“You should go.” Meng said. Sharply—“I’ll not involve myself in your petty squables.”

Then she eyed Sun flopping on the floor. She softened. “But…perhaps I’ll give you a way out. This much, and no more!”

She tapped the air. A seam in the fabric of the Multiverse split open, giving way to a foreign stretch of Swamp.

“Out you go.”

Dorian scooped Sun up. “Right. See you—”

“Blegh?” said Sun. “W-wait! We’re leaving? Already?” She looked around blearily.

“I’ll explain later. Let’s—”

She stumbled out of his grasp. Before he could snatch hold over her she’d waddled over to Meng and hugged the old lady. Meng looked as shocked as Dorian was. It might’ve been the first time in ten thousand years she’d gotten a hug. She stood frozen for a heartbeat. Then, sighing, she wrapped her arms around Sun too.

“Do visit again, alright, little one? Granny Meng will always have fresh cookies for you. All the cookies you could want.”

“I will!” Sun sniffled. She looked drunk on Dao Fruit.

“Do we have time for this?!” said Dorian. “Hush, you.” Meng hesitated. Then, with a resigned grimace, sighed once more. “Perhaps—just this once, mind you—I can stall this... Empyrean… while you run. Ten breaths. Not a second more.”

Dorian shook his head in awe. Sun had worked some black magic. Then she slumped to the ground and was a frothing mess again. Figures.

“Many thanks, Meng!” said Dorian, scooping her up, making sure to keep a firm grip on her this time. “‘Till next time.”

With one last wave he leapt out the portal.

It felt like stepping out of a dark cave and seeing the sun for the first time in days. His eyes took a second to adjust; for a second the world was a slurry of motes and forms, and then harsh clarity faded in. The Swamp was drenched in shadow. All of them glowed with a light only he could see, a light that was no light at all, like radiation. With a sick thrill he realized that, with but a flicker of will, that darkness could be made a raging firestorm. Dark and light were but flipsides of the same coin—it was so clear to him now. With but a flicker of will he could set this whole Swamp ablaze.

No time to linger. The moment he set foot ankle-deep in the marshes he felt eyes on him—thousands of pairs, big and small, hidden in the depths of the canopy. He didn’t look up. The dark could hide no secrets from him now and he knew what foul boiling masses he’d see, and he frankly didn’t need to know. He was uncloaked, exposed, hunted. The time for subtlety was long past.

He sprinted down the marsh.

As he went shrieks crowded the air. To either side jets of gunkwater shot up. He didn’t look. He only had eyes for the route ahead. One foot ahead of another in the shallows. He leapt atop a giant lilypad, swung off a vine, landed on another, leapt away as it snapped shut underneath him, kept sprinting. The Swamp shrieked its fury from all around. Tentacles that could’ve dragged down ships burst out of the water ahead. He leapt nimbly over and kept up his sprint. Was it his imagination, or was that explosions going off far behind him? Too hard to tell. The shrieking of locusts and cicadas drowned all.

“Sun!” The girl was still white-eyed, mumbling and frothing, soaked with sweat.

“Sun?!” He shook her, cursing, but she was too far gone. “Wake up, damn you!” How in Hells did the girl wake up for a hug—but not now, when both their lives were on the brink of a violent and unceremonious end?

He was uncomfortably aware of how close the Swamp was getting. A clutch of skeletal hands nearly caught his ankles. A python’s lunge went a handspan above his scalp. You did not blunder about in a place like the Swamp. Dorian braced with each step for a reckoning.

Thankfully Meng had dropped them near an exit. Soon shafts of light poked through the trees. Purple daylight. Dorian felt relief burst in his chest. They must be getting close. He was just letting himself entertain the notion that he might get out of this unscathed when it hit him.

He felt it coming an instant before it struck. It would’ve brained Sun instantly. He barely had time to jerk her out the way. Which meant, sadly, that a crocodilian tail struck him like the mother of all battering rams.

He registered a moment of connection. Then he realized the connection was his face, plastered against slimy wet bark. His mind connected the dots. Him, running. Something scaly and massive struck. And then—it felt instantaneous—him sliding down this tree, spread-eagled.

And then the sensation of the tail hitting him struck his mind in full.

Gritting his teeth, Dorian steadied himself against the trunk. He felt like half the lights in his body had gone out at once—his right arm, right leg, Hells, even the right side of his face was slack! They were still connected, at least. That much he was sure of. They were doing a splendid job dumping an astonishing amount of pain on his mind.

Meng said ten breaths! Had it been ten? That fast? Then he blinked, and realized what had come for him was not some Empyrean Top Ranker. In fact it was a horribly familiar face.

The fucking panlong!

Half-step Empyrean Coiling Dragon. Legendary Beast. Beady little eyes trained on his head. It still remembered his scent—and followed him all the way here?! Its ability to hold a grudge was almost admirable.

He skidded to a halt, tried skirting around, but the thing was there before he was. Cursing he swung off a vine, but with leisurely contempt the panlong tracked him there. It smiled, baring fat acorn teeth. Dorian lashed a Yama’s Chain at the creature. Thick darkness thudded against the scales. Then Eclipse turned it scarlet. Gouts of flame licked the air.

The dragon walked through the explosion utterly unscathed. All that’d changed was the degree of contempt in its eyes. It was gloating.

FUCK.

Dorian couldn’t afford to get tangled up here. He had bigger creatures to run from. His right foot was waking back up—

He ducked on instinct. The dragon had burped, and the steam that shot out of its jaws drew a screeching line over where his head had been. It went fast as an erupting geyser. Somewhere behind Dorian there was a fierce hissing, the crash of a Swamp tree whose trunk had been mercilessly liquified.

