PtM Book 17 - Chapter 17: Clearing the Board

2/2 this week. Come to think of it, this one's pretty long as well :)

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Dao Lord Blood Leech was dead. This was confirmed via their Heartforge Realm mission jades also by the fact that those infested with blood leeches regained their freedom. As for Enclave Lord Name Tree, his conspirator, he vanished. Neither of the three enclave lords of the Hallowed Turtle Ox Region knew where he’d gone, and Huxian and friends had no incentives to hunt him down.

Huxian would normally rest at this point, but the clock was ticking. The longer they waited, the more time their enemies would have to prepare. And besides, Oster’s daily pricing was atrocious. Time was money, in this case.

They left Hallowed Owl and a few other powerful demons to complete the purification of the region and maintain order. The rest of them flew into the void and headed toward the Lord Winter Moon’s territory. The dousing needle led them an army encampment getting ready to lay siege to a fortified demon city at the edge of Twisted Horn’s territory.

The Paper Tiger Clan was very systematic about how they did things, and their hierarchy was absolutely rigid. They drained colors from those demon bloodlines they deemed worthy, and these demons would in turn drain color from other demons, forming a chain of command that was difficult to subvert.

Converting everyone was not desirable, as this would lead to a shortage of color in the long term, so the armies largely consisted of normal demons subservient to their pale overlords. There was tension between the two factions, since at any time, lower class demons could be taken and drained of their color, thereby receiving a promotion or demotion, however you looked at it.

“It is a monstrous thing they do, these paper tigers,” Twisted Horn said. “As bad as Blood Leech, in many ways.”

“They without honor,” Jadefall agreed. “A swift execution is a mercy they don’t deserve.”

“I just don’t understand how their victims can turn on their brethren,” Twisted Horn said. “I would rather die than enslave my kin.”

Huxian shook his head. “Bloodline suppression is a terrible thing. They’re at best partially responsible for their actions.”

“Are you sure about this plan of yours, Eight Directions?” Oster asked. “I anticipate our casualties will double, if not triple with this kind of engagement.”

“They won’t,” Huxian said. “The moment we dismantle their upper echelons, the rest of their organizational structure will crumble.”

“But this hypothesis hasn’t been put to the test, and my mirror isn’t giving me conclusive results,” Oster said.

“It will work,” Huxian said. “Just buy me time.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I won’t sacrifice my entire mercenary group for any kind of money,” Oster said. There was no pushing Oster on this part, so Huxian went over the plan in his mind. If he succeeded, much of the damage Winter Moon had inflicted on the territory would be resolved.

They were currently located not far away from the enemy encampment. And thanks to Huxian’s pocket realm technology, they hadn’t been spotted yet. Space curved around them such that even if someone were looking directly their way, they were bound to miss them. Spatial architecture at its finest.

“This is going to be a simple battle, everyone,” Oster said to the leaders of his mercenary company, the enclave lords and their elites, as well as Petros and his men. “We have ships, and we have instantaneous fortress spells. We’ll break through their camp, capture our mark, and then resist assaults from the entire army while Eight Directions executes his wonderful plan.”

Enclave Lord Dragon turtle shook his bald head. “It’s too risky. Much too risky.”

“It is risky,” Oster said. “But my employer says the gains are worth it. Regardless, we’re not going to stick around forever. Once we start suffering serious casualties, we’ll kill Winter Moon and any high-level officers we can then break out.

“Fusion realm demons, are you ready?” He was answered by howls and growls as hundreds of fusion realm demons grew to several times their original size. Only a few of the more powerful demons kept their original forms.

“Lady Wu, War Priestess Undine, Enclave Lord Dragon Turtle, enhancements, if you please,” Oster commanded. Glowing shields and wards appeared overtop them, and armor plates began to grow on their skins - even the human skins - thanks to Dragon Turtle’s blessing.

“Lady Jadefall, Enclave Lord Twisted Horn, vanguard,” Oster said. He raised a hand, summoning a burning green flame at their feet. “Charge!” They crashed out of the spatial pocket at double speed, shattering it, and stunning the enemy’s sentries.

