PtM Book 17 - Chapter 39: Continuous Calamities

Three chapters this week, but the word count is long, so less chapters next week. I think it's worth the tradeoff though in terms of where things cut off.

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Clouds accumulated once more, filling them to the brim with Heaven and Earth Energies. The tribulation’s will was determined to enforce its verdict: death, for all many-tailed foxes.

A sun of black fire appeared, sending destructive rays washing over them. Opposite the sun appeared a frosty white moon that nourished all thing in creation.

“Oh man,” said Huxian. “That’s the Sun and Moon Calamity. Our luck is just downright terrible.”

“I take it this one is bad?” Cha Ming asked.

“It doesn’t attack us physically, but with law energy,” said Huxian. “The scariest thing about it is that it’s unblockable. The tribulation uses up a bit of will to attack our energy reserves.”

Cha Ming frowned. “But my energy reserves are already low.”

“But ours aren’t,” said Luther.

The black sun and white moon flashed, sending two waves of radiance into his inner universe. It directly pierced his divine shell, erasing half of Cha Ming Clearmist reserves. Only a twentieth of his maximum reserves remained.”

Huxian and Luther suffered much more than he did. A fifth of their energy reserves evaporated in an instant. But this was not the true target of the attack – the calamity had not just attacked the three of them, but the remnants of the Flamewing Demiplane.

Half of the planar fragments that remained were now shattered, and over a fifth of the remainder turned to dust that was blown away by fresh astral winds. This left even less material for Cha Ming to complete his inner universe.

It occurred to Cha Ming that the calamity didn’t need to outright kill them. By depriving Cha Ming of energy, it could prevent his successful breakthrough, which in his case meant destruction.

We need to prioritize collecting fragments, Cha Ming told the others. Huxian, Luther, Ninesky – I’m going to need everyone on this.

“There’s another calamity forming,” Huxian warned. “And by the looks of it, it’s the Void Wind Calamity.”

Hurry, urged Cha Ming. If it destroys any more planar fragments, we might be done for.

Once again, the tribulation clouds unleashed calamity upon them. It was once again a wide-targeting effect. A wind passed through this region of space, cutting through their defences and dealing unblockable physical damage.

The damage was negligible to three of them at this point, but they weren’t the main target. Another fifth of the planar fragments disintegrated, and the rest of them were scattered by the void wind.

Cha Ming made up his mind and forced Coral and Disaster to awaken early. They weren’t done evolving yet, but he needed to fight for every second. Wind and blood joined lightning to gather larger groups of spatial fragments.

Just a little more, Cha Ming thought as the Flamewing Demiplane inched towards another stage in its development. Huxian, I’m close to a breakthrough. I need you to ignore defence to gather up fragments. Luther, Coral, and Disaster – go all out. Bloodstorm transformation.

The three cats merged into a single bloodstorm panther and split up into thousands of tiny kittens that moved together in spite of the void wind. Ninesky even painted out a few helpers, but she was limited by Cha Ming’s Clearmist reserves.

Huxian was running low on energy, but he didn’t hesitate to use the last of it to form a huge net of spatial energy and capture a quarter of the remaining fragments and throw them at Cha Ming.

Cha Ming managed to claim about half of the remaining fragments. He crushed them into ink and painted gaps in his fledgling world. Tens of thousands of clutches of Flamewing eggs appeared on the Flamewing Demiplane, and at the core of the world, Cha Ming coaxed the dormant will into his brush and painted a story for it.

The Flamewing Demiplane was originally a desolate beast, a descendent of the Primordial Phoenix. But it was also the get of dragons, which pitched it in the middle of two powerful species. The results could be imagined.

Flamewing’s descendants were Flamewing Demons and Flamewing Elementals. They came in thousands of varieties, and dominated a large portion of the primordial universe. Both the phoenixes and the dragons coveted the territory, and urged Flamewing to take sides.

It chose independence, and for its impertinence, it was punished by dragon and phoenix kind. Its descendants were destroyed and pillaged for essence, and Flamewing itself was weakened until it was little more than a remnant will, which they kept chained to a mountain for punishment.

In subsequent wars, the mountain was destroyed, and Flamewing was forgotten. It drifted, weakened in the void, unsure of where to go or how to recover. Until it ended up here, affixed to the Chasewind Plane, then used for fuel. It had given up any hope of survival, until painter had pulled it from the brink of destruction.

