It was no coincidence. A Jiangshi in the Bone Forest was unheard of. Jez must’ve tracked him here. But how?

Scrying glass? Or could he read the threads of Fate, tracking Dorian across realms?

Or—a last, most unpleasant thought—was it through blood? Had he somehow gotten his hands on Kaya?

None of this was as immediate as the Jiangshi quickly closing in on their position. Through the glass in Sun’s arms he saw it blurring like a winter’s breeze between trees. In the distance their hiding spot rose up, slightly thicker and taller than all the rest, trailing a wisp of smoke.

“It must’ve smelled the cooking!” cried Sun. “I knew my steak was too zesty! Oh, Heavens—“

She grabbed Dorian’s arm. “Run!”

“Don’t be foolish.” He tore it free. “If it’s here, it’s already picked up our scents. And Jiangshi move in covens—you can bet there’s more nearby! They can share scents with each other like we share stories, and they’ve got some of the sharpest noses in all of Hell. Run and more will come for us.”

“But—but I can’t cloak smells yet! We can’t even hide!” Sun was melting inside her skin. “Ooh…fuckfuckfuck—“

“Shut up,” snapped Dorian. “Stop panicking. We’ll stand and fight.”

“Fight? I’m weak as hell! And it’s at least peak Demigod!”

“We can deal with that. You have the Jingu, don’t you?”

“I can’t hit a cloud on a rainy day! Last time I tried to smack a clump of demons I hit you on accident, remember? I—“

She closed her eyes, sucking in deep breaths. “No. You're right. Fuck that! That’s such sad pathetic thinking! I can do this. I am a warrior of the venerable Stone Monkey lineage, and I will not be cowed by a mere—“

She glanced down at the glass again. Her eyes bulged. “—oh Heavens it’s getting really godsdamned close!“

She dashed away, grabbed a giant pot, flipped it over herself. “You’ve got this!” came her disembodied voice. “I’m rooting for you! Go Dorian!”

“…Really?” He rolled his eyes, then unsheathed his claws. “Go Dorian,” he sighed, and went out the portal-door.

***

The Jiangshi’s pale features curled into a vicious grin as Dorian came into view.

“Dorian,” he whispered, voice airy and hoarse. “The Godking of Time! It is an honor. The Master suspected you hid near the Molten Plains. What luck that I am the first to come upon you.”

He licked his lips. “It is rare one has the chance to taste a Godking, however… diminished. How far do your powers extend now? Not even to Demigod, I wager.”

As he spoke, sickly red qi pooled around his mouth. A faint blush tinged his cheeks. Demigod, by the ripples of his qi. When it came to Gods it was usually easy to tell their power levels up close, the way you can infer the weight of a stone by the ripples it makes in a pond. Every breath this thing took rippled the world. Not Godly, but damned close to it.

And it was no mindless demon, either, which made it ten times more dangerous.

“Can’t Jez give it a rest?” said Dorian. “He’s booted me from my bodies, cut off my run. Now he’s scrying me across the Multiverse? Let me guess—Blood probes?”

One of the simplest scrying tactics. Drop a probe with a matching drop of blood, and it’d react if the target was in the vicinity. If Jez had gotten his hands on Kaya it’d be the first thing he’d try. If she was alive, that was.

“Indeed. A crude tool,” sighed the Jiangshi, baring its teeth. “But reliable, and effective. It has led me to you, hasn’t it?”

So Kaya does live. It was, in its strange way, relieving. Like hearing your lost dog had been found by a neighbor.

But the Blood probe spell could only be enacted by the giver of the Blood. In other words it needed consent. Had Kaya betrayed him, then? Or was it done by compulsion? He frowned. For all her silliness the one virtue of hers he could count on was loyalty—or so he’d thought. Then again, she was pretty far gone the last time they’d met…

The Jiangshi cackled with the utmost pomposity. “Oh, Dorian, so-called Trickster King! To look at you now! How Fate makes fools of us all, from the mightiest God to the tiniest Hellspawn!”

Dorian groaned. He could feel a self-important monologue quivering on the horizon; it so often happened when creatures met his true self. The sound of your own voice was oh-so-much sweeter when you get to spew it before a figure of myth.

Sure enough—“Since the reign of Salas I had heard held your name in reverence. I was but a wee lad then, starry-eyed! Dorian, they said—more godly bodies than any other! Bah! To think that I—agh!“

He cut off at precisely the moment Dorian got bored and unleashed his dragonbreath.

Dragon’s breath could be used at all kinds of temperatures. If Dorian wished he could even produce a virtual flame: all show, a ghostly flicker that used almost zero qi.

For this strike he brought out a full half of his reserves. The Dark Star and Fire Planet burned hot within him, and a black-red blur wreathed in twin Laws burst into Hell.

The Jiangshi threw up a hasty shield, bloodshot eyes wide. A Jiangshi’s powers came from the souls of those it had bitten; it cannibalized their life forces. Sure enough, Laws of Death and Life thickened the air in front of it, riding a vortex of bone-white qi. A giant form climbed out of it—a dead-eyed drake made of pure bone qi, splayed wide. Ordered by the Laws of Life to take fleshy form once more. A Jiangshi’s signature defense: Meat Shield, dragging back the souls it’d eaten to come to its defense. Black-Red crashed into hard white.

