Alex flashed a fierce smile as he drew his sharktooth dao after kicking shut the door behind him, lest any unseen assassin try to catch him from behind. Yet that meant he was now in perfect position to be pinned overrun by the approaching half-dozen. A realization that invited belligerant boasts and twisted threats in the men charging forward as fast as they could.

Just as Alex hoped they would, after dousing the hallway torches beside him and summoning gates he was now extremely wary of getting too close to himself, even if the ones linked to his own realm weren’t trying to maliciously suck him in.

You have closed all unnecessary gates. 13 gates are available for use.

Three gates have been overlaid over all known complex exit points.

One additional gate has been placed 50 feet behind rapidly approaching Silvers.

Nine gates are available for use.

“Intruders are in the interrogation chambers! Sound the alarm!” Roared one sentinel.

“I recognized that bastard from the school. JiangHu agents are attempting to assassinate Lord Sudong Li! His head will be worth its weight in gold!”

Alex felt his heart start to hammer with furious glee as he glared into hard-eyed silvers kitted in gold, two wielding boar spears, ideal for these corridors, and four others equipped with dao and small iron bucklers, clearly having no time to kit up in the moments they had been put on alert. That they were still so well armed was a testament to the preparedness of Dongfang Hong’s shock troops and the disciplined focus of powerful Silvers, any one of which might normally command thousands of men. Yet here they were, in concentrated force, more than capable of wiping this city off the map.

His smile widened when he noted a pair choosing to forgo weapons entirely, counting on the powerful Silver Tier attacks Alex could sense building up around both their clenched fists that they were preparing to unleash on him in perfect tandem. The six moved with the practiced familiarity of a squad that trained together religiously, which would only serve to magnify their power as a unit.

So it was up to Alex to break that cohesion with the very first skills he had ever been taught, perfect for shattering formations and sowing chaos into enemy lines.

Bullrush, Bullrush, Adderstrike!

You have successfully struck enemy cultivators with Universal Solvent!

The half dozen elite troops sneered as Alex locked gazes with them.

“Easy Kill!” The closest roared, a powerfully built cultivator radiating the arrogance of a charmed life, where victories had been plenty and defeats few and far between. He held his spear in a steading grip, weapon made all the deadlier as it was infused with the devastating cutting power of an advanced Metal technique. Yet the cultivator next to him frowned, flashing his hands in a language known only to Dongfang Hong’s elite.

“If he was easy prey, Sudong Li would already have him. Something is wrong.”

His flashing hands earned only a contemptuous snort from their squad leader at the back, making it clear to proceed as planned. A single question and confirmation, all in a well-trained blink of an eye, using techniques that allowed Silvers to counter, at least partially, the fog and confusion of war. The soldier had to fight not to flinch, though, when their opponent smiled, Silver eyes suddenly taking up his own world, as if he actually understood the gestures and what they mean. Or worse, reading his mind, like the most talented Wujen were rumored to.

And then he was gone.

The farthest thing from new recruits or worse, mortals, the Silvers wasted no time in wide-eyed confusion.

“Invisible JiangHu assassins! Spears charge forward!” Their commander barked.

An instant before the air cracked with the sound of metal crunching and bones shattering. The sickening sound of squelching flesh followed by the clatter of steel clad bodies falling to the hard stone floor.

The middle pair of soldiers immediately twisted around as the leading spear men were forced to double back. Their eyes widened at the sight of a coldly smiling monster with ebony covered arms covered in the blood of the fallen pair of men, cratered rib cages shattered as effortlessly as a Bronze Ogre might devastate a basic cultivator who dared to insult them.

Looks of confused dismay flashed across faces kitted in steel helms before the largest of Dongfang Hong’s killers roared and charged, the Silver Giant’s fist charged up with all the crackling might of an avalanche, ripping through the air with absolutely devastating killing intent.

You recognize and have yourself practiced this technique! +2 modifier to counter!

Golden Swan grants additional +5 modifier to all linked skills!

Rank 12 (19) Silver Wing effortlessly counters Rank 4 Silver tier Avalanche Technique! Space bends to your will!

Before the man lurched to the side as Alex effortlessly batted aside the blow with a winding parry, that sent his opponent stumbling into the wall, as if space itself had twisted before snapping back into place as the monster’s Avalanche-infused fist blasted a massive hole in the tunnel wall, pelting the entire squad with pieces of ruptured stone, filling the air with dust.