Twisted Horn and Jadefall were both ox demons, and as such, charging was their specialty. Jadefall activated Hell-Crushing Charge, which summoned a herd of devil oxen from her own personal stores of hellfire. As for Twisted Horn, he had a battlefield-scale ability called Million Chain Hell, which didn’t so much break the enemy army as root them in place so that they could only passively receive him. Each chain was imbued with his three law projections that impeded physical movement, impeded physical energy, and seared all those imprisoned by them. Like Jadefall, he was a devil ox variant, and his techniques were filled with hellfire.

The enemy guard immediately collapsed, allowing their small but elite force to spear into a camp containing hundreds of thousands of demons. “That way!” Huxian said, using his powers over space and time to stabilize the dousing needle and firm up Lord Winter Moon’s position.

Their ships and the large demons protecting it broke into a luxurious tenting area in the middle of camp. “Lady Wu! Enclave Lord Dragon Turtle!” Oster commanded. Both demons had already prepared their shielding spells. Two layers of hemispherical shielding, one bright and ephemeral, and one chitinous and spike-covered, appeared around them, blocking all but subterranean attacks.

“Defensive formation!” Oster shouted. “Petros, give me command of your archers!” Oster shouted.

“Over my dead body!” Petros answered.

“Fine, just kill the things I mark,” Oster shouted, then began throwing out sticky transparent green flames. “Lady Jadefall, Lady Wu, where are my auras?!” Aura abilities were rare, and Jadefall and Wu happened to have a complimentary pair. Jadefall’s Hell-Crushing Battle Halo appeared, bolstering everyone’s attack strength. Wu’s Xuanwu’s Blessing stacked overtop it, improving everyone’s defenses, regeneration, and recovery rates. This stacked with Enclave Lord Dragon Turtle’s defense-oriented techniques.

“Who in the seven hells are - Eight Directions?!” Lord Winter Moon burst out of his tent alongside several generals. A few other powerful figures, but not an enclave lord, fortunately, surfaced and joined him.

Huxian teleported to Winter Moon’s side and enforced a stasis field. This was quickly followed by a shackling shot and a sealing curse from Undine and Oster.

The battle was completely one-sided. Which wasn’t surprising at all, given that they’d concentrated 50% of their three regions combat strength in a single battlefield. They were paying the price for this elsewhere, but to take out Paper Tiger Clan royalty? Worth it.

It only took minutes to disable or kill the rest of the demons inside their one-kilometer dome shield. Huxian took Lord Winter Moon alive, however, as he had other plans for him.

The Paper Tiger clansman was chained and drugged. Undine prepared a ritual circle while Martin, her shield guard, kept watch. “I must warn you that I have little confidence in this succeeding,” Undine said to Huxian as they secured a nervous-looking Lord Winter Moon to a stone table. “I can create a karmic conduit and even a spatial conduit, but the backlash…”

“That’s why we have you and the big guy, isn’t it?” Huxian said. “You keep up the heals, and the big guy will keeps him alive.”

Undine raised an eyebrow. “Not you?” Huxian procured a pill. A very expensive pill that had cost him a lot of points. “Ah. My mistake. I didn’t realize you were so frivolous with your points.”

“I’ve made big profits investing, and I decided to splurge, what can I say,” Huxian replied. “Well? I don’t think we have all day.”

Undine sighed. “I will begin. Harid Dej save us.” She began uttering a dark prayer and placed both her hands on Winter Moon’s chest.

“What are you doing?” Lord Winter Moon shouted. “What’s going on? Are you cursing me?”

“Blood,” Undine said, holding out her hand. Huxian provided three more droplets of Baleful Vision’s blood.

The priestess took out a black dagger and sprinkled Baleful Vision’s white blood onto it. The blood transformed into paper-white cursing sigils that sank deep into the dagger.

She plunged the dagger into Lord Winter Moon’s chest, and under the influence of the curse and the authority of Baleful Vision’s blood, his blood essence mobilized. It concentrated on the dagger wound, revealing a drop of ink-polluted blood speckled with black.