It melted like wax before a blowtorch. The Jiangshi’s eyes popped. “What?!”

In a panic it made a hand sign; out flew a giant bone-spider. Dragonbreath made quick work of it too. Then a baby whale, whose blubber held up for but a half-breath longer than the others. Barely a third of the Dragonbreath’s qi was spent as it arched furiously for the Jiangshi’s head.

Cursing, the Jiangshi thrust out its palms. Black Laws of Death made a veil before it. The Laws of the Multiverse commanded whatever passed through to wither.

The Dragonbreath punched straight through. It hardly slowed at all.

The Jiangshi gasped. It could only throw up its arms, braced head-to-toe in qi.

Impact.

The breath of a Torchdragon was a marvel of the Multiverse. He’d never truly appreciated it, he realized. He’d always been too busy trying not to die from it, which rather spoiled the effect. But now, standing at a safe distance and seeing this Jiangshi scramble desperately as its defenses were roasted before its disbelieving eyes—Dorian nodded in satisfaction. Even at Dorian’s low levels of comprehension these Laws were horrifying. When they said burn, you burned.

His dragonbreath claimed a forearm. Greedily it leapt up, thirsty for the heart, the head—but before it could snatch more a new force entered the fray. A tide of gold light surged into the world, Lawless, burning bright with pure qi. Foreign qi. It made not the slightest ripple as it flowed forth, gushing to meet his dragon’s breath. There was a violent hissing, like the sound molten metal makes when thrust in icy water. For a few tense seconds they struggled with each other. This qi would not heed his commands to burn; instead huge chunks of it fizzed to nothing as his Laws steamed against it. But there was so much! A wellspring surging from nothing. Infinite. It was a war of attrition only one side could win.

Something had to be done. He nearly stepped into shadow by instinct, then recalled where he was. Hold on. I can’t enter the Shadow Realm without triggering the wraiths’ wrath, but what about an inanimate object?

His Javelin slipped discreetly into a shadow pool at his feet.

The Jiangshi was caught up in fending off the last of the breath. It didn’t clock that anything was off until it looked up and saw his shit-eating grin. On sheer instinct it turned, gaping. The tip of a fang touched a tongue dry as a corpse, and drove through.

A headless body slumped to the ground.

Dorian strolled back to Sun’s hideout. “You can come out now.”

“Really?” Her head poked out from under the pot. “Oh. Wow.”

“Don’t you remember who I am?” snorted Dorian. “You think I can’t handle a peak Demigod? Please. It’s embarrassing you of all creatures were the one to catch me out.”

Sun scrambled to her feet, frowning. She poked a head out the door and took in the slumped Jiangshi. She whistled. “Well, fuck me! Nice!”

“I try.”

She squinted. “Aren’t Jiangshi supposed to be really hard to kill?”

“This one was young, and stupid, and overeager. They get dangerous when they have a few dozen bodies in soul storage and gain higher-Tier Bloodline Techniques. But those are usually God-level.”

“You sure know a lot about them.”

“I was one in a past life.” Dorian shrugged. “I’ve either been or fought nearly everything in this Realm. I know all the tricks. It’s sort of what I do.“ He saw her open her mouth. “No more questions! No time. We should get moving.”

He checked up on the body and managed to pry out a half-burnt beast core from the steaming corpse. He’d detoxify it and make it an elixir or something later. It’d make a solid contribution to his Dark Star. Sun bent over the corpse, sniffing. She made a face. “It’s too burnt to eat!”

“Leave it. There will be more coming. Let’s get out of here before—“

A piercing wail peeled out from the house.

“Fuck.” said Dorian.

“Fuck!” cried Sun. She dashed for the hideout.

Dorian felt it before she came back out. A trembling like the ground was the surface of a giant drum and something of unspeakable heft beat down upon it. Thump. Thump. THUMP. Louder and louder, making new cracks in the dry ground. He glanced due east, where the tops of bone trees shivered with each beat. Something very big was passing between them, something that rippled with the aura of a God.

Other ripples beside it, too, smaller. Demigod auras? Dorian could swear he heard raspy voices. Excited voices.

Sun burst out of the hideout, hauling her scrying glass behind her. She pointed a trembling finger. “What the fuck is that thing?!”

Half the glass showed a giant blot of diseased dark-green skin. Its body was textured like a cobblestone wall, and it ran up to an eyeless head—a head so big it managed to look out of place on its already enormous body. And stretching from ear-nub to ear-nub was a mouth so big it managed to look out of place on its enormous head, a mouth shot through with spiky teeth.

Dorian stared, incredulous. Not because of its appearance—but because he knew what it was.

Jez got his hands on a godsdamned Taotie?!

The beast was like if gluttony had a physical form. One of the seven deadly sins, a legendary beast unto itself. Left unchecked they could devour whole kingdoms of the Upper Realms.

A spiked collar clung tight to its neck, which was attached to a chain, which was in the hand of a Jiangshi very much like the one he’d just fought. Another one trailed the beast. Both bore the markings of Jez.

“What now?” said Sun.

“Now we run.”

“Don’t get me wrong—I might as well be the patron saint of fleeing—but didn’t you just say there’ll be way more after us if we run?“

“Have you ever fought a Taotie before?”

“...No?”

“I have, twice across all my runs. And both times it ate me.”

Sun swallowed. “Running it is!”