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The damn giant pagoda in the sky.

I could still visualize the first time I saw them.

As a child.

An eight-year-old me staring up at a thing the size of the moon as it descended from space to bring the horrors that would slay my family and destroy my entire world. And now I was going to visit one of them to go shopping for hidden knowledge.

If my spirit had been conflicted before, it was downright schizophrenic now.

I honestly didn’t know how to feel as the skiff took off and the ground below me began to shrink and disappear. A new flashback came, and I realized that this was not my second time riding a skiff but my third.

My true first time was back when I was eight, watching my family for the last time as Lady Silver Tear’s skiff took off, leaving my parents and big sister for dead. An emptiness filled me as the memory took hold, reliving the spiritual root of my Dao. The pain and anguish. The resentment and hate. Lady Silver Tear and her clan—Fia’s clan. They were the ones who had destroyed my entire world.

“Are you alright?” Mu Lin asked sitting next to me. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

I laughed to play it off with [Indifference]. “Just afraid of heights, I guess.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she said with a smile. “And trust me, when you see the city for yourself. You won’t want to leave.”

I heard her words, but even they couldn’t prepare me for when the skiff finally docked and I stepped onto the terra firma that was the Imperial City of Jurin Province. The air smelled cleaner and fresher and a gentle breeze blew constantly against my face. The ground itself resembled brushed brass or worn gold, giving a regal yet ancient feel to the place.

Tall buildings lined the central street we were upon which stretched upwards to form the walls of the pagoda itself. It was hard to adjust to the scale of it all. From the ground the place was imposing, but here it was almost majestic.

Tamed spirit animals walked along side cultivators as pets within the crowd—large cats and foxes mostly, but I saw one or two birds perched on people’s shoulders as well. It was like being transported to a fantasy world even more bizarre than the one I had just come from.

The streets also looked far less busy than the ones below, and the cultivators I saw were all dressed to the nines in fine robes. They glanced at Mu Lin and I briefly, some of them giving us glares of disdain. I then noted that we seemed to definitely be in the minority as Terrans. While below the population was fairly mixed with a blend of Terrans as well as people from other far-off planets, here the population was most distinctly Yee.

They whispered to one another as they spotted us from afar, some even pointing and laughing.

“Does everyone treat you like that here?” I asked.

Mu Lin merely shrugged, nonplussed. “You get used to it. Come on, this way,” she said, heading off down the brass street. “Xi Xha is going to meet us at the grand library, it’s on the third floor.”

Old feelings of resentment began to resurface as I glared back at the people staring at us.

One guy even stopped to make a mocking gesture by placing his hands to the side of his head to make a set of bull’s horns. He stuck his tongue out at me and then started to laugh. I had the urge to go smack him right in the face, but then noticed a little girl next to him go through the same motion and copy the gesture, mocking me from afar. The father and daughter duo shared another laugh, but I brushed off the generational disrespect with a stoic façade of [Indifference].

“Guess they’re not big fans of the Iron Bull,” I said.

“Oh, no one here is,” Mu Lin said. “Everyone is pissed off as hell that you won that match the other day. They had a rally and everything.”

“A rally?”

“The three Silver Leaf sisters,” Mul Lin said. “They organized this huge…” She paused for a moment. “I don’t even know what to call it. A public chastisement maybe? They were really pissed.”

I stared back at her perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“You know, they were shouting stuff like, ‘you people should remember who the ruling clan is’ and ‘Shame if you ever support an outsider like the Iron Bull’.”

I felt the target on my back grow tenfold. “Damn it, Mu Lin! Why didn’t you tell me that before you brought me up here?”

“Oh sorry!” she said with a laugh. “I kind of forgot. I don’t really follow all the arena stuff. But Xi Xha says you’re kicking ass in there so good for you.”

The glares and jeers made far more sense now.

I shifted to walking with [Mask of the Despised], flipping the collar of my overcoat about my neck. Never had I felt the name of the technique have such clear meaning and purpose before. I was literally walking through an entire city that had been guilt-tripped into hating the living shit out of me.