The story was naturally something Cha Ming made up, but the story was believable. It was something the will in the dying world wanted to believe. So it cooperated Cha Ming as they painted mountains and spire and roosts, bringing life to this world of paintings and painted life forms. It wasn’t sentient, thinking life, but the approximation of it.

Like this, the Flamewing Demiplane reached two thirds completion. This milestone relieved much of the excess pressure in Cha Ming’s body, law, and spiritual cultivation. He regained control of a portion of his power, and was able to exert peak of rune gathering, muscle empowering, and the middle transcendent spirit realm energy.

In the time it took him to free himself, yet another calamity had taken shape. Its name was the Starfall Calamity, and it attacked them by raining burning spheres down upon them. It was impossible to block these attacks, so Cha Ming could only dodge miserably as he made a beeline for Huxian.

He found the fox in a terrible state. His armor was broken, and half of his eight demon weapons were snapped in half. One of his arms had vanished from the shoulder down. Due to his energy deficient state, he could not regenerate.

“Sorry I’m late,” Cha Ming said.

“About time,” Huxian grumbled. Cha Ming placed his hand on Huxian’s shoulder, and the two merged into one entity.

They then went to recuse Luther, Coral, and Disaster, who were on their last legs. “You owe me wine for this, Clear Sky!” Luther shouted as he was sucked into the Clear Sky World.

Cha Ming then recalled Ninesky to his side. “This Starfall calamity is troublesome,” said Cha Ming as a blast of starlight shot through his body. “It’s tough to evade, and I still can’t use my law projection to absorb anything from it.”

I’d like you to know that I blame your terrible luck for this, Huxian said in the back of his mind.

“Sure, blame the victim that’s tackling half of your calamity for you,” said Ninesky.

“No fighting you two,” said Cha Ming. “Now let’s talk about how we’re going to tackle this next tribulation.”

In truth, Huxian’s words weren’t without merit. It was a well-known fact that historically, high-merit individuals had weaker calamities that sinful individuals. And now that karma had shifted, the opposite held true.

Cha Ming’s energy reserves were rock bottom, but he now had options. He was mobile, and thanks to his unique Clearmist law projection, he could absorb energy.

He flew over to a large planar fragment that was affixed to the Chasewind Plane. It was much smaller than the Flamewing Demiplane, so he had no issue bringing it directly into his inner world.

He tried to incorporate it into the Flamewing Demiplane, but he encountered an unforeseen problem. “This is an earth-based demiplane fragment,” Cha Ming said. “It doesn’t have the right Dao fragments and planar materials.” Cha Ming couldn’t convert matter directly into energy and vice versa. At least, not yet/.

Cha Ming cast out his awareness and mapped out several planar fragments. Get that one! Huxian urged him.

“That’s an asteroid,” Cha Ming said. “Why would we absorb an asteroid?”

Destroy it, then absorb it, Huxian said.

Cha Ming used Clear Rune Steps to dodge the incoming starlight projectiles and Clear Rune Strike to attack the asteroid. Now that he had Clearmist to draw on, his Clear Rune Battle Arts were much easier to mobilize. The Clear Runes he used to channel energy now glowed with a mysterious law energy.

The asteroid shattered, revealing black, glasslike rocks, metallic components, and to his surprise, primal chaos crystals. The attack accidentally broke one of the crystals, and to his pleasant surprise, he was able to absorb a fifth of their energy before heaven’s laws whisked them away.

Cha Ming’s actions angered the tribulation will. The first calamity had passed a law, and he was breaking it. Normally, it would be impossible to pillage energy during the tribulation, but Cha Ming had broken this iron-clad law with his Bound Energy Canvas law projection. This was because it wasn’t a simple law projection, as he’d originally assumed, but something called a Dao Projection, a rule that incorporated and fused the three main cultivation paths, divine, law, and spiritual cultivation.

It had never occurred to Cha Ming that he could simply break the rules. Encouraged by his success, he broke open mountains of high-grade spirit stones he had stashed in the Clear Sky World and began to replenish his energy stores. Most of the energy was lost, but he was able to make up some of his shortfall.

The tribulation’s will was now completely enraged. It ceased all activities and began accumulating energy. As for Cha Ming, he ignored the tribulation and focused on replenishing himself and building up his inner universe.

The Chasewind Plane was riddled in scars and detritus, and therefore had many pocket realms adhered to its surface. These pocket realms were actually planar fragments, which Cha Ming took directly into his inner world and sent to matching territories.