Those trunks were twice as tough as his skin.

Forget that Empyrean behind him. ‘Couldn’t afford to get tangled up’? Laughable thinking. He was lucky if tangled up was all he left here with—that thing outmatched him by far! Gritting his teeth he tried to stand, but his right knee buckled under him.

The panlong saw his weakness. Saw his hunched-over posture, his slack right side. It smirked, an expression Dorian hadn’t thought its crocodile-face capable of. Nauseating green steam trickled out the edges of its mouth. It was charging something nasty, something huge. It knew that Dorian saw it. It also knew that no matter where Dorian went it would find him.

He couldn’t let it finish. But the dragon would be wise to a Javelin strike—and such a tiny blow wouldn’t matter anyways. It wouldn’t shake the thing off. Dorian needed something decisive.

There was one move he had left in his back pocket. He dearly hoped it’d be enough.

Off one leg, he leapt.

The dragon eyed him as though he were a gadfly. With half-lidded lazy eyes it tracked him. It hardly saw the need to move. And why should it? It had just savaged a half-dozen high Tier Gods with the barest of effort! What could this lowly halfling possibly do? Tickle it?

Dorian was betting on it. As he dropped, he pulled out a Technique. Instantaneous, explosive. Back during the witching hours, absorbing those Torchdragon Eggs, he’d fashioned a Technique he hadn’t dared test. Close-combat. Fist of the Falling Star.

His left hand tightened to a fist now.

No qi gathered there, nor law—no buildup. He simply fell, fist outstretched. He must’ve looked mad. He felt rather mad. He arched toward the dragon’s scaly face, and it must’ve looked like a pebble flung at a mighty shield.

Then, an instant before connection, the pebble went supernova.

[Level-up!]

[Fist of the Falling Star]

Lv. 0 -> 1

It felt, for an instant, like his fist was punching a wall. Implacable. Immovable.

Then there was a shock of heat and light and fire, and the wall caved.

Then it broke.

So much qi rushed out of him in that one second, surging with so much Eclipse Law he almost blacked out. The Technique tore it out of him so fast he felt several veins rupture. The sheer force of the impact was astounding. There was a sharp CRACK!

He thought, for a moment, that he’d snapped something vital in the dragon.

Then he realized it was his hand.

As he pulled it back, marveling at the mangled pulp that had been a fist, the coiling dragon flipped head-over-tail and landed, howling its pain, in the depths. It did not re-emerge.

He had no illusions he’d killed the thing. But if that didn’t keep it down—at least for a few breaths—nothing he threw would. He hobbled over to Sun, picked her up, and kept up his mad dash out of the Swamp.

Maybe they saw what he’d done to the dragon. Maybe, fried to the roots of his hairs and stinking of brimstone, he smelled of trouble. Whatever the case no Swamp creatures dared harass him as he plunged the rest of the way out.

***

Only once he put a hundred-odd paces between him and the Swamp did he take some time to reflect.

That thing had been a half-step Empyrean. And a Legendary Beast to boot! Just what mad Dao was this ‘Eclipse’? Could it be some specialty Dao— tied to his Bloodline? Or perhaps his cultivation system, with its swirling stars? Such a curious Dao—more curious still that he hadn’t heard of it in all his travels. With something so temperamental, so brimming with violent potential, he would’ve thought at least one Godking would’ve made a name with it…

Sun still blinked white-eyed in his arms.

“Lot of help you were,” he sighed. “I swear—I still can’t feel half my right leg—”

He was cut off by a crack like thunder, then a BOOM. The shrieks of Rocs flocking quickly away.

He chanced a glance behind him. A nice cloud of smoke was rising above the Swamp.

The real Empyrean. The one hunting bent on hunting them down.

He was so drained—of qi, of energy, of life after that bout with the panlong—he couldn’t even muster much fear in him. Just a cold numbness.

“Sun…” he growled. She blubbered at him. “I need you now.”

Another explosion—nearly at the treeline—

“SUN!”

Her eyes shot open. Wood-colored pupils contracted. “Wha—eh?”

A dam of broke in him. Fresh relief rushed down his body, flushing out the numb shock. “What took so long?!”

“Sorry,” said Sun sheepishly. “These ancestors of mine were really insistent on handing me some new cloaking powers! They went on and on...”

She stopped, for she’d felt the same thing he had. The aura that glowered from the Swamp’s edge had no equal in Dorian’s memory. None. Not even Meng’s Warlord Form—a World Ranker Empyrean, top-five in her prime—could top it.

Its owner stepped out into the light. A red-haired lady with golden eyes. Her face was so utterly symmetrical, so carefully sculpted, it went past beautiful—it looked positively unnatural. Arcane orange markings painted her skin. Nine fox’s tails fanned out behind her, each sporting a scarlet flame at its tip.

There were Gods, and there were Gods. They were not created equal. A truly elite God—one that wielded a Dao of immense caliber, wielded seas of qi, with a legendary Bloodline to boot—a God that might grace the tip of the Multiversal Rankings—could wipe the floor with ten Gods of mediocre quality.

In the same way there were Empyreans, and there were Empyreans.

Dorian knew this Empyrean. Knew her well. This was Nujia, the Nine-tailed Fox. Last Dorian checked, fourth ranked Empyrean in the Multiverse. She was most definitely an Empyrean.

Dorian couldn’t fathom what Jez had to pay to set a monster of her caliber on his trail.

Their eyes met. Slowly she smiled, and Dorian saw the gleaming whites of her bared teeth.

“Hey Sun?” he said.

“Yeah?” she squeaked.

“Now would be a really good time to show me those new powers of yours.”