Elder Deng’s fist slammed into the wall. If he’d been in any other room, anywhere else in the sect, that stone would have shattered and likely sent a cloud of deadly shrapnel into some unsuspecting junior sect members. That was why the room existed. It had been reinforced with countless formations to withstand the fury of even peak core cultivators. And Elder Deng was furious about so many things. He was furious that a demonic cultivator had been in their ranks, had even been a recently elevated elder, and somehow escaped detection. There were supposed to be safeguards in place to prevent such things. That they had all seemingly failed meant this demonic cultivator was especially skilled or that the Soaring Skies sect had become lazy.

Much to Elder Deng’s continued frustration, the evidence seemed to suggest the latter. After all, the traitorous little weasel had gotten himself defeated by a mere late-stage foundation formation cultivator. That thought cooled Elder Deng’s fury right off with a cold wave of fear. No, he thought, the traitorous little weasel didn’t get defeated by some random foundation formation wandering cultivator. He’d been defeated by a folk hero whose name had started showing up everywhere over the last month. He’d been defeated by a student of Feng Ming. Training at the hands of that blood-soaked figure of cultivator myth could go a long way toward explaining how an initial core cultivator had suffered such a decisive loss to someone a full stage behind him.

The very name Feng Ming was enough to conjure nightmarish images in Elder Deng’s mind. There were stories, so many stories, of the lengths that Fate’s Razor had gone to redress slights against him. Tales of what he’d done in the north had found their way back to Emperor’s Bay. He’d simply wiped an entire sect from existence, and no mere sect. He’d dismantled the Coiled Dragon sect by himself. That sect had practically been a government in its own right. For all the chaos he left in his wake, Feng Ming might as well have executed an entire royal family and every noble in a kingdom. Elder Deng shuddered. The Soaring Skies sect couldn’t stand against that kind of power, and the idiot demonic cultivator had ordered attacks against a business owned by the man. He just hoped that word would get back to the old monster that no real harm had been done.

No real harm, Elder Deng thought bitterly. Over a dozen inner and outer sect members were dead, including one very promising sword artist that Elder Deng had been planning on training himself one day. That loss alone was enough to reignite his fury, and he punched the wall again. If only the wandering cultivator hadn’t been so public, so skilled…so frightening, Elder Deng finally admitted to himself. It wasn’t that the boy was an active threat to someone like the elder himself, but he shouldn’t have been a threat against the numbers sent against him. He shouldn’t have been able to calmly withstand the pressure of a peak core cultivator’s power. He certainly shouldn’t have been able to single-handedly defeat a demonic core cultivator. If the boy was like that now, what would he become in the future?

Yet, for all that, Elder Deng was having a difficult time being angry with the boy called Judgment’s Gale. If anything, the boy’s responses had been restrained. He tried to avoid the fight. He spared the one who chose not to fight. He didn’t try to extort the sect. Elder Deng gritted his teeth. No, that damnable woman had taken care of that part. The boy would have just let him take the dead, and the demonic cultivator, and leave. She had been the one who insisted that boy take his due. Two priceless sect treasures lost in one fell swoop. Granted, the boy didn’t seem especially attached to those treasures, so he probably would trade them back to the sect for something he did want more. Still, if she hadn’t intervened, the bargain wouldn’t have been necessary at all. Elder Deng’s fists lashed out again in quick series of strikes. Boom. Boom. Boom.

At the end of the day, though, it was the demonic cultivator that gave the elder fits. Worse, they didn’t know if he was the only one. They could hope that he was, but there were dark days ahead for everyone in the sect, particularly for those who had been closest to the traitorous little weasel. There would be hard questions. There would be tests. No one would be spared from those, not even the elders. With at least some of his towering rage spent, Elder Deng braced himself. It was time to question the demonic cultivator. That would be a long, unpleasant task, and one the core cultivator was unlikely to survive. Best to just get it over with, the elder thought, before Feng Ming decides to kill us all.

