As much as Sen wanted to sleep, wanted to rest, he didn’t dare, because as much as he wanted to believe the danger had finally passed, he knew it hadn’t. If anything, the danger was even greater now, just not necessarily as immediate. So, he went inside long enough to dress his wounds and see if he could reinforce the formation protecting the Silver Crane. The people inside the brothel were very, very quiet around him. Even Lifen didn’t seem to know exactly what to say to him. Then again, even if was dark outside, the pile of bodies had gotten hard to miss. It would be sobering to know that all of those people had been sent to kill you. Although, it was probably just as sobering for them to realize that he had killed all of those people by himself. He’d done it in their defense, but that was still a lot of dead people. Sen decided he was glad that none of them really wanted to talk. He was still in a truly staggering amount of pain. Auntie Caihong’s pill was working its literal and metaphorical magic, but it wasn’t anything like an instant cure. The body needed time and it needed resources, and Sen didn’t dare to stop long enough to give it either. By now, word would have started to spread, even without the messenger he’d sent to the sect.

Like it or not, someone from the Soaring Skies sect would be coming and, likely, it would be someone Sen couldn’t fight to a standstill or defeat. It might not have looked that way to anyone that was watching, but he knew exactly how close that last fight had been, just how narrow his victory had been. If he’d been a second or two slower, if his concentration had slipped just a hair at any point, he’d be dead. Of course, he also hadn’t used his most powerful technique either. If the next person who came was determined to fight, he might not have that choice. Sen didn’t know if Heavens’ Rebuke could actually kill a middle-stage or late-stage core formation cultivator. He couldn’t even really be sure it would hurt them, although he struggled to imagine anyone short of the nascent soul stage simply walking off that attack. In the end, if became a true choice between survival and destruction, he would use it. He just prayed that he wouldn’t have to.

He did manage to reinforce the barrier a bit, although he had his doubts that his formation would prove more than a brief frustration for higher-level core cultivators. On the other hand, Sen hoped that most sect elders would find murdering a bunch of mortals in what would soon be broad daylight beneath their dignity. For a moment, true fatigue overcame Sen and he had to lean against a wall to keep himself upright. Sighing, Sen retrieved the elixir he’d made back at the camp with the Soaring Skies members from his storage ring and downed it. It wasn’t exactly the right fix for his current problems, but it would have to do. Then, though it grated on him to do so, he separated a drop of liquid qi and let it course through his channel, slowly feeling it burn away as the pill and his own elixir greedily snatched its power to fuel his recovery. The sudden burst of qi in his system and the abrupt reduction in pain gave him a temporary boost, but he knew how temporary it really was. Sen grudgingly took a minute to mechanically chew and swallow some travel rations that he didn’t taste. Then, he went back outside.

Shen Mingxia had returned at some point and was kneeling near the door. Sen just gaped at her. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. Leaning on his spear for a bit of support, Sen sighed and addressed the woman.

“Why are you here?”

Shen Mingxia had a complicated look on her face when she answered. “Three times.”

“What?” Sen asked.

“I owe you my life three times over. Once, you spared me. Twice you prevented members of my own sect from striking me down. I don’t know that I can ever repay that debt.”

Sen’s tired mind just didn’t know what to do with that, so he shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t ignore it,” said the woman.

Sen waved her off. “Another of your elders is coming. I can feel them. I give it fifty-fifty odds we’ll both be dead in the next five minutes. So, don’t worry about it. If we die, I release you from all obligations. If, by some miracle, we manage to survive, you can buy me dinner or something and we’ll call it even.”

“Buy you dinner and call it even? If you think I value my honor so cheaply,” Shen Mingxia started yelling, only to cut herself off and stare toward the spot where Sen was looking.

The cultivator that was approaching them wasn’t some middle-stage or late-stage core cultivator. Sen was certain that they were a peak core cultivator, probably right on the cusp of the nascent soul stage. That elder’s power pressed down on huge tracts of the city like a blanket. Sen didn’t shrug it off, because no one just shrugged something like that off, but he didn’t drop to his knees the way the elder no doubt planned. Sen had been trained under much greater powers than that. He’d been forced to run forms, even to spar beneath the weight of both Master Feng and Uncle Kho’s unveiled power. He supposed he’d developed a partial mental immunity to it. Of course, a partial mental immunity only helped him shed the worst of the effects. The pains in his already injured body redoubled, and he had to bite back on the grunt that tried to escape his lips.

Sen could see that Shen Mingxia hadn’t had the benefits of similar training. She was sprawled out on the ground, her breathing shallow, and barely conscious. Sen suspected that the same was true for everyone inside the Silver Crane. As much as he wanted to help them, there was nothing he could do. His own resilience wasn’t something he could pass on. When the elder floated into view, he certainly met Sen’s expectations about what an elder should look like. His hair floated around him like a white halo and a beard flowed down over his chest. The man looked imperiously over the scene below him. There was a moment of bewilderment on the old man’s face when his eyes landed on the still-standing Sen. Sen felt a moment of vicious satisfaction.

“I am Elder Deng, of the Soaring Skies sect,” said the man in a smooth, deep voice. “I have come to put a stop to this nonsense.”

