Dorian and the Heilong Elites stood in a crater, a blackened ruin of the great chamber, its sizzling grounds sloshed with half-melted gold and iron. Smoke wafted like incense over heaps of fractured treasures. The last of their qi leaked out in sparking spurts.

“What,” croaked Bin Heilong, “is your name?”

There was a deathly silence.

Dorian wasn’t sure what to say. I suppose there’s no point in lying now. What difference will it make?

“Io Rust,” he said with a smile. “Pleasure to meet you! And you are?”

“I am Grand General Bin Heilong.” Bin’s eyes were narrowed, his brows drawn in, his lips hardly moving as he gritted out the words.

“Today, Io Rust, you have humiliated the Heilong Family.” His aura grew fiercer with every hissed word. “You have infiltrated our sacred chambers. You have destroyed our treasures. You have brought ruin to our treasuries. You have cost us untold fortunes in the span of a fucking hour.”

This was the sort of man who grew quieter the madder he got, who let his rage wind him smaller and tighter until it all burst out in one huge blast. The man’s eyeballs had started trembling in their sockets, red veins creeping across the shivering white like cracks on a frozen lake. His aura was starting to tremble. Yikes.

“Your life is forfeit!” snarled Bin Heilong, eyes bulging.

Dorian opened his mouth, then—at the sight of streams of piping-hot qi literally leaking from Bin’s ears—promptly shut the hell up. You know what? I don’t need to grovel just yet. The man’s talking! Which means he’s decided not to kill me yet. I’ve got some wiggle room here. I think.

“By all rights,” said Bin, quiet as a grave, “I should smite you where you stand.”

Dorian’s ears perked up. He could sense a but coming. Excellent. Taking advantage of buts was a specialty of his.

“But.”

Bin took a long, deep breath.

“Fate has proven… unexpectedly fickle. Perhaps there is an opportunity to make use of this disaster.”

Fate. Yes. That whole purple air business. Dorian would have to figure out just what that’d all been about. If he made it through this little jam, that was. Very, very big if.

“That purple air of the East,” hissed Bin, eyes flashing. “That was you?”

Dorian nodded slowly.

“Hmph. Very good!” Then I will give you two options.” Bin’s nostrils flared. “The first? I kill you, here and now, where you stand.”

Ah. So you’re really giving me one option.

“The second—“ Bin thrust out a finger straight at Dorian. “You atone for what you have done here today. You swear a soul bond to the venerable Heilong Clan. You join the Backbone of the Oasis!”

Dorian blinked. Wait. What?

He’d been expecting something like “I will tie you up, spit-roast you, and feast upon your liver!”

“Make no mistake,” snarled Bin, “You would not be an official member. You would be granted none of the privileges of a Chosen, or—Heavens forbid—a Young Master! But because you appear to have some… potential… I am offering you the chance to become a servant of the Clan. I am offering you the chance to be a weapon bred for our use. A tool.”

“Uh,” said Dorian, perking up, mind whirling. “But to make an effective tool—to take advantage of my, ah, potential—you would need to invest resources in me, no?”

Bin frowned. “I…Yes. But only to improve your capacity to serve the family. Nothing more!”

Externally, Dorian let his face droop, as though distraught.

Internally, he was beaming.

Out of all the things Bin could’ve said, this must’ve been in the top three in terms of outcomes for him! Well, other than the servant and the soul bond thing. Soul bonds were notoriously hard to wriggle out of, even for him. But the whole not-dying and being given the clan’s resources bit? That, Dorian was a very big fan of indeed. Really, any outcome that had him leaving here with all his limbs intact was well above his expectations.

Then Bin puffed out his chest. “You would fight for us. Represent us in the Tournament—and in the War!” He cleared his throat. “If necessary, to the death.”

…

It was like Dorian had been doused with cold water. Oh. Right. This is the military clan of the Oasis.

A vision flashed before Dorian’s eyes—Nijo and his flood of horrible Beasts descending from the North, sweeping through the Oasis walls like flypaper and laying waste to its insides.

The implications struck Dorian like a slap on the face.

A Soul Bond would tie me to the clan. Which means I’d be tied to the defense of this little shithole. Which means I would, by compulsion of soul contract, be forced to fight to the death for it.

Dorian’s head spun.

Hells no!

This changed everything. His stint at this Oasis was supposed to be short and sweet. Snatch its resources, high-tail it out before the Ugoc arrived. An in-and-out affair, two months, tops. The kinds of magic that Nijo bastard was playing with far outstripped the stuff this place could muster; of that he was certain. He wasn’t sticking around for this place’s certain destruction. In truth, Bin Heilong offered him a choice of two death warrants.

Of course, he did not give any hint of his thoughts on his face. Instead he threw up an easygoing grin. “A tempting offer, sir. How about this—give me a day! Then I shall give you my answer—“

He ducked as a bolt of qi scalded the air where his head had been.

“You have five seconds!” Bin stepped up, aura raging to the Heavens, and so did his ten lieutenants. A line of furious qi, blazing like a wildfire. “That was a warning shot. My next bolt fries you on the spot. Decide. Now!”