“Keep him alive,” Huxian said to Undine, then reached out into the glob of heart blood. A six-tailed fox fantom appeared behind Huxian as he aggressively began devouring portions of the blood through time and space.

Lord Winter Moon shivered as strands of bloodline energy that weren’t his vanished. That’s right. Huxian wasn’t attack him, but his minions. Unfortunately, this was extremely damaging to the Paper Tiger. His death would null any progress Huxian was making.

“Martin, it’s your turn,” Undine said.

“As you command, War Priestess,” Martin said. He activated a skill that connected his life with Winter Moon’s. His face visibly paled as he began absorbing damage in the demon’s stead.

“I won’t let Martin dip below twenty-five percent of his total health,” Undine said. “Once he breaches that limit, I’ll sever the connection.”

Huxian continued carving away at the source of the paper tiger clansman’s heart blood. His name was Winter Moon, yet Huxian had no idea why. Was it because winter was white? Because his fur was white? Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t survive the process.

Winter Moon’s heart blood contained tens of thousands of wisps of blood, all of which fed into his own Paper Tiger bloodline, reinforcing and invigorating it. And though it was difficult to do, Huxian could see through some basic mysteries of time. He focused on the more recent wisps of blood, as these would best be amplified by Undine’s karmic redirection.

Devouring things across space and time was risky, especially since Huxian wasn’t just trying to change things locally, but even affect Winter Moon’s victims, and their victim’s victims. Every wisp of blood he devoured struck him with terrible backlash, and it was only thanks to a vial of very expensive medicine that he was able to hold on.

But Huxian was committed. What the Paper Tiger Clan did was abominable. He reached out to his six friends on the Inkwell Plane and drew on their strength to continue for jew a few more seconds.

At first, Huxian’s actions didn’t garner much attention. The demons outside battered their hemispherical shield, sapping away Wu and Enclave Lord Dragon Turtle’s strength. Fearless warriors charged inside, only to get cut down by Oster’s superior troops. It was a suicidal attack, but because of the curse in their blood, they couldn’t help themselves.

But then some of the demons on the battlefield began changing. Their fur regained hints of color. The curse of the Paper Tiger Clan weakened, as did its influence on their bloodline, their thoughts, and their actions.

It was impossible for Huxian to return these demons their original bloodline, much less those they had absorb. Doing so would kill him beyond the shadow of a doubt. But he was a fox, and tricks were kind of his thing. He didn’t prevent their bloodlines from getting devoured, but instead devoured them before Winter Moon could.

This might seem like an insignificant chance, but on this battlefield, it made a world of difference. Huxian was not of the paper tiger clan and did not bear their curse.

Only a minority of the army was afflicted by the curse. But these people were their leaders, and the strongest among them. When they woke up as though from a dream, at first a tenth, and then quarter, and then a third, the battle lines turned to chaos. Lord Winter Moon’s army turned against him, holding back the tide to buy Huxian just a little more time to free their companions.

Wu’s Xuanwu Shield and Dragon Turtle’s fortress were difficult to maintain, however. The enemy cut openings into the shield, sending an endless horde of demons whom, under the urgings of their leaders, self-detonated! Wu burned her blood essence to hold on as long as she could, but before long, she couldn’t hold, and was forced to give up her shield.

“We can’t hold on much longer,” Oster said to Huxian. “I’ll give you thirty seconds at most.”

Huxian knew things that things were bad, because Oster started pulling tricks out of his bag. Expensive tricks, including cannons that could slay early fusion realm demons and explosive arrows and spell scrolls.

Petros, seeing that his rival was going all out, pulled out expensive ammunition. He and his group of archers began carpet-bombing the horde of demons, buying them precious seconds as they reaped lives by the thousands.

Thirty second later, Huxian was a bloody mess. His friends weren’t doing well either, and his medicinal pill was running out. He found another cluster of stolen bloodlines in spacetime and bit down hard. The backlash caused him to cough up blood, but another ten percent of the color-trained demons regaind their mental faculties, bringing the total up to 70%.