“Did you know?” Alex quietly asked the squad commander as the four still upright Silvers readied themselves, glaring at Alex with fear and fury as the pair of spearmen exchanged looks with their commander, sneering his contempt as he met Alex’s gaze.

“What are you supposed to be, some half-blood Ruidian hero from the tales? Fool! Righteous cultivation is a fantasy to keep idealistic trash like yourself in line and nothing else! Power is the only truth in the cultivation world, and it’s a truth I will shove down your throat before the night is out, mark my words!” He sneered and spat. “You, lowly trash, would dare to question the great Captain Zao? Then I will humor you, worm. Yes! We all knew what went on in that chamber!” He flashed a smile when Alex’s jaw tighten, lips curving in a cruel sneer. “In fact, we had bets on how long that whore Cui Zhe would laugh before she begged, begged our master to relieve her of the burden of her crown and submitted herself fully to his mastery! But she held out. She dared to hold out, she dared to waste our master’s resources and t ime, and now she’s getting exactly what she deserved! Her and bastard children both!” he said while simultaneously clenching his fist. No doubt hoping Alex would be so distracted by his vile confession that rang with truth that he wouldn’t even note the three men plunging their weapons at his back.

Unfortunately for them, he did.

Adderstrike! You have critically struck your opponent!

In the blink of an eye the corridor ran red with screams and blood as Alex eased the tight reins to his bloodlust and fury, eager to share with his foes the bitter fruits of vengeance their monstrous acts had brought.

Effortlessly winding past desperately thrust spears before twisting them free as easily as plucking fruit from a tree, a heartbeat before slamming their skulls into the stone corridors with such force that they exploded like pomegranates, steel crumpling like tinfoil as the surviving pair shrieked in genuine terror and ran for all they were worth.

“Gold tier Titan! He must be! Run!” Hollered the closest soldier, sprinting so fast he must have been using a movement technique, and Alex couldn’t help smirking when the man slammed against the invisible barrier before him with a crack, bouncing off with crushed nose and shattered teeth and a piteous groan.

The soldier right behind him also struck with enough force that he went careening back before stumbling to the ground, desperately scrabbling to his knees before freezing in primal terror when he caught the sight of a coldly smiling Alex, whose maverick grin didn’t quite reach his glittering silver eyes.

“You’re the squad commander, right?” said Alex as the man before him flinched and trembled back. “What was that you had said?” Alex mimed scratching his head in thought even as his snap kick sent the second soldier struggling to his feet into the wall with such force that he collapsed in a boneless heap.

“Please, mercy!” sobbed the trembling cultivator.

Four gates directly leading to the bottom of Erjizhen lake have been placed upon all points of egress. Multiple Silvers are now attempting to force open barriers.

All opposing strength checks have failed. All elemental skill checks have failed.

You have opened all four gates leading to the bottom of Erjizhen lake.

Alex flashed a too wide grin, shaking his head. “No, it wasn’t that.” He snapped his fingers. “I know! You said that power was the only truth in this world, right? Which implies that the more power you have, the greater personal ‘truth’ you represent! So let me ask you this, how much weight will my words earn with the weight of all your dying friends backing me up?” Alex quipped, allowing his defeated opponent to watch the barrier even now splitting the hallway in two… as a massive torrent of water absolutely flooded the secret barracks holding so many hundreds of Dongfang Hong’s elites.

“The river has breached the corridor!” A distant survivor could be heard screaming as the roaring sound of water echoed in all of their ears.

The surviving Silver, for he was the only one, once Alex snapped his wrists and took care of the groaning soldiers with absolutely ruthless efficiency, cried out in shock and pain, then blanched in horror at the sight of water flooding down the corridor to wash against the invisible barrier, only for it to start climbing inch by inch, as the shouts grew ever more panicked in the hallways beyond.

“The corridors are flooding! Liutenants, organize your men and head to the nearest exit!”

“We can’t, sir! The nearest exit’s where the water is coming from.”

“Then use the rearmost exits!”

“No good, Captain! They’re also flooding!”

Dead silence save for the waterfall-like pounding of the waters as everyone fully took in the magnitude of their peril.

“A concerted effort from enemy wujen! It must be! Lieutenant Fu, get our sages focused on the farmost gate. At all costs, we must break through!”

Alex couldn’t help but flash a cold smile at the horrified look the squad commander was giving him when the man whom Alex guessed must be Lieutenant Fu cried out, desperation in his voice. “This is no wujen trickery, Captain! We really are being flooded by a lake!”

