"Is this is bad as I think it is?" I whispered.

"Worse," Monkey Yang whispered back.

To date, I'd never come across a cultivator who was much stronger than me, cultivation-wise. When I'd first met Ichika, she was a few steps into the third realm while I was at the peak of body-refinement - that, apparently, made for a noticeable difference in power, but not the several-fold difference of a full realm. I could tell almost immediately that Cold-blood Ieyasu was stronger than any of us, and not by just a bit.

The world's qi seemed to bend around him, certain threads toward him and certain threads away, as if the very space around him could filter the good from the bad. It was like he was the sun and we were planets, impressive in our own right but utterly dwarfed by his power. We were fucked and we knew it, and he knew that we knew it… and we knew that he knew that we knew it… and so on.

"I am a merciful expert, but not a fool," Ieyasu stated. He was quite tall - as tall as Big Shilei, but much thinner. His face was so angular that it appeared gaunt, the black hair fluttering about his head like a gauzy, ink-black cloud. And his eyes were an unnatural ice-blue color that seemed to exude cold cruelty.

He also looked a bit like Ichika. There was definitely a family resemblance there - I don't think his talk of 'nieces' and 'cousins' was some kind of twisted joke. He flicked his loose, black robe and a spear appeared in his hand - a large spear, nine feet long and sapphire-blue. He swung it around in a lazy arc, the wind from its passage whipping at my hair even though it was a good ten feet away.

"I won't bother to insult either of us with demands of fealty - if my honor allowed it, yours would not…"

"You have no honor," Ichika spat. Yep… there was definitely a history there.

Ieyasu chuckled in response. "Oh? If I had no honor, I would stick you like a pig and leave you to watch your friends' deaths as you slowly died. Instead, I will make you a simple offer - a wager, if you will. All of you against me. If you best me, my men will allow you to leave unmolested…"

"And if you best us?" Ichika replied, the uncertainty heavy on her voice.

"Then you will be dead, and what happens thereafter is of no further concern to you. Accept my terms or I'll have my men skewer your friends while I take my time with you."

I cast a nervous glance to Ichika, not that I thought she'd turn down such a 'generous' offer. I clutched my knife, extremely mindful of the fact that I barely knew how to use it. I'd been trained by Ken through a few martial dao lessons, but we only covered enough about knife combat that I wouldn't accidentally hurt myself while fighting - and even that was being pretty generous.

"Very well," Ichika stated with grim acceptance. "I did not come here to satisfy my father's vendetta, but I will see it through nonetheless."

Ieyasu grinned, his teeth glinting blue in the feeble moonlight. "Very well, daughter of Rin Hikaru, let us see how the daimyo trains his dogs."

With that, he leapt forward, his spear point lunging out toward Monkey Yang. With a yelp, Monkey dove out of the way - and as he did, I felt the pulse of malevolent qi. Lightning fast, the spear came around, bowling Ichika right into me with a glancing blow.

"All of his blows will be technique-empowered, Lynn," Ichika grimaced through bloody teeth. "A single solid strike will be the end of you."

I nodded, focusing my attention on the cruel man before us. He leapt into the air, disappearing into the gloom of night for an instant - and a sense of foreboding doom welled up within me. I leapt out of the way, tucking into a roll as the paving stones behind me exploded from Ieyasu's impact. Pain bloomed across my back from the impact of several fist-sized stones, but I don't think anything was broken.

Ieyasu lifted the butt of his spear out of the broken ground where I'd just been standing. "A shame to clip such a beautiful rose… perhaps I shall keep your body as inspiration, for a while, if it isn't too badly mangled."

"Holy fuck, what is wrong with you?" I said. Did he just low key admit to being a necrophiliac? Maybe!

"We do what we must to survive and thrive in a world that has rejected us," he said with a shrug. "None of you are so weak as to succumb to a flippant strike. Good. Let us test your true mettle."

Without further ado, he surged toward Ichika. Monkey came in from the side with a shout, knocking against the spear with a grunt, though the larger weapon barely budged. Ieyasu chambered the spear just before Ichika could grab its haft and lashed out with a lightning-fast kick, knocking Monkey well to the side with a crack that I hoped wasn't a rib snapping.

The spear twirled and slammed down toward me. The pulse of qi suggested which way I should dodge, so I did, twirling away as the spear slammed into the street, cracking more stones. It would have cracked my skull open if I'd been half a second slower. Assuming that Ieyasu's body would soon be in the area, I lunged out with my knife.