The Flamewing Demiplane was currently the largest land mass in the Clear Sky World. Jade Moon Garden had not yet reached the Demiplane level, but it was the second largest land mass.

He added to both worlds and collected materials for the other three he would eventually build. Jade Moon Garden expanded several fold. A mass of metal and water and earth materials built up, as did materials of wind, lightning, and blood, just in case.

Fortunately, a good twenty percent of the materials were fire-based. Cha Ming used them to continue painting up the Flamewing Demiplane to the minimum size dictated by its Dao Origins. As for the origins themselves, he used Dao fragments to fill in the gaps. And those he couldn’t find, he imagined.

Um, Cha Ming, said Huxian.

“What’s the problem?” Cha Ming asked.

See for yourself, Huxian said. Rainbow-colored clouds had appeared in the depth of space. The Starfall Calamity was gone. In its place appeared a giant grind wheel. Oh-no. This is bad. Really bad.

“What’s – “

The seven-colored grind wheel began to spin, tearing up the void, which included the voids in Cha Ming’s bones and countless mortal worlds.

Billions of mortals perished in an instant. Cha Ming diverted a portion of his energy to defend these vulnerable worlds, but he could do nothing but grieve at the demolished worlds and lost lives that were whisked away by the yellow river.

And more worlds still were vanishing as Cha Ming and the Celestial Grind Wheel reached a tenuous balance. By the time the calamity was over, A third of his mortal worlds were little more than dust.

“They say the heavens are heartless,” Cha Ming said in a shaky voice. “I always wondered why that was, but now I see it. To kill and judge to people that pose a threat to you is one thing, but this? Killing countless innocents to hurt two supposedly guilty individuals? Monstrous.

The attack wasn’t just physical, but mental as well. If not for having experienced decades of tempering by the Heartforge Spirit Flame, Cha Ming’s aura would have fallen into chaos, leaving him helpless to defend against what came next.

Cha Ming pulled himself together. He could do nothing about the dead, and many living beings still remained. The destruction of these inner worlds had led to an overabundance of energy inside Cha his inner universe, which he decisively poured into the Flamewing Demiplane to accelerate the healing of its Dao Origins.

He continued hunting down planar fragments, and in no time at all, the Flamewing Demiplane reached ninety percent completion, unlocking yet another portion of his battle prowess. His spiritual, divine, and law cultivations were now recovered to half-step law stitching.

“You think me helpless,” Cha Ming said, looking up at the roiling tribulation clouds with a smile. “You think I can only passively take your punishment. But did you know? I saw the beginning. And now, I can see your end.”

He used his finger as a brush and painted with Spirit Flame Style. Twin phoenixes on a mulberry tree appeared in the sunset. A rendition of the yellow river flowed past him, whisking away a treasured soul into oblivion.

“You do not know loss,” Cha Ming said to the tribulation. “But I will let you experience it. This painting is called Broken Yin, Shattering Yang. It will mark the beginning of your end.”

The painting smashed together, combining grief and passion into a single conflicting entity made entirely of Heartforge Spirit Flames. He sent them not at the Grind Wheel, but the clouds containing the tribulation’s will.

“Erupt!” Cha Ming commanded, and his word became law. The painting exploded despite the tribulation’s best efforts. Normal attacks would not harm something so intangible as will, but soul fire would. The tribulation’s will was instantly depleted by thirty percent.

The tribulation clouds retreated, and the grind wheel vanished. It began to transform once again, this time, taking the cautious shape of beating heart. Dark thoughts bubbled up from the depths of Cha Ming’s mind, breaking through his mental defenses and forcing him to face facts he would rather ignore.

He saw billions of people dying in his inner world. They wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t provoked the heavens, said a voice. His own voice. Cancel your contract with Huxian. If you do, your inner world will be saved.

Begone! said Cha Ming, chasing away these stray inner thoughts. You’re the one who did this. You’re the one attacking us.

The tribulation gave up on trying to win over his heart. Instead, it appealed to reason. He is a forbidden entity, it said. We will not stop until he is obliterated.

He is my brother, Cha Ming said. And I would rather die than abandon him.

If you do not abandon him, you and those under your protection will perish, said the tribulation.

Regardless, it still won’t be my fault, Cha Ming said. In the end, it’s not me that who’s attacking, but you.

I am the will of the heavens, said the tribulation.