“Nonsense? Having your outer and inner disciples sent out to murder mortals by the score is nonsense? You feel that having a demonic cultivator in your sect is nonsense?”

“That is absurd.”

“Is it?” asked Sen.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but something of the banked fury inside of Sen must have burned itself into those two simple words, because Elder Deng’s eyes snapped onto Sen. Sen gestured with his spear to core cultivator stuck inside the suppression formation and said, “Examine him for yourself.”

Elder Deng bristled at the commanding tone in Sen’s words, but he drifted down and landed next to the suppressed core cultivator. There was a moment of silence, and then Sen saw Elder Deng twitch. The elder stood there for a long moment before he turned his dark gaze back on Sen. The Elder’s eyes flickered across the entire scene, no doubt making note of the damage that scored the walls and the streets. His eyes rested for a long time on the pile of bodies.

“You have killed many of my sect this night,” said Elder Deng.

“I defended the mortals inside this place from your sect. There is a difference. I also sent warnings. I tried to send them back to fetch an elder. They chose to fight instead.”

“Your word, and nothing more,” said Elder Deng.

“And hers,” said Sen, pointing at the prone form of Shen Mingxia. “Unless, of course, you plan to call your own sect members liars to cover up your failings.”

“Our failings,” roared Elder Deng, and Sen felt the man’s qi circulate.

“Demonic cultivators, in your honorable Soaring Skies sect!” Sen bellowed back, using a flicker of air qi to ensure his voice carried for half a mile in every direction. “People keep telling me about the honor of your sect. Yet, I’ve seen them do virtually nothing but try to lie, steal, intimidate, and murder. In fact, I can count on two fingers the number of Soaring Skies sect members I’ve seen act with true honor. As far as I can tell, your sect is corrupt to the core.”

Elder Deng’s face had gone white under Sen’s barrage, although Sen had no clue about the cause. Was it rage or simply shock that Sen had so made a point of exposing the sect’s secrets so publicly? Maybe it was something else altogether. No matter the cause, Sen wondered if he’d just killed himself, Shen Mingxia, and everyone inside the Silver Crane. Elder Deng didn’t move, didn’t avert his eyes from Sen, for the longest thirty seconds of Sen’s life. Then, slowly, so slowly, his eyes turned to Shen Mingxia. Abruptly, the palpable, overwhelming presence of Elder Deng’s power vanished. Sen almost staggered to one side as the pressure lifted.

Sen was left completely in the dark as the elder roused Shen Mingxia and pulled her away to have a conversation that Sen couldn’t hear. The woman looked terrified to be getting the direct attention of an elder of her sect. Even so, she seemed to be telling a story, pointing at the pile of bodies a few times, at Sen himself repeatedly, and at the suppressed demonic cultivator. She even took a moment to spit on the demonic cultivator who had tried to murder her. When she was done, the elder waved her away. She came and stood next to Sen. He lifted an eyebrow in her direction.

“I did what I could,” she said, a hint of apology in her tone.

The elder spent another five minutes with his head bowed in some kind of silent contemplation, or perhaps he knew some method of communicating over a distance with qi. Sen knew such things were possible, but he lacked the power to do them yet. Master Feng had made some vague comments about teaching them to Sen down the road, which might have meant a couple of years, or a couple of centuries. Elder Deng finally turned and walked over to Sen. The man looked troubled, angry, but not like someone on the cusp of violence.

“It seems we owe you a debt, for exposing this corruption in our midst,” said Elder Deng. “Although, given how many people you killed to send the message, it might be wise to wait a time before trying to collect on that debt.”

“I want nothing from your sect, save your word that the Silver Crane and its employees will be left unmolested.”

Elder Deng waved a hand as though it were trivial. “They will not be harmed. For, despite your claims, there is still honor in the Soaring Skies sect. Although, perhaps less honor than I once believed. You wish nothing else from us?”

“Only what I always wanted. To be left alone.”

Elder Deng studied Sen for a long moment before he nodded. “As you wish. And what of you Disciple Shen? What would you ask of the sect in recompense for the, apparently, many sins it has committed against you?”

“I only wish to learn,” said Shen Mingxia. “I need a teacher. A real teacher.”

Sen interjected then. “Wu Meng Yao.”

Shen Mingxia turned a baffled look on Sen, but the Elder’s gaze was sharp.

Sen shrugged, “You can trust in her honor.”

From the darkness, a voice called out. “A wise choice, Elder Deng. Wise indeed. I assure you that you much prefer the tender mercies of Judgment’s Gale to those of his master.”

Sen, Elder Deng, and Shen Mingxia all turned and watched as a woman emerged from the darkness. Sen didn’t have the faintest idea of who she was, or what a judgment’s gale was, or why this insane woman was threatening to upend the delicately balanced peace he’d just forged with the sect elder. The woman gave them all a martial bow. Sen felt a steady gaze boring a hole into the side of his head, so he turned to see Elder Deng giving him an intense look.

“You’re Judgment’s Gale?” the elder demanded.

Sen started to deny it, but the woman cut him off. “He is, although I’m not entirely certain he knows it.”

“Then, who is his master?”

The woman gave the elder a bleak smile. “Feng Ming, known to some as Fate’s Razor.”