Ieyasu's eyes went wide. Fabric tore. He barely dodged the blade.

"Impudent whelp!" he shouted. He swung out with a backhand, which I managed to block. Kind of…

The force was enough to send me hurtling back. My reinforced arm bones managed to not snap to bits under the force, but I still flew back into a group of Ieyasu's men, who scrambled out of the way and then shoved me back into the fighting circle, sending me sprawling.

I rolled to my feet to see Cold-blood trading blows with Monkey and Ichika simultaneously. He was obviously faster and stronger than either of them by a fair margin, but they knew enough to team up to divide his attentions. Red Harvest flickered out in rapid attacks and feints, forcing the bandit king to commit his spear to defense. Meanwhile, Monkey circled around and lunged in with his knives.

Ieyasu parried the knives with his hand… yes, he parried deadly knife attacks with his palm and fingers somehow. Qi stuff, I guess. He was so concentrated on dealing with Ichika and Monkey that he wasn't paying me much mind - I'm sure he'd knock me on my ass again the moment I got closer…

But I did have a decent amount of qi, and I did know how to do a qi blast right out of my dantian. I pretended to struggle forward, using my uncertain steps to aim my lower abdomen at where Ieyasu was about to be. Then, as he spun out of Monkey's way and made to deliver a powerful slash to Ichika, I let it loose, pushing as much of my 'free' qi as I could out in a mighty pulse of pure energy.

"Ah!" Ieyasu sensed the pulse and began to dodge, but he was too late. A torrent of qi shot out of my dantian and cannonballed toward him, striking him in the torso and flipping him back, end-over-end. He collided with a trio of his goons, sending them flying like human bowling pins…

And Cold-blood Ieyasu landed… he landed on his fucking feet, his face a snarling masque of rage. He wiped the dribble of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I'm through with games," he snarled. "This ends now!"

A chill ran down my spine. A chill ran through the air.

I thought it was just my nerves, but no - the air had definitely dropped in temperature a few degrees. My breath even puffed out as a wispy mist.

Ieyasu bared his teeth - teeth as shiny and blue as crystals of glacial ice. "Tempest of the cold heart," he snarled, and as he brought his spear above his head, his qi begin to pulse.

"No!" Yang lunged in to stop him - and Ieyasu made no move to avoid the knife blow. Yang's blade impacted Cold-blood's side… and the blade fractured with a snap, shards of silvery metal ringing against the stones.

Ieyasu removed a splinter of bloody metal from his side with one hand, frost already forming around it surface, the blood frozen and glittering like garnet. With impossible speed, he struck out at Monkey Yang… and, to his credit, Monkey managed to bring his arm up to block.

There was a snap of bone and Monkey tumbled back, his arm frozen solid in a clearly impossible pose, assuming he didn't have an extra joint in his forearm. He grimaced in pain, unable to push himself back to his feet.

Ieyasu began to spin his spear, still held high over his head. Frigid wind whipped up with a torrent of qi, frost creeping across the paving stones. I readied my knife wondering how I could even get close enough to hurt the man. Ichika gave me an opening. With a qi-enhanced slash from Red Harvest, she pushed the freezing aura back, swinging as if hacking through a dense jungle.

When Ieyasu turned his attention to her, the freezing aura retracted on his other side. I used the opportunity to dash in with my knife, stabbing for the same spot where Monkey Yang had already bloodied his side with the shattered blade. Ieyasu's attention flickered toward me, but he was too late and my knife stuck in - only it didn't go in all the way, maybe an inch and a half. Stabbing Cold-blood Ieyasu in the middle of his tempest was like stabbing a very cold rock, and only my cultivator's strength let me do any damage at all.

My hand was already numb and the cold burned at my face, the wind whipping straight at me. I tried to pull the knife away and found it stuck in place. An immensely strong, impossibly cold hand clamped down on my wrist, the bones creaking under the pressure. I could immediately feel the freezing power working its way up my arms and through my bones, foreign ice qi overcoming my own resistance.