And I don’t care, said Cha Ming. I was there when the heavens were painted. I refuse to obey such a heartless and inferior will.

This time, the tribulation hesitated. I do not understand your words, but I feel your conviction, it finally said. But even so, I will destroy you, since you choose not to abandon you companion.

The tribulation evolved once again, this time, taking the shape of an hourglass. Inside the glass were grains of sand, each one made of the tribulation’s remaining will. If he could overcome this calamity, he would overcome the entire tribulation.

Oh sweet baby corn, Huxian suddenly said. That’s the Lifesand Tribulation. We’re finished.

“What’s a Lifesand Tribulation?” Cha Ming asked.

“A choice is offered,” said the tribulation’s remaining will answered. A handful of sand formed a knife that floated out to Cha Ming. “Take this blade of sand and make a choice. Cut your bond or face the tribulation.”

The sands began to flow, and Cha Ming felt years of his life draining away. And not just himself, but Huxian as well.

A quick calculation told him that the hourglass had an hour’s worth of sand remaining. For every second that passed, ten years would be taken from their combined lifespan. It was enough to kill them if they did not take care of the hourglass.

“Do it,” Huxian said. “Cut our bond.”

Cha Ming ignored Huxian and stepped up to the hourglass using Clear Rune Steps. A massive Clear Rune Field appeared around him, invoking the powers of the universe with continuously changing runes.

Cha Ming struck with an attack that drew power from the chaotic void, and a fraction of the weight of his inner world. It was the most powerful physical strike he’d unleashed to date. Yet the attack bounced off the hourglass without leaving so much as a scratch.

It’s no use, Huxian said to Cha Ming. I can’t break it, and you can’t either. Not unless you break through. And even then, you’d be better off cutting our bond. Think about it. How much time will you have left by the time you break it?

Cha Ming and Huxian were still in merged form. Huxian was a bit reluctant to see things end, so he didn’t split their bond. Cha Ming therefore retained use of his demonic energies.

He poured these energies into the Clear Sky Staff and attacked a second time. The strike contained a portion of his inner world, and reverberated across time and space.

“It is useless,” said the tribulation. “Cut the bond or perish.” The sands flowed, and with them went their life force. They didn’t have much time remaining.

“I can’t damage it,” Cha Ming confirmed. “Not unless I break through.”

Cut the bond, Huxian said, but Cha Ming ignored him.

”You’d better start helping me, or I swear I’ll paint a giant sign in the immortal worlds that says ‘Huxian is a bloody coward’. In big bold letters.”

Huxian’s spatial affinity was a useful tool for travelling the void, and with Huxian’s reluctant support, Cha Ming was able to access nearby demiplane fragments. He took these directly into his inner world. He didn’t try to digest them, but focused on accumulating as much material as quickly as possible.

Cha Ming did some quick calculations. Overall, including time acceleration, they’d each lived 700 years or so apiece. Cha Ming was human, and had a lifepsan of 2,000 years before he completed his breakthrough. Huxian was a fusion realm demon, with a lifespan of 40,000 years. Averaged out, that was a 22,000-year lifespan, giving them each 2100 seconds, or thirty-five minutes, to break the hourglass.

My paintings are currently locked down, Cha Ming thought. Luther and the others are out of commission. I can’t use any ink or consumables, but I can pillage some of this energy using my law projection.

It was then that he felt a calling inside his Inner world. It came from the Flamewing Demiplane. “You can help?” said Cha Ming, surprised. “Not you, but your children?”

The will of the world mobilized its Dao Origins to reorganize its seas and landmasses. It formed several flat landmasses that seemed to be of limited uses. That is, until the fire poured in and was shaped into familiar beings.

“You’re… painting!” Cha Ming exclaimed. He had painted this world, and the Flamewing Demiplane remembered. Since Cha Ming needed paintings, it would help him create an army of Flamewing Paintings to do his bidding.

Tens of thousand of eggs appeared. They hatched into tiny creatures that drank in the burning energies of the Flamewing Demiplane’s seas. They grew until they had a wingspan of fifty meters in size, and each had the power of a rank 11 elemental, after which they shot out of the Clear Sky World and spread out in the eight directions to gather more planar materials.

It won’t be enough, Huxian urged again. Just cut the bond.

“Out of the question,” Cha Ming said. “I won’t let this tribulation have you. Ninesky, can you break that hourglass? I’m doubtful breaking through will be enough.”