“You need to stop, or you’ll die,” Undine said. “And Martin’s not looking to well. I’m cutting off his connection.”

“Fine, fine,” Huxian said, wiping blood off his lips. “Just… me do one last cluster. ” He tried to bite down, but discovered that he couldn’t. Because Lord Winter Moon was dead.

“Capture the afflicted,” Huxian called out groggily. “I need a breather. Ask for surrender from the rest.” Seventy percent of the army’s leadership had regained their color. Winter Moon’s death struck the remaining leaders with intense backlash; without their urging, the suicidal attacks ceased.

Winter Moon was relatively poor, and from killing him, Huxian obtained a pitiful 500,000 points. Alas, he did not officially control this territory, as it still fell under the War Stripe Region umbrella, so it would take time to take control of it the hard way, by liberating the various clans and rooting out the Paper Tiger Clan’s influence.

The battle soon wound down. Initially, they were outnumbered, but now that 70% of the powerful demons in the army had regained their minds, they attacked their pale brethren with bitter hatred. And having lost their master, the pale demons let out grieving howls and resolved to die to atone for their failure.

Huxian and friends tried their best to stop them, but they were only able to capture less than a tenth of those that had survived the bloodline backlash. They were deranged and crazed and would have to be chained until Baleful Vision could make the trip to free them from their bindings.

Huxian rested for three hours. During that time, the enclave lords had sent envoys to the largest clans and tribes, and to the sealed-off demon enclave. If all went well, they would soon be folded into the Hallowed Turtle Ox Region.

“Our time is running out, Eight Directions,” Oster said as Huxian left his tent. “I hate to be a stickler, but time is money.”

“I got it,” Huxian said. “Dragon Turtle?”

“Here!” the enclave lord said.

“Can you take care of things around here while we go on one last trip?” Huxian asked. “No need to build fortifications. Just hold the fort, as it were.”

“I’m very good at waiting patiently,” Dragon Turtle said. He was not joking. The enclave lord was known to hibernate for centuries at a time.

Huxian shed off most of his demonic forces. He left Sect Master Archaic Armor and some human forces with Enclave Lord Dragon Turtle, as there were quite a few human cities in this region.

“I’m trusting you all to consolidate everything and set up defenses to the south. I expect a fully functional fiend detection and elimination network to be in place within the week. As for teleportation points, I’ve got them roughed out. I’ll want a list of proposed teleportation points in three days.”

“Sir!”

With that, Huxian took half their ships and headed back into the void. Their destination? Petros’s very annoying and very unfriendly neighbor.

***

Petros’s team, though small, had been a very useful addition to their mission. His help was also happened to be quite cheap. Time permitting, Huxian and his forces would help him make a single attempt on a rogue Daoist who’d been giving him headaches.

“It seems our quarry has sharp senses,” Undine said. “He’s already heading towards the inter-planar teleportation formation.”

“What exactly did he do to you anyway?” Huxian asked Petros.

“He stole from me,” Petros said. “Many times. Burglarized a lot of our guild halls.”

“So you’re going to kill him for robbing you?” Oster mocked. “How honorable of you.”

“We won’t kill him if we don’t have to,” Petros said.

“He’s fast,” Undine warned. “He’ll be here in a few more minutes.”

“Relax, I got this,” Huxian said. “Here Petros, hold my mug.” He handed a cup of coffee over to Petros and flew out from their hiding place.

He zipped around the shielding formation that protected inter-planar teleportation formation. By design, it was impossible for any of them to breach. Even so, Huxian dropped a total of sixty-four spatial sealing obelisks. The same ones he’d ordered from Twisted Horn.

A blur shot out of the woods just as Huxian was finishing and hit Huxian’s spatial sealing formation with a thunk. The Daoist cursed and tried again, only to fail.

“What sort of prank is this?” the Daoist called out. “Well? I don’t have all day.”

“Do your thing Petros,” Huxian said. “We have exactly twenty-three minutes left on Oster’s contract.”