I proceeded with apprehension as we came to a set of lifts that connected the ground floor to the next. The lift platforms were the size of small courtyards, able to fit hundreds of people at a time and around the base of the pagoda, there were at least ten of them all moving up and down in rhythmical intervals.

I immediately shifted to the back corner of the lift platform we were on, avoiding the crowd of Yee cultivators as they piled onboard. As the lift ascended towards a ceiling made of crisscrossing walkways, which I assumed was the base of the next floor, a bright light began shining through them.

As we passed the walkways, the sky opened up into an interior space that literally blew my mind. The entire inside of the giant pagoda was hollowed out like a massive atrium, stretching hundreds of feet into the air. Along the sides, the various floors of the city encompassed it with whole city blocks, forming various neighborhoods and districts that were connected by walkways spanning hundreds of feet to one another.

But even more awe inducing than any of that was the massive yellow crystals floating at the center of the atrium, its brilliant glow forming a sun in the faux sky. I shielded my eyes from it and faintly sensed something akin to Frenzy spilling from its rays.

This had to be it, I thought. The source of the barrier.

But was it truly exuding a kind of Frenzy just like Threja’s sword?

It wasn’t exactly the same as Frenzy, but I could sense it.

Whatever it was.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The mother crystal,” Mu Lin said. “The heart of the city. It’s what keeps us afloat. If that thing goes the whole city comes crashing down. Not to mention the barrier goes poof for everyone below.”

I’d gathered that much myself, but I was after a bit more information than that.

“Do you know what it’s made of?” I asked.

“Um… Aetherite, I think?” she said as if remembering something from a textbook.

“Which is?”

“I can’t remember,” she said. “Some rare substance that forms in hell planes or something like that. I don’t know. I’m probably remembering it wrong. I haven’t studied that kind of stuff in ages.”

“Hell planes?” I said, thinking on it some more. “Do you mean Hell Worlds? Like the worlds around the Cursed Stars? Where the legionnaires go?”

Mu Lin stopped dead in her tracks and looked back at me perplexed. “Yeah… that’s… exactly right. Holy shit, Chun. How the hell did you even know that?”

The facts all seemed to fall in place at once. Was this the stuff that allowed the legionnaires to survive on those hell worlds? A natural barrier to counter the effects of the Cursed Stars?

It would make sense.

“Is that why they go to those planets?” I asked. “The legionnaires. To mine the Aetherite to make these crystals?”

“I don’t know,” Mu Lin said, looking at me bewilderedly. “Maybe, I guess?”

It wasn’t a confirmation, but I received a confirmation from something else.

Deep in my soul, my Flame flared—a new truth unlocking insight into the unknown.

New thoughts stirred, but I seemed to have more questions than answers now.

Did the Aetherite form in response to the effect of the Cursed Stars?

Or did the Cursed Stars form in response to the Aetherite?

“The mystery that is Chun,” Mu Lin said with a laugh, breaking me out of my thoughts. “The weird and obtuse stuff you seem to know is beyond me. Now come on, if you want to know more weird crap, you’ll need to talk to Xi Xha, not me. The library is close now.”

We traveled up another floor, with me trying to dodge more stares, but I was starting to get glares despite my [Mark of the Despised] technique as the crowds thinned. I guess there was only so much the technique could do when you were seven feet tall. And walking next to a barely five-foot-tall Mu Lin probably didn’t help with the optics either.

We finally arrived at a massive structure that looked to make up part of the outer pagoda wall itself, like a giant cathedral made of polished brass. A small figure in a hooded robe rushed towards us, and the smiling yet worried-looking face of Xi Xha peered out from beneath the hood.

“Master Chun,” she said with a small curtsey of a bow, almost as if she didn’t want anyone else to notice. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

Xi Xha was just as pretty as I remembered her, even though I hadn’t seen her in ages. Dark hair with bright green eyes, but she was sans the normal black and copper-trimmed robes that Mu Lin now wore. I raise a brow at her in question.