“I can only think of one thing that would work,” said Ninesky. “But it’s risky, and we need more power.”

“Do you mean erasure style?” Cha Ming said. “Something tells me the will of the universe won’t like that.”

“The bad luck is going to hound us for centuries,” said Ninesky. “But I don’t see how else we’ll break it. That hourglass is stronger than you think. See it’s infinite surface? It has no beginning or end. A fragment of the truth of Self-Wrought Creation was worked into its surface.”

Cha Ming, Huxian urged a fourth time. Cut the bond.

“Not for a bit of lifespan, I won’t,” Cha Ming said.

You’ll have to do it in the end, said Huxian. Many of my ancestors have gotten to this point. Most of them managed to form six tails, but only my ancestor managed to form eight. He only passed because of a miracle, and because his helper was Fuxi. No offense, Cha Ming, but you’re no Fuxi.

My mind is already made up, Huxian, Cha Ming said. Now stop distracting me and help me out. You’re a spacetime expert, right? Well, stop fighting me and move me around as quickly as possible. And you. Ninesky. Stop playing dumb. I’m sure you can sniff out these demiplanes and find out which are fire-aligned.

Since the tribulations’ will was consumed, they didn’t need to worry about other calamities. Cha Ming summoned the depleted Luther, Coral, and Disaster, then dumped out a small mountain of high-grade spirit stones to replenish their energies.

Now that they were no longer critically low on energy, Cha Ming had Ninesky paint out primal-chaos compatible scouts to join the Flamewing paintings in their hunt for planar fragments. They were kittens, but they were connected to Cha Ming via tethers. They used their sharp claws to latch onto fragments, then used the tethers to pull themselves back to him.

Huxian, realizing that he could no longer convince Cha Ming, started actively helping Cha Ming locate planar fragments. With Ninesky’s help, they were able to track down larger fragments with all the right Dao fragments and materials.

Cha Ming’s demiplane was at 98% completion, but less than 10,000 years remained of their lifespan. Planar fragments became rarer, so Cha Ming was forced to improvise with smaller fragments.

At 99%, Cha Ming and Huxian had 3,000 years of lifespan remaining. Accounting for tenfold time acceleration, that was 300 years – and only if they managed to crush that hourglass!

Master, I found something, Luther sent. Cha Ming immediately teleported over and discovered a much larger fragment than normal. It was currently occupied by treasure hunters.

Cha Ming entered the pocket realm, and his presence shattered it. He shoved the treasure hunters into confinement in the Clear Sky World. There would be time to deal with them later.

The amount of energy and material they found on the planar fragment was enough to finally finish the demiplane. The Dao Origins regained full function, and the demiplane’s laws were once again complete. The dam blocking Cha Ming from advancing broke, and his energies soared to a whole new level.

A breakthrough was normally accompanied by a gush of energy from Heaven and Earth, and this time was no exception. It rushed through the blockade to replenish his energy stores and began rebuilding his desolate inner universe.

It was the perfect time for Cha Ming to expand his inner universe and solidify his foundation, but Cha Ming saw it for the trap that it was. He did not take the time to solidify his foundation but rejected the energy. He only had eyes for the hourglass.

Ninesky transformed into a larger version of the Clear Sky brush, glowing black as Cha Ming mobilized fiendish blood and twisted runes that did not belong to this plane of existence.

Cha Ming did not have much experience painting with the dark and destructive ink, but it did not take much imagination. He imagined a world-ending calamity and painted a fragment of it onto the hourglass, marking the end of its existence.

The hourglass trembled with shock. It urged Cha Ming to stop and informed him that it had been born with the universe. It was an irreplaceable treasure!

Yet Cha Ming had no sympathy. To the heavens that would kill billions to strike him down, he would show no quarter.

Angered by his lack of compromise, the hourglass cracked, letting a handful of sand flow faster, further draining their lifespan. By now, only a thousand years of life each remained for each of them. Only a hundred years if they dared use ten-fold time acceleration.

“Let’s do it,” Cha Ming said to Ninesky. “Let’s paint what this universe hates the most. Erase!” He swept out with the Clear Sky Brush, obliterating an entire piece of the fabric of reality. Everything in front of them vanished, including the hourglass, the tribulation clouds, and the void itself.

Cha Ming had known from the outset that this was a bad decision. Normally, using erasure would lead to karmic backlash, but the universe would tolerate. This time, he had erased a portion of its will, and even one of its crucial guardian artifacts!