Petros knocked an arrow and shot at the frightened Daoist, barely grazing his rear end. “It’s you!” the Daoist shouted.

“It’s me,” Petros confirmed. He hopped out of their hiding space. “I hope you like dancing, because I’ve got a lot of steam to let off.” He began shooting a constant stream of arrows at the frightened Daoist, who tried to escape, but found several ships and a scary-looking enclave lord waiting for him.

“What do you want?” the Daoist said warily.

“I want you to stop stealing things and give back what you took,” Petros said.

“I didn’t steal anything major,” the Daoist said. “And I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Which is why you’re not dead,” Petros said. “But this can’t go on. I don’t want to keep watching my back - and my underwear for that matter. You stole my favorite pair.”

The rogue Daoist relaxed visibly. “Really? You won’t kill me.”

“Really,” Petros said. “But you need to give us all your points.”

“And your things,” Huxian added.

“And sign this contract,” Oster said, tossing a scroll over to the defeated Daoist.

The Daoist unfurled the scroll, read it, and grimaced. “My entirefortune? Everything on my person? You want my points, and you want me to swear never to step into the Chasewind Plane after leaving? That’s just…”

“-Taking you out of the equation,” Petros finished. “Or we could just kill you now and fish around for your belongings in void space. It’s as bit of a waste, but… your choice.”

The Daoist could only agree to these terms, which was why half hour later, he was gone. And the moment he entered the Heartforge Realm, he was taken out of the equation. His territory became Petros’s territory, if you could even call it that.

“Man, he was loaded,” Huxian said. “Seems sparing people can be worth it sometimes.”

“I find offering a way out is a great way to extort wealth,” Oster said. “So what does that leave you with? Three territories for Petros, and five for Eight Directions? I’m a bit envious of your success.”

“More like four and a half,” Huxian said. “The Paper Tiger Clan took the chance to nibble away at the Hallowed Owl Province, then parked a huge number of troops there. Taking it back won’t be easy.”

Oster shrugged. “That’s not too bad. We only have three regions between the three of us.” A small buzzer went off, and Oster tapped his watch. “Time.”

“See, I told you we’d finish before the deadline,” Huxian said.

“Pity,” Oster said. “I wouldn’t mind billing you for more, but that’s life, I guess. About the matter I mentioned before…”

“Yeah, I’ll bring it up to him,” Huxian said. “But you know how he feels about you. And how I feel about you, for that matter.”

“He’s a man of responsibility, so I don’t think he’ll refuse,” Oster said. “He may loathe me for what I did, and what I keep doing, but he can’t deny that mercenaries are useful in certain situations.”

“Like I said, I’ll pass on the word,” Huxian. Then he grumbled under his breath. “Mercenaries.”

“Sorry, what was that?” Oster asked. “I was just thinking about who to curse next, but you interrupted my train of thought.”

Oster left, as did Petros not long after. The archer now had three whole territories to his name, which was a lot for a single warden.

Normally, this would be too much to handle, but Petros had a unique way of going about things. By rolling out his Hunter’s Guild, he’d essentially decentralized power from the sects and clans in the least offensive way possible. In essence, all sects and clans could profit from his system alongside rogue cultivators, and he never gave them orders. Ever.

That night, Huxian, Jadefall and Wu had a barbecue back in the Heartforge Realm. They’d worked hard this past year, and it was high time for a break. There was still much to be done, and Huxian was worried about Cha Ming’s predicament - even though it sounded like he was well on his way towards a fortuitous cliché.

“About time, too,” Huxian muttered. “He’s had nothing but rotten luck.” Well, there was that blood thing, but did that really count, given how many other bad things had happened?

“He’ll be fine,” Jadefall reassured Huxian between bites of skewered meat. That was beef, wasn’t it? Probably beef. It was still weird seeing her eat that. “He’s made of tough stuff. Tougher than you, at least.”

“Hey, I’m plenty strong,” Huxian said, flexing his bicep.

“But you don’t go around smashing stuff with a big stick and getting your body destroyed every thirty seconds,” Jadefall said. “He does. And it’s awesome.” Wu held out a thumb to express her agreement.

