The elder was still on his knees. I had left him out on purpose. His hands were still gripping my robes, but his eyes were empty now. He was staring at the crater where his family had been, and he was not making any sound at all.

  “Look,” I said.

  He was already looking. At the crater. At the blood on the jade. At the silence.

  “This is what happens,” I said. “Remember it.”

  I turned and walked toward the edge of the compound.

  “Why?” The elder’s voice came from behind me, broken and hollow. “Why leave me alive?”

  I did not turn around.

  “Someone has to tell the story.”

  I stepped off the edge and let myself fall through the clouds. The compound grew smaller above me, a broken thing floating in the sky, its protective array shattered, its pavilions empty, its people gone. The elder was still kneeling where I had left him, a tiny figure against the jade tiles.

  The night was warm. I thought about what to eat for dinner.

  Yan Qiu opened his eyes.

  Pain. His chest felt like something was crushing it from the inside, pressing against his ribs, squeezing his heart. His head was splitting, a pressure behind his eyes that made him want to scream. He gripped the blanket and waited for it to pass.

  Slowly, the pain faded. The pressure in his chest eased. The splitting in his head dulled to a throb, then to nothing.

  He was lying in a bed. Not the wooden floor of the inn where he had fallen asleep, but an actual bed with a thin mattress and a blanket pulled up to his chest. Sunlight was coming through the window, and he could hear the sounds of the inn below, cups clinking and voices talking.

  He sat up. His body did not hurt anymore. He looked at his hands and they were not swollen, not bruised, not purple. The skin was clean and unbroken, as if the arena had never happened.

  The dream was still fresh in his mind. The floating compound, the jade pavilions, the screaming cultivators. The blood on his hands. The screams cutting off mid-cry.

  He did not feel disgusted. He should have. He had just dreamed of killing, of tearing people apart, of enjoying it.

  He was not.

  He got out of bed and walked downstairs. Xu Liang was wiping down a table, and the innkeeper was behind the counter sorting through a stack of receipts.

  “Morning,” Xu Liang said, looking up. “You slept like the dead. We tried to wake you for dinner last night but you would not move.”

  “Who brought me to the bed?”

  Xu Liang gave him a strange look. “What do you mean? You were sleeping in your corner when we closed up. The innkeeper said to leave you alone.”

  “No, I mean after the arena. Who carried me back?”

  Xu Liang stared at him. “What arena?”

  Yan Qiu looked at him, waiting for the grin, waiting for the joke. Xu Liang did not grin. He just stood there with the rag in his hand and a confused look on his face.

  “The underground arena,” Yan Qiu said. “Last night. You took me there. I fought seven rounds and collapsed.”

  “Yan Qiu, what are you talking about? We worked until evening, I told the innkeeper I was going to show you around the city, and then you said you were too tired and went to sleep.” He paused. “Are you feeling alright?”

  Yan Qiu’s mouth opened and closed. He looked down at his hands again. No bruises. No swelling. No dried blood.

  “My injuries,” he said slowly. “I was beaten badly. I was coughing blood.”

  “You look fine to me.”

  Yan Qiu stood there for a long moment. Then he forced a smile. “Right. Must have been a dream.”

  “Some dream,” Xu Liang said, and went back to wiping the table.

  Yan Qiu went back upstairs. He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think. The arena had been real. He could remember every detail, the masks, the torches, the stone platform, the taste of blood in his mouth. He could remember the laughter that came out of him, the way his fists kept swinging even when he stopped aiming. He could remember collapsing face-first onto the stone.

  But his body had no marks. And Xu Liang did not remember any of it.

  He thanked Xu Liang later for not telling the innkeeper about the arena. Xu Liang looked at him like he had lost his mind.

  “I told you, there was no arena. Stop joking around.”

  “You are serious?”

  “Why would I joke about this?”

  Yan Qiu studied his face. Xu Liang was not lying. He genuinely did not remember.

  “Fine,” Yan Qiu said.

  Xu Liang looked surprised, like he had expected more of an argument. Yan Qiu just turned away.

  “I want to test something,” he said. “I will come down for breakfast later. Go ahead without me.”

  He went back upstairs and sat cross-legged on the bed. He closed his eyes and reached inward, the way the old man had taught him. He focused on the bright current and ignored the darkness, letting the qi flow through his body while he examined his own condition.

  Something was different. The qi moved easier than before, smoother and faster, like a stream that had been widened. He followed it through his body and felt the pathways that had been thin and fragile just yesterday, and they were stronger now, more defined. He checked again, carefully, making sure he was not imagining it.

  He had broken through. He was at the second stage of Breath Weaving.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the wall.

  That should not have been possible. He had been at the first stage for weeks, making slow progress, and now overnight he had jumped to the second. Something had happened to his body while he slept, something that healed his injuries and pushed his cultivation forward at the same time.

  He did not understand it. He filed it away and went downstairs to work.

  That evening, after the inn quieted down, Yan Qiu told Xu Liang he was going for a walk.

  He retraced the path from his memory. Down the main street, left at the lantern shop, through the side street, into the alley. He was looking for the stone steps that led underground, the ones Xu Liang had taken him down the night before.

  The alley ended at a wall. There were no steps. There was no door. Just old brick and a pile of garbage that looked like it had been there for months.

  He tried the next alley over. Then the one after that. He walked the streets for an hour, checking every side road and every passage that went below ground level, and he found nothing.

  He stopped a man carrying firewood and asked if there was an underground arena anywhere in the city.

  The man laughed at him. “An arena? Underground? Boy, you have been reading too many stories.”

  He asked a woman selling dumplings from a cart. She shook her head and told him to go home.

  He asked an old man sitting outside a tea house. The old man squinted at him and said there had never been anything like that in Dusthaven, not in all his years of living here.

  Yan Qiu stood in the middle of the street as the evening crowd moved around him. The lanterns were lit and the city looked exactly as it had the night before, warm and orange and full of people heading somewhere.

  But the arena did not exist. The street did not exist. And nobody knew what he was talking about.