Dorian got the distinct impression the man was not bluffing.

“Alright, I’ll do it!” he cried, throwing up his hands. “Goodness. You can put your life-and-death Techniques away!”

“Good.” Bin Heilong harrumphed. He caressed a ring on his finger and drew out a shimmering sheet of gold-foil parchment, then held it out to Dorian, stone-faced. Dorian felt an eye twitch. Who kept soul contracts in their Interspatial Ring, ready at a moment’s notice?

He scanned the contents, and his eye twitched.

The more he read, the more incredulous he got. Oh, come now! You can’t be serious.

No frills, no addendums—the simplest form of contract there was. Which was horrid news for him, because it was too simple to have any loopholes. It bound him, by force of soul, to identify the Heilong’s wellbeing with his own. To serve the clan, and to protect it. To obey its every order until his last breath. To give his life to it. To devote to its welfare his every thought. Indeed, never to think of the clan in negative terms…

His eye twitched again.

Did they take him for some illiterate savage?

They probably did, come to think of it.

“There appears to have been a mistake,“ Dorian started pleasantly. “I ought to be a retainer of the clan. At the very least, a servant. You seem to have handed me a slave contract—“

Then he heard a blood-chilling fizzing, and looked up.

Not an arm’s length from his face was what looked like a hundred-mile lightning storm trapped in a space the size of a lantern. It was attached to Bin Heilong’s gnarled fist, right next to Bin Heilong’s snarling face.

“What did you expect?” Bin Heilong stepped in, close enough that his specks of angry spittle misted Dorian’s face. “From the moment you stepped foot in our chambers, your life has been forfeit! No more dallying. Sign!”

Dorian’s smile grew awkward.

There was no way he would’ve signed, simply on the basis that he’d be forced to contend with Nijo’s northern hordes.

Now that he’d seen the terms it’d take all Nine Hells freezing over for him to stamp this soul contract.

There was, however, also the very immediate-looking matter of the ball of instant lightning-death staring him in the face. Quite the convincing argument.

Dorian sighed.

Is this how the run ends? Really?

He’d envisioned going up in some awesome plume of dragonsmoke, but then again runs seldom ended in epic fashion. It was usually these small, mundane things, these pan-cosmic potholes littered across all spacetime. They really were everywhere. It was a miracle of probability for anyone to make it to godhood.

It was a miracle of probability for Io Rust to get this far at all.

Dorian’s eyes steeled. His Spirit Sea, newly christened, flared to life. It might not be a fiery plume of dragonsmoke, but it would do. There was no realistic plan of escape, but common sense was for common men, and such boring bounds as ‘the realm of possibility’ had never meant much to him.

The General must’ve sensed Dorian’s resolve, for that sphere of electric death flared, suddenly unstable, taut like an arrow on a drawn bowstring. At the same time a bloodline ancient as the plane itself uncoiled in Dorian’s body, baring its fangs. Bracing to meet the threat.

Bin’s eyes met Dorian’s. For a second they stared at each other, teetering on the edge of the point of no return.

Then, just as the tension grew unbearable, just as Dorian was sure one of them would break—

“Hm-hm. What have we here?” The voice warbled in softly, leisurely, from a spot far behind Bin. A tiny shadow hidden in a cloud of dust, crouched on the far lip of the crater.

Even so, Bin’s head whipped around, his snarl deepening, and the moment eased. But was that a pale tint, coloring his face? Was that a hint of panic in his eyes? “This is an army matter! Stay out of it!”

“You forget your place, general.” A chuckle. Soft yet hard.

Out from the smoke came a dwarf who seemed to be made of plumes of fluffy gray hairs. Hairs peeking out from his bright-red sleeves, hairs which made fuzzy slippers of his bare feet, hairs which made puffy drapes over his eyes. He was a comical sight, and yet Bin Heilong did not seem in the mood for laughing. He looked rather sick.

The dwarf pattered up beside both of them, squinted at the charged-up attack in Bin’s hand, frowned at it, and gave a little puff. For the second time that day, it blew out as easily a birthday candle. Bin’s face was a cauldron of horror and disgust. He stood there, a choked sound leaking from his lips.

“There, there. Isn’t that so much better?” said the dwarf happily. “Now we can all speak like civilized men.”

Then the dwarf turned to Dorian, and his eyes lit up. “So here’s what has caused all this commotion! What is your name, child?”

Dorian had been a little baffled, at first. But he could guess at what was happening. Had guessed. Who else could snuff out the attack of a general of the Oasis? Who else could make such a man halt in deference?

For the second time that day, Dorian gave his name.

“Io Rust.”

“Io Rust. Rust, Rust…” the dwarf hummed as he thought, scritching at his beard with his foot like a dog. “You must be one of our Tribesman friends! It is very nice to meet you.” He looked Dorian in the eyes—two black riverstones—as he held out a hand. “Greetings! Do you know who I am?”

Dorian smiled as he took the man’s hand. It felt like shaking hands with a tumbleweed. “It’s a pleasure, Oasis Lord Zhang.”