“That’s it,” Huxian said. “I’ve had it with you two and your judgy… judging ways. I’m going to get ripped. Go to the gym. I’m going to grow taller too, just you wait, and show everyone how handsome this fox can be. You like people that smash things with big sticks? Well, who cares about sticks. I’m going to rip out a few mountains and stick them in a pocket realm and smashing people with that.”

“That sounds awesome,” Jadefall said.

“Agreed,” said Wu.

Both of them had changed a lot since their arrival to the Heartforge Realm. Jadefall had been depressed after so much of her clan had perished and wanted to find a new home for whoever was left, only to fail many times, losing more of them in the process.

As for Wu, she’d loosened up her tight shell, and had even started studying new things. For the first time in centuries. She had deeply rooted trauma that Huxian didn’t dare dig into.

“Ahem, excuse me?” a light voice called out. A young and nervous looking man had wandered over to their patio. He looked weak, but Huxian could tell that he was nothing but. He was Dao God, having reached the initial law stitching and shell marking realms. Huxian recalled seeing his description somewhere. “Lord Eight Directions?”

“That’s me,” Huxian said.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said. “I am known as Dao God Soulrend, and I come with honorable intentions to negotiate a business offer. In the meantime, I would be overjoyed if you would offer me the hospitality of your domain.

Huxian sighed. “It was princess who gave you that wording, wasn’t it?”

“It was naturally Princess Gabriella that gave me the wording,” the young man said. “She said it could avoid trouble with certain types of demons.”

“Not my type,” Huxian said.

“Well, she didn’t want to take chances,” Dao God Soulrend said.

“Princesses,” Huxian huffed. “Fine. Whatever. Here’s a cup of water. You have my hospitality. Please come eat and drink with us.” That, and spoil a good moment.

The man helped himself to some food and drink as all proper guests should. Humans normally weren’t so trustworthy, but this one knew that when a demon gave you their hospitality, they would never even think of poisoning you.

“So,” Huxian said once they were done their meal. “What brings you to our fine home. I hope the meal was to your liking?”

“I have never had a finer meal, Lord Eight Directions,” said Dao God Soulrend. “And to have the pleasure of accompanying Lady Wu and Lady Jadefall, beauties as they are, for a fine meal, I couldn’t ask for a better time. Ahem. I hesitate to mention my mission.”

“You want a some sort of peace agreement, I imagine?” Huxian asked.

“Not exactly,” Dao God Soulrend said. “Princess Gabriella wishes to sell the territory currently under my management. She would also swear to have nothing to do with it in the future.”

Huxian frowned. “She’s selling her territory? Aren’t there three of you in your group?” He was relatively well informed compared to other Invited, so he knew that Gabriella was in a relatively safe position.

“Alas, my territory is too far away,” Dao God Soulrend said. “And Gabriella and Xing Tianlong, despite their grievances, have swapped two of their territories for similar reasons. I had advised her to approach you earlier, but we came a bit late. Wonderful work, taking care of Lord Winter Moon and Dao Lord Blood Leech. The universe is better off without them.”

Huxian wasn’t averse to managing more territory. While 4.5 territories was a lot, there were three invited to split them up with. “What kind of price are we talking?”

“Twenty million points, and other services,” Soulrend replied.

“Twenty million?” Huxian said. “Get lost.”

“You and I both know the worth of territory,” Soulrend said, sticking to his guns. “You’ll make that money back in no time. Moreover, the territory is adjacent to one of your allies. It’s completely safe.”

“I get it,” Huxian said. “She wants a teleportation network, I imagine?”

“That is correct,” Dao God Soul Rend. “The princess understands that you probably don’t have the time to create anything extravagant. But anything you areable to provide under contract would naturally reduce the amount of points required to complete the exchange.”

Huxian appreciated the man’s approach, especially compared to Xing Tianlong, who’d basically tried to extort a teleportation network out of him. By taking advantage of Cha Ming’s situation.

