Dorian woke with a start, fully healed and very confused. For a few breaths sat there, still and silent. His mind felt like a clogged throat, choked with thoughts, and he was having no small difficulty swallowing.

Brace yourself. Fate’s words still weighed on him.

“…Okay then!"

Jez was a real threat! Noted. Perhaps Dorian had been wrong to dismiss the man so. Perhaps Fate had been right all along.

The question was—just what the hells was he supposed to do about it now?

He was already maximally protected. All his treasures were scurried away in the Multiverse’s most impregnable natural lockbox: the Unstuck Space. He was as braced as braced could be!

Plus, his brother was handling the man. In person. Overkill, probably, but Houyi always did like to do things right. There was no such thing as a margin of error with him: either it was done or it was not.

Dorian winced. He knew that aspect of Houyi well. Which was also how he knew the matter was over. He might despise the man, but there was no denying him. With Houyi there was no such thing as failure.

He hesitated. And if by some heavenly miracle he does fail, the rest of us can hardly do any better!

So—dire as it might seem—the best course of action was still to stay put, do his thing, and not make any sudden moves! He’d draw zero undue attention. With luck he might be able to skirt the fallout of Jez’s death. Perhaps he could even chart a course through the Middle and Upper Realms that skirted conquered territories? It was a pleasant if hopelessly naive thought.

Oh, look at me. Punching at ghosts. How is any of this relevant to me. He snorted, then left the room. Outside the sky was a watery smear behind a film of slate clouds. Probably he had run out of time. Today was the day. Before the day was out, it would all go down, and he’d know.

What matters to me is not the main body. I’ll be busy enough with this pesky offshoot!

In a way he liked the challenge. It roused within him a fighting spirit that only certain men knew—men who sought out the knife’s edge. He’d discovered a new route in this run already, a route that’d afford him endless possibilities. Frankly he was well on his way to a top-tier run with all his exploits this time around. He wasn’t about to stop now.

All that was left to do was some testing and fine tuning. How had his Laws changed his Techniques? How might he use their funky new quirks in a new and improved style?

Some testing was in order.

***

He went out alone into the desert, flitting easily past the walls, past sands strewn with corpses, crusted over with dried riverbeds of blood. Viscous black qi slithered around his fingertips, draped his arms and legs—qi from his main core, a core now laced with the Laws of Darkness.

Qi with Laws was a difference in kind. He felt it even now, passively: it had a natural affinity with the world. He felt integrated into the fabric of the Multiverse, like one cog in the pan-cosmic machine.

But the difference would be made most clear once he tested his Techniques.

He found an empty stretch of dunes. The early morning sun, angled at a slant, meant the desert was washed with long shadows—shadows of dunes, of chunks of bone jutting from the sands, of shelves of rock pepering the land. He licked his lips. First up—shadow jumping!

He probed out with his mind’s eye and snatched up a shadow. It came to him like a well-trained hound. No effort at all, as though it was meant to pool at his feet all along in the natural order of things. He stepped in just as easily.

The Shadow Realm, which was to him a noxious space before, now grudgingly accepted his presence—but only as a host might accept a guest; he was wreathed in Shadow Law, true, but he was not a being of shadow. At some point he would overstay his welcome. A horrible fate would befall him then.

But when was that point? Dorian flitted about the Realm of Shadow like a wraith. The resistance, he found, had shrunken by an astonishing degree. Hells—if he wanted to he could probably hop from this end of the Oasis to the other!

In fact he tried just that. With but a flicker of will he slingshotted across the Shadow Realm, aimed at the string of shadows made by the walls on the other side of the Oasis, the East Walls. Thousands upon thousands of strides away.

In the blink of an eye he emerged into the real world, stumbling to a halt in the sands. He whirled around. Behind him the East Walls rose up, a cliff of gears and steel. Soldiers manning the parapets gawked at him. And this isn’t even its limit! His shadow-jumping had evolved nearly to teleportation, it seemed—within limits.

Then a funky thought popped to mind. How many hops from here to the volcano? Hmm…

He had little to gain here by going back. There was no time to challenge the Dweller to a rematch, and the chances he could level-up enough to best the creature were slim besides.

Still, though, he filed the thought away in the back of his mind. One never knew when a nearly immortal creature capable of massive destruction might come in handy…

***

The rest of the morning was spent testing Techniques. Most every one of them had gained a delightful boost from his Darkness Laws. Yama’s Chains was most notable: rather than needing to fork out gobs of his own qi, he could now convert pools of shadow into new links, extending his Chain! Which meant that at night-time his Chains would become a horrifying weapon indeed…

***

Bin Heilong came to deliver the news in person. Dorian knew what he’d say before the man opened his lips. It was written plainly on his bone-pale face.

“According to our latest scouting reports the Ugoc are hours out,” he croaked. “They may arrive before sundown.”

Dorian took a breath. “Very well.” This was it.

“All our preparations are made,” said Bin primly. “Our troops are at the ready.” He turned a stern eye on Dorian. “You’ve had a day. Are you ready now?”

“Nearly!”

Bin choked. “Y-You are aware that your fate is tied to that of the Oasis?!” His cheeks were ruddy. “You are soul-bound to defend Azcan to the best of your abilities! To die, if you must! How do you remain you so—so—“

“Nonchalant?” Dorian shrugged. “It does me no good to be nervous, does it? Besides…”

He turned an eye to the city walls. But he wasn’t looking at them—not precisely. He was looking beyond them, eyeing a signature he felt in his spirit. A Resonance signature.

“I’ll be ready. There is only one more matter to take care of. It won’t take long.”

“What is it?”

“Well—“ Dorian paused. “At the moment I’m… skeptical, you might say.”

“Of what?!”

“That I can beat Jez, of course! His avatar, that is.”

Bin looked like a strong gust of wind might scatter him like a sand sculpture. Dorian forged on, wagging a finger. “Gods are no joke, you know. Especially when you try to fight them as a mortal. I was reminded of that very recently! I simply don’t have the firepower.”

Bin opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, made a sound like a leaking pipe.

Then—“And you thought to mention this now?!”

“Relax. There’s a few hours yet, aren’t there? I may not have the firepower now…but I will. Have your men clear out the area around the Sinkhole, will you?”

A thundercloud of dread settled on Bin’s face. “Do I even want to know?”

“If I am to craft a secret weapon,” mused Dorian. “A Technique destructive enough to slay the avatar of a god, a botched try might end the Oasis in a stroke.”

Bin couldn’t get any paler. There was no blood left in his face.

“So… Sinkhole.” Dorian shrugged. “I’ll need Spirit Water as cushioning. As much as I can get.”

Bin was already turning away. "It shall be done."

"Hey!" called Dorian to Bin's departing back. "Don't you want to know why I need water in particular?"

"I am going to vomit," said Bin without turning. He leapt away.

"Fire!" called Dorian after him with a devilish smile. "There will be fire! Lots and lots of fire!"