A few hours of sky treading later Dorian was back to the Oasis. The sun was setting, spilling harsh light over a bloody battle.

Not a big battle, nor a devastating one. A small wave of sandwolves, Vordors, and other lesser beasts splattered against the Oasis walls, guided by a small fleet of a dozen-odd shamans. Soldiers rained bolts of qi from above with their Wizard’s Sticks. Battleships shot down Vordors with ease.

Bin Heilong greeted him with a curt nod as he landed nimbly beside the man on a parapet. All around them soldiers tripped over themselves to get out of the way, awestruck.

“You’re late,” said Bin, mustache bristling.

“I missed you too,” replied Dorian. He gave the battlefield a once-over. “You seem to be doing fine. Why, it seems my presence is hardly needed!”

Bin snorted, but couldn’t put much umph into it. He was looking rather sick. “We’re repelled their probing strike, sure. Our scouts report a force of tens of thousands on the horizon. Hundreds in the Earth Realm alone—who knows how many in Sky?”

He crossed his arms, but only managed to look frightened rather than imposing—like he was hugging himself. “They are but one day away. One. Day.”

“Hm.” Dorian scratched his chin. “And how many do you think you can take?”

“…A quarter of their Earth Realm forces. If I am generous.” Bin swallowed. The man reminded Dorian of a scarecrow, propping himself up with nothing but sheer habit. His composure was clearly shot through. All the Oasis’s ships, all the Oasis’s men summed together—it wouldn’t be nearly enough. There was nothing anyone here could do.

“So the heavy lifting will fall to me then, won’t it?” said Dorian, smirking. The question was rhetorical, and both of them knew it. “You’ll need to handle the riffraff. I can’t be running around trying to stamp out every last Profound Realm cultivator trying to set the city ablaze. Hells—probably couldn’t if I tried! What are there, tens of thousands?”

The Soul Contract he’d signed weeks ago had frustratingly simple terms: he’d agree, on pains of death, to defend the city to the best of his ability. He could hardly protect a city from ten thousand cultivators striking from land and sky while also fending off the heavy hitters!

Bin nodded. “Crag has mobilized the Outskirts well. And the imminent threat has scared the Guilds into falling in line. Thon of the Artificers has been working his men half to death producing Sticks. The Noble Families stand at the ready. Our Heilong forces hold strong as ever. Rest assured: beat back the brunt of the Earth Realm beasts, turn back the Sky, and the rest we shall cover.”

“It’s a deal.”

Bin sighed. “…Are you ready?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?!” screeched Bin, nearly hysterical.

“Oh, relax! I will be. Some fine-tuning must be done. Consolidation. That kind of thing.” Dorian stretched, catlike, then clapped Bin on the shoulder. The man nearly fell over. “Don’t you fret. I have gotten strong. Stronger than any of you can possibly know! By noon tomorrow, not one of them will be able to touch me. Why, it’d take the avatar of a god to threaten me!”

"...Do they not have the avatar of a god?"

Dorian licked his lips. “…See, that’s the tricky bit.”

***

There was nothing to do but consolidate! Polish off the rough edges, put in some last repetitions, grind out a few skill levels, maybe mine the Sinkhole for whatever was left. The bulk of the work was done. But first—

Night fell. Dorian staked out a sealed meditation chamber in the Heilong Estate, a cool windowless box of pure obsidian. His body had healed in all the major ways. His eyes worked fine, his muscles were mostly attached in the right spots. But he was still sore as hell. The residue of all that volcanic heat, of the physical trauma of being beaten by those apes within an inch of his life, still left a thousand micro-tears and pain points brimming up his body. All this time he hadn’t had a good few hours to really sit his ass down, take a breath, and focus on healing.

So he chugged as many high-grade healing elixirs as he could handle without vomiting, felt a spell of sleepiness strike him between the eyes, and let himself succumb.

***

At this point the pure white expanse of his mindscape had grown familiar.

He floated there as an avatar of himself. Before him was an avatar of Old Man Fate. Short, squat, white-haired and bushy-bearded in dark blue mourner’s robes. His eyes were even more soulful and teary than usual.

“Oh come now, Fate,” sighed Dorian. “Remember our first vision? You conjured up an entire tea house for me!”

He gestured at the white void. “Couldn’t be bothered to put in the barest of effort this time? A nice background would’ve done.”

Fate sighed. Dorian frowned. There was a startling dejection to him; he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen the man’s lips droop so! This was Fate.