“How? Never mind, we have to retreat to the a back chambers, now!”

“Lord Sudong Li’s chambers? But sir...”

“It doesn’t matter! We’re going to die here, and there’s no way that Gold doesn’t have a back way out! If he can’t hold off the waters, he can at least give us passage out of here! If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with the general and the Crown Princess himself!”

Within moments the corridor was filled with hundreds of wild-eyed cultivators radiating potency, terror, and desperation, all of them were now racing right towards the barrier not one had any chance in hell of breaking, a few noting the battered squad commander and a coldly glaring Alex, before they smacked with a cry against the forcefield that was presently sealing their doom.

Desperate men began to hammer and pound on the barrier. “It’s a Ruidian! He’s killed an entire squad save for Fong himself! He must be a disciple of the fox, and this must be his master’s trickery, there is no other explanation!” declared one of the panicked men, glaring at the bodies by Alex’s feet while desperately pounding on the barrier as the water continued flooding rising his knees, and more than a few powerful soldiers wore the desperate wide-eyed gazes of men just moments away from panic.

“If you value your life, Ruidian, you’ll let us through right now!”

Alex couldn’t help laughing at that. “Really? You’re threatening me from the other side of a barrier you can’t for the life of you cross yourselves? Oh that’s rich.”

“You will let us through!” The bristle-faced man screeched, slamming the barrier with the pommel of his sword with growing panic. “You will let us through or we’ll purge this city of every one of your kind! You will let us through or we will torture your women and slaughter your children before your damned eyes right before we take your head! You will let us through, you will let us through!”

Alex smirked at the trembling man he was still holding like a limp doll. “These idiots just don’t get it, do they?”

“Please, terrible one. Spare our lives!” Sobbed the squad commander now cradling his broken wrists.

Alex’s bemused smirk turned hard and cold. “Like you all spared Crown Princess Cui Zhe? Like multiple honorable men amongst you made a concerted effort to free the princess and slip free of this palace, knowing you’d be honored and rewarded as heroes? Sure!.. Oh wait, that never happened.”

“You will put squad commander Fong down, Ruidian, and you will do so now!” Snapped a belligerent voice absolutely brimming with Qi.

“Captain Tong is here, praise the gods!” murmured one pale-faced soldier, a dozen others brimming with newfound hope, which Alex thought quite odd, all things considered.

Alex turned his head to gaze upon a hard-eyed warrior radiating potent Silver for all that his mustache and beard were flecked with grey. By the way he held his bladed staff, Alex had absolutely no doubt the man would give anyone short of Gold a run for their money.

Alex met the man’s eyes, sensing the furious killing intent kept in check only by a commander’s hard discipline, and couldn’t quite hold back a snicker. “Let me guess. You’re going to go for the tough but fair grizzled commander approach, assuring me I’m absolutely doomed if I continue along my tragic path and my only chance at redemption is submission, whereupon Dongfang Hong, royal bastard that he is, will welcome me with open arms.”

The man’s eyes widened at the audacity of Alex’s words, struggling just to speak through his wrath. “There is no escape for you, fool. The more you embrace folly, the worse your punishments will be! Do you really think the exits to these tunnels leads to anything but death for you?” He glared down at the fallen men. “You have already killed five loyal Silvers. Your debt to the Red Prince is already steep beyond measure! Just be grateful that he actually has use for skilled fighters such as yourself. But only if you quit playing the fool, free our man, and stop this flood!”

Eyes as dark as the midnight sky fastened upon Alex’s own and seemed to draw him in, until he felt like a frightened boy once more, shivering in a too thin tunic as the midnight gloom overwhelmed him.

Just the tiniest speck of light in eternal darkness, with no hope or will of his own at all.

“Open this barrier, Ruidian. Free my men, and fall to your knees.”

Alex closed his eyes, allowing the words to echo through his head.

Before flashing the nonplussed Tong a madcap grin as the man lurched back.

Willpower check successful!

“No. Impossible! Trash like yourself couldn’t possibly have the gift—”

“Wow, Spirit Qi! First time I actually saw anyone attempt to use it like that, and I could almost feel it through the barrier. You know what? That’s damned impressive.”

Alex’s smile hardened. “Now I have a counter offer for you. You tell me where my friends Xian Hong, Cheng Lei, and Liu Li are, and I won’t send you all hurtling into the sea a thousand miles from the shore line.”