“Are you wearing a disguise?”

She smiled awkwardly. “A thousand pardons. When Mu Lin told me you were coming here, I didn’t know quite what to expect. Your reputation here is quite ill favored at the moment.”

She glanced about and I could sense there were several people looking at us already.

“Come,” she said. “We should head inside. There will be less people there.”

“Well, I think my job here is done,” Mu Lin said with a grin. “You two sharing the same space still gives me the icks, no offense.”

I laughed, but Xi Xha bowed to her while blushing. “My thanks to you, Mu Lin. I’ll see you later.”

Xi Xha then led the way as Mu Lin departed, ushering us through the security check at the door to the library. The Imperial Guard on duty scoffed when she looked at my ID card and gave Xi Xha a healthy scowl as well.

“Don’t stay here long,” she warned and then motioned for the two enforcers with her to open the library doors. As they ushered us inside, one of them, a tan-skinned man who looked native to some other world, gave me a wink and a smile.

I guess they all aren’t against me up here, I thought. But damn was it polarized.

The interior of the grand library was as impressive as its exterior, with Qi lighting casting a warm glow over row upon row of ceiling high shelves packed full of manuscripts and texts. There were few people within, most of them venerable scholars who wore the same copper-trimmed robes that Xi Xha normally did.

Once we got in between a set of bookshelves deep in the center of the library, she seemed to relax some.

“I think we’ll be safe back here,” she said, drawing back her hood and giving me a broad smile and an unobstructed view of her gorgeous face. “So, I haven’t heard from you in a while. How have you been?”

“A bit busy as you can imagine,” I said honestly. “Building a new sect from the ground up plus fighting in the ring. I can barely find time to cultivate much less anything else.”

“I see,” she said with a smile. “A pity. I was hoping we could perhaps catch up after this.” She made her intentions clear by pressing her body close to mine and I couldn’t help but feel the temptation rising in my loins. “A drink or two down below perhaps?”

Ever since being with Silver Light, I honestly hadn’t felt the urge to be with Xi Xha again.

Although there was no reason that I couldn’t.

Fia and I had nothing between us.

Especially now.

But that same melancholy filled me as I thought of her again and Xi Xha perhaps saw it on my face.

“No chance?” she said, and then playfully she added. “Unless you’re that pressed for time that you’d like to skip the drink and go for it here and now?”

The way she said it was only half joking and I could tell if I kissed her now, we’d be in way too deep to stop. She looked back at me almost expectantly, mischief in her eyes. I steeled myself with [Struggler’s Resolve] as I smiled back at her.

“That probably wouldn’t be too wise,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

She chuckled. “Probably not. Although it would be exciting.” She then laughed. “I could only imagine what they’d do to the both of us if we were caught. It’d be the scandal of the month.”

Her words were a reminder that social norms were broken at one’s peril here.

If me getting caught with Xi Xha would become the scandal of the month, then me marrying Silver Light would be the scandal of the decade. Not that I could even do that at the moment. I shook the thought from my head. I couldn’t worry about those things right now. I had bigger issues to deal with.

Starting with the monster plotting to prey on my people out in the wild.

“What can you tell me about something named I’xol’ukz?” I said, abruptly changing the subject. “Have you heard of it before?”

The smile dropped from Xi Xha’s face as I shifted instantly into work mode. She didn’t seem upset by it however and merely became an astute professional in my eyes, her brow furrowing as she began to think.

“Give me a moment,” she said. “Wait here.”

She disappeared down the aisle of books and about twenty minutes later returned with two large scrolls under her arms. She beckoned me to a small table and laid out both scrolls side by side. They were covered in faded text that I couldn’t read, the characters looking even more hieroglyphic than the Yee symbols I had come to decipher as easily as English in my mine’s eye.