“I… forgive me. I am tired,” Fate croaked, blinking. “But if you would like a change of scenery, I shall oblige.”

Instantly the scene shifted. They stood within a smoldering, ruined hellscape. Blacks and reds and oranges clawed at the skies, tore the realm apart. Then Dorian blinked. His mind adjusted. Wasn’t that the Phoenix’s old peak? And there—that was Dimu’s pagodas—or what was left of them—each floor had been broken off, scattered lopsided down the side of his mountain.

This was Zenith!

For a minute Dorian was silent. “Well. I’ll be,” he whispered, whistling. “He really did it.”

He turned to Fate. “When was this?”

“Merely an hour ago. Seen from my scrying glass.” Fate shook his head. “Half of the Godkings of the Multiverse have gone into hiding. Those that remained were killed, or absorbed, or taken hostage. It… it is, to my chagrin, as I foretold!” His voice broke at the end. “I could not stop him. None of us could. In the end I was forced to flee…” His eyes scrunched shut.

“And it’s come on so fast,” said Dorian. He nearly snorted. “I’ll give Jez this. In speed, he’s outdone even me!”

Fate looked up. His eyes soaked in Dorian’s face. “This has unnerved you. At last.”

It wasn’t a question. Dorian opened his mouth to bite off some snarky retort. Then he checked within himself, and found the bastard was sort of right.

“…Well, yes. I’d be a special sort of insane not to be.”

“But unnerved is all?” Fate studied his face. “You’re not afraid? Not panicked?”

“Panicked enough to join your resistance, at long last?” A hint of a rueful smile touched his lips. “Alas—no. I’ve cast my lot with the other smart fellows—fellows who’ve had the wherewithal to hide and wait out the storm! Whatever happens, I am quite certain I’ll be safe.”

“I see. Selfishness, then. To the end.” Fate sounded almost bitter. Then his eyes widened. “Oh—I—forgive me! I’m sorry. I…I have been under a preponderance of duress of late…”

Dorian shrugged. “Don’t apologize! It’s true enough.” Then he paused.

Fate looked near tears! He didn’t like the man—he found him rather annoying—but…ugh. Something about the sheer persistence of his optimism had ground Dorian down over all these millennia. He nearly found the man charming now, in a sad sort of way.

“Look,” Dorian said gently. “This will blow over.” He grinned. “It’s bad now. That much is obvious. But the Multiverse is far too big for one man to govern! Say he takes the rest of the planes. Even simply as a matter of logistics, how will he keep that big of an empire together without infighting? It’ll splinter under its own weight.”

Dorian shrugged. “From internal threats or external, one way or another, time will take care of it. And the bigger the empire, the bigger they fall! You’ve done all you can. Take my advice and wait it out, alright? These things pass. They always do.”

Fate sniffed. “You think so?”

“Of course!”

“I… don’t.”

Something strangely hard had come into Fate’s voice. “I haven’t come to recruit you, Dorian. It’s clear to me now that some causes are lost.” He swallowed. “I’ve come to tell you to brace yourself. It is maybe the last act of kindness I can impart to you for a long, long time.”

“Excuse me?”

“The storm has only begun. And it is like nothing that has touched the Multiverse before.” His voice firmed up; his pupils trembled. “Something vast and monstrous trembles on the horizon! My good fellow—you have never taken to heeding my words. Heed them now. Brace yourself!”

Now Dorian was frowning in earnest. “What, exactly, is it? Specifics, if you please?”

“I don’t know. I can’t know. You know that.” Fate swallowed. “Your brother has gone to stop it in person.”

Dorian froze. “…Wow. That bad, huh?”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you think even he can’t stop this Jez? This upstart?”

Fate’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know,” he whispered. He looked like he might shatter at a touch.

“Well, you should’ve led with that!” said Dorian easily. The tension was going out of him. “We both know two things my bastard brother is good for. They might as well be Laws of the Multiverse! One. Whatever Houyi’s arrow strikes ceases to exist. And two—“

“Houyi never misses.” Fate swallowed again. “I know. I know. And… you’re right. I do have faith in the man. There is hope yet.”

“There.” Dorian shrugged. “We’ll be fine, then, one way or another. Is that all?”

“What I hope to be true,” said Fate slowly. “Is not the same as what I know to be true.”

His eyes locked on Dorian’s. “Brace yourself,” he said again. With that, the scene dissolved.