Huxian decided to agree in principle. The details would be decided later. Since dinner was over, he and the two ladies retreated to the living room. There was a water feature in the center of his abode now, complete with a crystalline waterfall that flowed several times slower than ordinary waterfalls, allowing them to catch glimpses of crystalline clumps and fragments as they fell.

“What an eventful year,” Huxian said, sipping on a lime-green drink. Much of the tension that had accumulated during that time fled his body. “I’m not going to lie, ladies. I’m tired. Very tired.”

“I had fun,” Jadefall said. “It’s been a long time since things went my way like this.” Her drink of choice was beer, and she drank a gigantic amount of it.

Wu did not chime in, but she sipped her strawberry shake very loudly, if only to confirm that she was, in fact, a participant in this conversation.

“I’ve been wondering about some things lately,” Huxian said.

“Things?” Jadefall said. “What kind of things?”

“You know, things,” Huxian said. “About motivation. Goals. I was talking to Baleful Vision the other day. He talked returning to his ancestral roots and saving his people. He wants to undo the mistakes of his ancestors. It just got me thinking - what are my goals? What am I trying to accomplish?”

Wu frowned, and Jadefall fell silent. Their conversations weren’t usually so serious. They were friends, but there was still a bit of a layer separating them. Huxian couldn’t open himself up to these two like he could with Gua and the others.

“A home,” Jadefall said. She allowed a hint of weariness to appear on her face and in her posture. She usually put on a strong front, but Huxian knew she had issues to deal with. Issues she never talked about with either of them. “I used to have a home, before my people were killed. I came here to grow stronger so I could find one for them. Or at the very least, gain enough strength that I could clear a piece of land with my own two hands.”

“Safety,” Wu said. “I want safety. I… I was unsafe when I was young. Back on the Inkwell Plane, I was always running. I was born a turtle, not a human. Bad people wanted to boil me into turtle soup. They said Xuanwu Turtle soup could prolong their lives, and it was my good fortune to be turned into soup for them.”

Huxian’s jaw dropped, and Jadefall looked positively horrified. “Turtle soup!?”

“Yeah,” Wu said softly. “They… they even threw me in a pot. I got lucky and activated a bloodline ability and got away. But my siblings…” She sniffed and wiped tears off her cheeks. “So… so I want the world’s biggest pillow fort. I want… I want walls. Demons don’t like walls, but I like them. They make me feel safe.”

It was the most she’d ever spoken in a single sitting. Huxian and even the stoic Jadefall couldn’t help but tear up a little. Huxian had done a lot of running as a baby, so he could relate, but to escape being boiled alive while your siblings died? That was just tragic.

“What about you?” Jadefall asked.

“Me?” Huxian said. “I’m not too sure.”

“You’re not sure?” Jadefall said. “You just asked us fess up our dreams, and you won’t share yours?”

Huxian scratched the back of his head. “Sorry. But it’s true. I’m not sure. But I can tell you what my dreams used to be. Does that count?” The two ladies exchanged a look, but ultimately agreed. “I used to think life was all about eating all the tasty things in the world. I would go out and eat all sorts of things and compare. Normal food. Paint. Rocks.”

“Rocks?” Jadefall asked. “Why rocks?”

“Tasty rocks exist,” Huxian said. “But yeah. Then I made some friends. I found out that all the tasty things in the world couldn’t compare to eating with friends. And then my cranky ancestor tried to make me give them up, so I told him to go to hell.

“When I came here, I got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to sever my bloodline. I didn’t even hesitate. And I’ve done well for myself. I have no regrets, but the funny thing is, I don’t even feel a hint of satisfaction after finally sticking it to my old man.

“I don’t even hate him anymore, despite what he tried to make me do. I think he was just trying to teach me. To get me to value my friends, and to look elsewhere. He didn’t want me to follow the same path he did.”

“It sounds to me like you have your answer,” Jadefall said.

Unfortunately, this kind of esoteric answer didn’t satisfy Huxian. He wanted to be so sure about his goals and his dreams that he could put them into words. But he said nothing to spoil the mood and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

The answer would come to him. Eventually.