“This is the name you told me, I believe,” Xi Xha said, pointing to a scribble of characters on the scroll. “Ai Zhul Ugh. It’s mentioned briefly in this scroll from the second Taun Dynasty. It’s the name of an ancient demon that was imprisoned by the Great Soul Emperor Wu Shin Taun on his day of ascension.”

“That’s it?”

She referred to the second scroll. “Here is the only other mention that I could find of a similar word… I’xol’ukz. It’s from an ancient Dharmian text. The word translates to the Lord of the Moon. It says here that he is a lesser deity and one of the four heralds of the stars.”

Now we were getting somewhere, I thought.

“So what does that actually mean?”

“I’m not certain,” Xi Xha said. “What you see here is a recount of an old Dharmian myth about the star callers.” She then ran her finger under the characters and spoke almost in rhyme. “The lesser gods, the heralds four, shall usher in the glory of the stars. The Lords of the Earth, the Sea, the Sky and the Moon. Rejoice at their appearance, for the age of the stars is at hand.”

She paused and I looked at her. “Is that it?”

“It’s a very short poem,” she said. “What makes you interested in this?”

“Just something I overheard,” I said, playing it off. I then pointed back to the first scroll. “But here it says that I’xol’ukz was—”

“Ai Zhul Ugh,” Xi Xha corrected.

“Right,” I said. “So anyway it was a demon that was imprisoned, right? But does it say where?”

“It doesn’t say, but I would imagine it was imprisoned where any demon would be bound. On one of the nine planes of hell.”

“Sounds like an important detail to miss out, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” she said. “The mention of Ai Zhul Ugh here is but a footnote. The true significant detail of the script is the reference to Soul Emperor Taun’s day of ascension. If he didn’t happen to defeat this demon on that day, there would likely be no mention of it at all.”

I stepped back, pondering it all. The links seemed clear to me at least, but I needed it confirmed.

“So this Ai Zhul Ugh mentioned in this scroll is a demon that is also the same I’xol’ukz which is a herald of the stars?”

“It’s as close as I can find to the name you said, yes.”

“So could that mean that I’xol’ukz ushers in the Cursed Stars?”

“Cursed Stars?” She let out a chuckle. “Those are a different matter entirely I believe.”

“But it does say stars, right?”

“I wouldn’t give too much credence to the Dharmian text. It predates the Taun record by some ten thousand years and is possibly fiction or allegory. And by the tone, it seems to celebrate these heralds and the stars as something to be glorified. Certainly nothing like the Cursed Stars we know today.”

“But it’s the same name, right? I’xol’ukz?”

“It’s close phonetically, but not the exact same word. Not even the same language. The name could also have been borrowed or changed in meaning over the centuries. Who knows?”

“Can you read it for me again?”

As Xi Xha did so, I envisioned the words in my mind’s eye, memorizing them as script.

“The lesser gods, the heralds four, shall usher in the glory of the stars. The Lords of the Earth, the Sea, the Sky and the Moon. Rejoice at their appearance, for the age of the stars is at hand.”

“See,” she said. “Nothing sinister about that.” She then cracked a grin. “Not unless the authors were demonic or something.”

I raised a brow. “Say again?”

“I was only making a joke. We have no idea who the authors were or their purpose for writing this.”

But she had made a keen observation.

Good and Evil was all a matter of perspective. If those same words were being uttered from the throats of a demonic cult like those Fire Birds, there would be no question as to what kind of stars they were talking about.

I felt something open up inside of me as my Flame burned a little brighter.

Confirmation of further Insight into the unknown.

“Thanks, Xi Xha,” I said. “That was helpful.”

She bowed. “I’m happy I could be of service to you, Iron Bull. Anything else?”

I thought a second more. “Actually yes. How much do you know about the legionnaires and the Phalanx?”

“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Now I understand the interest with the Cursed Stars. You’re not progressing through the Brackets in order to qualify for the academy, are you?”

“What academy?”

“The Legionnaire’s academy. You must be of Gold Ranking to even attempt to qualify. But I would not suggest you do that.”

“You’re the second person to warn me about taking an interest in all this. Why not?”