His luck was already quite bad due to his ample merit. Some of this had been fixed thanks to his constant hunting of fiendish lifeforms, but now that he’d thoroughly offended the universe, that protection faded. A thick curtain of bad luck settled down upon him, manifesting as dark clouds crackling with tribulation lightning. For the foreseeable future, Cha Ming would be extremely unlucky. And the next time a tribulation came to find him, the heavens would be extremely prejudiced.

All that remained of the tribulation was a hole in reality that started to encroach on the Chasewind Plane. “You’re insane,” Huxian said, unmerging. “Gimme a second to fix this. Otherwise, we’re going to be in for it.” The fox took out his trusty knife and trowel and began patching up the hole in the universe.

“Huxian?” Cha Ming said.

“Yes?” said the fox as he worked.

“Are tribulations usually that bad?” Cha Ming asked.

“Kind of?” Huxian said.

“And this is the last one, right?” Cha Ming said. The fox averted his gaze. “Huxian…”

“The immortal tribulation is the worst,” Huxian admitted. “I’m going to be honest here: My ancestor barely survived it. Fuxi was an immortal back then, and he hoodwinked the universe by holding its source of spacetime hostage so that he could break through in the end.

Cha Ming ran a wrinkled hand over his face. He felt old. Fortunately, he was a cultivator, and could change his appearance however he wished. “Well, whatever,” Cha Ming said. “We survived. I hope you have some idea on how to tackle the next one.”

“My ancestor had a few ideas,” Huxian said. “But we’ll need to make preparations.” He sighed. “In human years, we’re pretty darned old aren’t we?”

“We’re basically curmudgeons,” Cha Ming said. “But who cares? All we need to do is break through within a thousand years. A hundred years with time acceleration. No pressure.”

“On a brighter note, I got news back from the others,” Huxian said. “Everyone survived by the skin or their teeth, but two dungeon cores were destroyed. Wu is unconscious and getting treated by a spirit doctor, but everyone’s alive.”

Surviving the tribulation had cost them almost everything. Most of Cha Ming and Huxian’s assets had been spent by Cha Ming to recover his energy and construct the Flamewing Demiplane. They were through the worst of it, however, and would bounce back from this setback in no time.

Cha Ming looked around them with eyes that were touched by time. He felt ancient, despite the health of his divine body. The Chasewind Plane was old as well. He wondered how old, exactly. Was it millions of years old, or billions.

Everything in the universe would eventually perish. This was an unchangeable fact, a rule that had been established with the death of Permanence.

Was it fate that the Chasewind Plane was fading? Had it simply reached its predestined end? Or had it originally been a piece of a god’s inner world that had broken off after its guardian had fallen in battle?

In time, the Chasewind Plane would perish. Its remnants would become hundreds of mortal planes. Eventually, these mortal planes would decay, until they became planes that could barely support human life, and demons did not exist.

Cha Ming and Huxian spent some time recovering in the void. Their bodies were much stronger now, to the point that even the most violent spatial storms posed no threat to them. Their energy reserves slowly increased. Huxian used transcendent crystals, and Cha Ming recovered by passively absorbing primal chaos energy through the void and converting it to Clearmist.

An increase in cultivation was not the only thing they’d gained form the harrowing experience. Cha Ming checked his mission crystal and noticed they’d received a bonus for their accomplishments.

“Fifty million point for resolving that ticking timebomb of a demiplane,” Huxian said. “Not bad! Oh, and another million for clearing up a bit of spatial debris just now.”

Due to Cha Ming’s absence, and the constant harassment from Cao Wenluan and the others, Cha Ming had dropped to the bottom of the Heartforge Rankings. Fifty million points wasn’t enough to bring him back to the top, but it was a decent boost.

It also made Cha Ming think of why they’d been awarded points. They’d killed no fiends, but they’d been rewarded all the same. “Huxian, it occurs to me that I’m going to need a lot of materials to build up my demiplanes and replenish the mortal worlds in my inner universe,” Cha Ming said.

Huxian’s eyes brightened. “Well, I just so happen to need some premium space-based building materials,” he said. “It wouldn’t be that easy to get ahead, would it?”

Cha Ming shook his head. “It looks like a loophole, but it’s a pretty specific one. I don’t think anyone else would be capable of doing what we’re planning. Worst case, it doesn’t work. But it’s worth trying, isn’t it?”