My skin was pale blue up to the elbow and creeping further and further up… I’m pretty sure that was very bad. I tried to pull away in a panic, but my arm was anchored in place, utterly frozen and lifeless. Ichika was frozen in place, too, frost covering her arms as the glacial technique overcame Red Harvest's assault. We were beaten. We were freezing. We were totally fucked…

"Stop!" a man's voice shouted. Then a light, blazing-bright ignited in the space between me and Ichika…

At first I thought it was Lin - but she didn't have a man's voice, and she was still in my dantian, struggling to burst forth but without much success. She'd really drained herself when she beat the life out of Lee Dan, and it would be another hour or two before she could pop back into the world. So who…

"Ken?" I shouted.

Ken didn't respond to me - his whole body was aflame, fists jabbing out with perfect form, beating Ieyasu's tempest back as his clothes and flesh burned, the scaly skin of recovering burns breaking out in blisters and cracking as barely-constrained fire qi pulsed out from his body, forming great gouts of steam as it annihilated the frost qi still pouring out from Cold-blood. I felt the freezing begin to slow, then pause, then reverse, the life creeping back into my frigid limbs…

"Flames cannot survive the tempest's onslaught!" Ieyasu growled, and he focused his full attention upon Ken, blocking blows with his free hand while the ice spear continued to twirl overhead. He blocked Ken's blows once, twice, three times, but each time left burnt fabric and blistered skin behind. Ken was actually hurting him!

Ieyasu roared in fury and I felt the tempest withdraw completely. I pulled my hand free and stumbled back, my skin still screaming in pain from frostbite, my right hand frozen almost solid but barely able to move. I'm pretty sure a regular person would have lost the hand, but I could feel my body's qi pushing against the damage, healing the cells ruptured by ice crystals.

My knife was still stuck in Ieyasu's side, though, so I was unarmed. He continued to spin his big, crystal-blue spear overhead like a helicopter blade. Hmm…

With a shout, I leapt with everything I had, my numb legs moving sluggishly but providing enough force to boost me up. My hands hit the haft of the spinning spear and clutched on… both hands instantly froze, the ice quickly pushing up toward my elbows…

The spear dragged toward the ground, slipping out of Ieyasu's hand and then shattering into a thousand pieces. A few of them sliced little gashes into my bare legs, but I barely felt them over the cold. And… yeah, my hands were gone. They'd shattered, and I all had were frozen, bloody stumps.

Beyond me, Ken and Ieyasu strangled one another, hands clutching throats, flame against ice. I'd broken the tempest, but Cold-blood still had quite a bit of leftover frost qi to use. Ken's fire sputtered and died, his skin covered in horrible, black burns. Frost crept over him as he struggled, his resistance growing weaker and weaker. Just past him, Ichika hefted Red Harvest with bloody, frostbitten hands, the blade wavering in her uncertain grip.

I prayed for a deus ex machina, but I knew those only existed in fiction, not in real life. Not even in cultivator land.

"Begone, pest!" Ieyasu snorted, and he struck Ken with a technique-imbued punch.

Ken shattered. He fucking shattered. A thousand frozen pieces of the poor guy scattered everywhere, equal parts blackened and bloody, all of them frozen solid.

Weeping, I struggled to my feet - I had no hands, but I'd put up whatever fight I could. Monkey Yang stumbled in next to me, one arm dangling limp at his side, his face pale as he wavered near shock. Ichika circled toward us, barely able to walk or hold her sword.

"Now to finish this," Ieyasu spat. His side oozed blood from twin knife wounds, and Ken had burned him in a dozen places, but the bandit lord was in significantly better shape than any of us. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a spear - somehow, it lacked the robustness of the shattered ice spear, a shadow of a copy. But I couldn't even throw a punch now, let alone wield my knife, wherever it had gone to.

He lowered his spear… I hoped I could dodge in time. We were probably all gonna die, though…

I slowly realized there was shouting all around us, the clanging of metal upon metal, the thump of heavy boots.

"Desist in the name of the emperor! Desist at once!" a voice boomed.

"What is this?" Cold-blood Ieyasu roared, his frost-matted hair tossing like a white lion's mane as he thrashed his head about, only to see his men being quickly disarmed by a host of bronze-clad warriors.

"This is the emperor's justice," came a closer voice. A man glad in resplendent blue robes with a sash of imperial purple vaulted out of nowhere and clamped a bronze bracelet over Ieyasu's wrist. Any trace of remaining cold immediately vanished with the wind. "I, Lord Inspector Fung Chiang Fun, acting under the authority of Legate Jen and our Righteous Qilin Emperor, hereby arrest you for crimes against emperor, clan, and public peace."

So… that just happened.