***

Elder Gao Ah Cy of the Wandering Winds sect was positively ecstatic. She’d spent the last few days smiling at her extended family in the sect and even bestowing gifts. After decades of watching the self-righteous Soaring Skies sect flaunt their supposed superiority, they’d been brought down a notch or three by a wandering cultivating. A wandering cultivator. It was so delicious that she could almost eat it with a spoon. And, as if that wasn’t good enough, the cultivator was also some kind of folk hero. They called him Judgment’s Gale and, as far as Elder Gao was concerned, judgment couldn’t have fallen on the heads of a more deserving group than the Soaring Skies sect. Of course, there were those troubling rumors of demonic cultivators hiding in that sect. That wasn’t just trouble for that sect, but trouble for every cultivator in the city. If some old monster decided to wipe the infection clean, they might not bother to discriminate between the Soaring Skies sect and the other sects in the city.

That was why she had resolved to befriend the wandering cultivator who had bestowed this long-dreamt of gift upon her. Anyone who could bring the Soaring Skies sect low and live to tell the tale, well, they must have powerful backing of their own. It never hurt to curry a little favor with the mighty. Of course, it was curiosity more than anything else that made her want to meet the young man. She struggled to picture the kind of person who could do what he had seemingly done. Was he just that powerful in his own right or was his backing even more impressive than she expected? Could it be both? The Wandering Winds sect rarely opened their doors to outsiders, but for him, well, exceptions could be made for the truly gifted. If his acceptance into the sect might also bring along the ancillary benefits of implicit or explicit support from his powerful backers, that was even better.

Of course, that all depended on the boy actually accepting their invitation. Elder Gao wondered if she should send another.

***

Elder He Mingze wished he had arrived in Emperor’s Bay sooner. If he had, he might have avoided hearing the news that left him trembling. He’d come all this way as fast as his cultivation could carry him, covering hundreds of miles in mere days, only to discover that the wandering cultivator he’d come to find had, seemingly, brought the largest local sect to heel. Worse, he’d done it on the edge of his sword, leaving dozens dead, including an elder if the reports were true. Lin Zimo hadn’t been able to confirm the stories beyond a few sketchy details. There had been an altercation with sect members. The wandering cultivator had cut them down. Then, when a senior elder had arrived, the wandering cultivator had negotiated some kind of peace with the man.

This was all of He Mingze’s worst nightmares come true. The Soaring Skies sect could swallow the Stormy Seas sect whole without a hint of indigestion. That the wandering cultivator could openly challenge them, slay their members, and survive the experience, did not bode well for the future of the Stormy Seas sect. The elder could easily picture the day when the wandering cultivator returned to Tide’s Rest to burn the Stormy Seas sect to the ground. He needed to get to the young man before his legend grew any bigger and make peace, at whatever price the wandering cultivator demanded. Far better to suffer a humiliation now, than face utter destruction later.

***

Lo Meifeng was annoyed, again. She had watched the steady stream of messengers coming and going from the brothel, no doubt leaving scores of invitations for the Lu Sen. No, she corrected herself, for Judgment’s Gale. The smart thing for him to do was to consult her about which invitations to accept. She wasn’t an expert on the local politics, but she was more than adept enough to see which invitations were traps and which were just posturing games by the local power players. She could have guided him to the best outcome, possibly with some assistance from that girl who had attached herself to the young man. Then again, maybe not. The girl had taken a very obvious dislike to Lo Meifeng, although the reasons seemed a bit obscure. Lo Meifeng had no designs on the boy, except perhaps to tease him once in a while. Was the girl just in love with him? She supposed it was possible, young hearts being as fickle as they were.

Still, there was important business to be about, so what was the boy doing? He was visiting alchemist shops. Of all of the random things he could have chosen to do, he was visiting shops that sold products he clearly didn’t need to buy from them. Based on the secondhand information she’d gotten about the remedies he’d been handing out like candy in that village, his own skills likely dwarfed those of the people who owned those shops. Not for the first time, she wondered why fate or the gods had saddled her with the thankless task of watching over this kid.