She laughed. “Few volunteer to be legionnaires. They are more so sentenced. Tributes of the state.”

I was starting to understand the picture more. “So, these people who become legionnaires are more like convicts?”

“From most worlds they are,” she said. “Most are not expected to survive. There are a few who chase the glory of an easy path to the Diamond Bracket, but cultivators with that mindset rarely last.”

My interest was piqued even more. “Diamond Bracket?”

“Any legionnaire who survives a tour of the hell worlds is automatically considered ranked as Diamond Bracket. And if they survive three tours they are promoted to the rank of Imperial Marshall, which is the highest civilian ranking one can hold. Far above even Wardens and equal to royalty. If they survive five tours, they become High Marshall. And at eight tours, Grand Marshall.”

“A Grand Marshall? What’s that equal to?”

She shrugged. “One can only guess. In the entire history of the Yee Dynasty, there has only even been one Grand Marshall. The title was bestowed posthumously on their final tour. I can’t recall their name at the moment, but it was over four thousand years ago. Today there is only one who holds the rank of High Marshal, the Academy President, Tzu Li Zen. There are perhaps only three other Marshalls in existence in total.”

My head was spinning. This was a whole new level of advancement and progression I knew nothing about. A sea of possibilities flashed through my mind and the urge to take a chance on one of those hell worlds tempted me like none other. I’d learned to survive a few minutes under the Bloodmoon’s influence. Could I eventually grow strong enough to resist the influence of an entire star?

“Chun…Chun?”

Xi Xha called my name, pushing me out of my daydream. She laughed. “I seem to have lost you.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, but then lied to not make a big deal of it. “That certainly doesn’t seem for me though. Thanks for warning me.”

She smiled with relief.

“Good,” she said. “Because we need you here as our Iron Bull.”

* * *

We headed for the library exit, and Xi Xha once again made an offer to spend some time together in the redlight district. It was honestly tempting, but something just still didn’t feel right about it.

“Maybe later,” I said as we got past the Imperial Guard. “I have a few things I need to work on right now.”

One of them was the ball of Corrupted Steel tucked away in my robes.

With the new Insights I had just gained from Xi Xha, I was eager to try the [Brand of the Frenzied Flame] technique to see if I could finally etch the orb. But no way was I going to attempt something like that in front of this kind of crowd.

Xi Xha smiled glumly in response. “Try not to work so hard. You’re always going, going, going. You must make time for yourself too. Else why are you doing any of this at all?”

I paused as she said it.

I honestly never put myself in the equation when I made my plans. It just didn’t feel right in some regard.

“I’ve been blessed with a chance to make a real difference, Xi Xha,” I said, perhaps speaking more to myself than to her. “My strength comes from my need to fight for them, not myself. In the end that’s what truly matters.”

Xi Xha chuckled. “I can see now why they all despise you. You think like no cultivator that I know. Yet still I say, take heed, Chun.” She gently took hold of my forearm, squeezing it softly. “Fighting for others is noble. But you need to have someone fighting and caring for you as well. If there is no one to take care of you, then how can you take care of anyone else?”

As she said the words, I could sense the stirring of fear in her heart.

Her words rang true as well and I wondered if she was offering herself to fill that role.

It was something I never would have thought of her as doing before.

Before I could even consider it further, a strong gust of wind pushed against us, unfurling our robes. Xi Xha let out a gasp and instantly fell to her knees and pressed her forehead to the brass floor. I turned to see what she was kowtowing to and saw a sleek black skiff landing on the street a stone’s throw away.

“Well, well… look who has come to pay his respects to the Silver Leaf Clan.”

My heart froze at the powerful words and the woman who had spoken them.

Tall and statuesque with silver hair spilling down her shoulders, piercing chrome eyes. I’d never seen this woman before in my life, but one look at the other two identical women in the skiff with her and I knew exactly who they all were.

“Screw my life,” I muttered as the situation became clear.

The Silver Leaf Triplets had just come for an early showdown.