Tong’s eyes widened, desperation warring with fury as the water levels continued to rise until stubborn pride won out. “Butcher five hundred Silver Giants loyal to the empire? 500 men worth millions of legionnaires serving the Golden Realms? You wouldn’t dare! The emperor himself would hunt you down like the vermin you are and make you suffer agony so exquisite that your screams will be a symphony of pain so fierce that death itself will be an unattainable mercy you will beg and plead for a thousand years to be granted!”

Alex smirked. “Only loyalty I see is to the prince scheming like the two-faced bastard that he is. And considering that Dongfang Hong seeks to annex CuiJing Province by torturing its Crown Princess to force some sort of infernal contractual surrender… yeah. Not buying your loyalty to anything but your own pockets. Now answer the question, or get washed out to see. Choice is yours.”

Dozens of panicked stares locked with Tong’s own as the water levels reached the point that the shorter men were treading water in fifty pounds of steel just to breathe.

“Please, commander. You have to tell—”

Whatever the desperate soldier was going to say was cut off in a spray of blood when Tong sliced open the man’s throat with his bladed staff in the blink of an eye.

“Baidushi will fall, and there is nothing you can do about it, worm!” Tong roared to the horrified cries of countless men, now pounding on the barrier with renewed panic when they caught sight of Alex’s furious gaze. “Now open this barrier at once! I, Lord Tong, command you!” the man roared with such intensity that the walls began to vibrate and crack, stunning even Alex with a desperate mental assault a full order magnitude stronger than the suggestions of before. A compulsion so crushing that It felt as if the madman were squeezing his very soul.

Alex’s heart began to pound under unthinkable pressure as the corridor started spinning, realizing he had been an absolute fool to so blithely discount decades or even centuries worth of honed deadly skills embraced by a deep Silver. Because all it took was one overwhelming surprise attack from an unexpected angle to take out foes far greater than oneself. Overconfident foes who refused to take their enemies seriously until it was far too late. A bittersweet lesson Alex knew all too well, having taken out so many Silvers and Golds with those very tactics himself. And he had always preferred his barriers utterly porous to the psyche of his foes. To better sense their weaknesses and karmic merits, to better understand them, so he knew just when to strike. So arrogant as to think he alone had any affinity with Spirit Qi. Yet now he was the one on his knees before someone who was far more than just sensitive, but had actually learned how to strike and compel with his mind, mastering exotic techniques Alex had absolutely no counter for.

Desperately, he fought against the overwhelming compulsion seeking to master him as Tong’s sneer grew.

“Yield, Ruidian, and open the path before us! Even Princess Cui Zhe shrieked before my will! Your fragile mind is trash before my own!”

Alex grit his teeth against the ever-increasing pressure pummeling his psyche. An awful pressure he could attempt to resist head-on… or redirect just as easily as he could any other blow.

He was surprised to find himself on one knee, coughing blood before Tong’s desperate glare as the leftmost corridor wall took on a golden hue before turning translucent to reveal a fantastic view of the wind whipped waves of a massive storm in the heart of an ocean a good mile below, no trace of land to be seen in any direction that wasn’t a good thousand miles away.

“One open portal coming right up!” Alex wheezed as he blinked away tears of blood. It was bitter comfort to see matching streams of crimson flowing from the eyes and ears of Captain Tong as well.

The desperately struggling Silvers had time only to cry out once at the magnificent, perilous sight.

Even Captain Tong’s eyes widened with sudden dismay, arrogant disdain finally pierced by his own imminent peril.

But it was too late. Far, far too late as countless tons of water effortlessly washed hundreds of Silver Tier Giants out into the very edge of the horizon Alex had glimpsed so many years ago, before their distant screams eventually faded to nothing as they all pierced the clouds before plummeting into the sea far below.

You have successfully closed all gates leading to the depths of Erjizhen lake. You have closed gates dividing corridor. You have left open one gate leading to Sea of Ghosts.

You have successfully endured multiple Mental assaults from a Spirit Qi specialist using Forbidden Arts!

Willpower has gone up 1 full Rank as you refuse to yield! (Thank your mother’s heritage for that!)

Willpower is now Bronze Rank 2!

Base Qi Deflection is now Rank 11 as you master the art of redirecting even Spirit Qi attacks! Your enemies want a portal open? Sure! You’ll open a portal right over the Sea of Ghosts and wash all your problems away!