Prologue

The night was calm in Hedao's chambers. The distant, ever-present thunder of the waterfalls outside provided a blanket of sound on which to rest his thoughts. He sat in the center of his modest room, eyes closed in concentration, mind focused. Spirit flowed slowly, painstakingly through his body, swirling in eddies, always inevitably pulled back towards the reservoir in his solar plexus from which it originated.

Cultivating the spirit, improving the body, sharpening the mind – this activity was familiar to him, yet despite years of practice, it never got easier. Each moment was a struggle to keep the stream of spirit flowing throughout his body, directing it away from his reservoir, his dantian, and out towards his limbs, his head, and his chest. Each moment was a struggle, progress slow, but persistence was rewarded greatly. Over the twenty years since Hedao had arrived, a frail man of sixty, his health had returned ten times over, and his strength twenty. The years of purifying spirit washing through his being slowly erased the ailments of age, like a stone weathered smooth by the wind and sand.

And so he sat, as he had nearly every morning since that day twenty years ago, cultivating in peace, when he heard the sounds of violence erupt outside his door. Hedao stopped his cultivation, careful not to let any stray spirit linger outside his dantian, before quickly rising to see what going on. He grabbed his dagger off the end table and opened the door.

He was met with chaos. His fellow sectators were slaughtering one another, bodies littering the stone ground, the surrounding waterfalls deafening. Blood pooled in depressions, mixing with water, running off of the plateau in streams. He could make out violent shouting on the stone terraces above and below. Shock settled into him. The sect was at war. The day he had been waiting for, yet hoping would never come.

He immediately headed towards the lower terrace where the important senior and elder sectators resided and practiced. He dashed down the clearing towards the stone steps leading upwards. The Waterfall sect was located in a cylindrical hole carved out of the eastern Shutai sea. Divided into layers, each level of buildings sat on stone disks held up by massive pillars from the one below and stone struts digging into the sides of the cavity. The sea streamed down the walls of stone, creating the namesake waterfall, perfectly circular. A series of enormous walled - in spiral stairs corkscrewing through the center of each disk allowed passage between each layer.

Dodging pockets of fighting as he went, Hedao flew down the massive stairs, hoping he wasn't too late. The central waterfall streamed next to him, falling down through the center of the spiral, bathing the stone cavern in pale blue light and providing some measure of comfort to him. He only hoped he wouldn't be too late.

Occasionally, a sectator would recognize him, and Hedao would be forced to cut them down. Man or woman, he couldn't allow them to slow him down. A man rushed him, and Hedao's blade took him in the temple, cleanly withdrawing the blade, never stopping. A swipe to the gut, and a woman fell down the center of the spiral. A duck, spin, and kick, and another man followed her down. Hedao carried on in this way until he reached the second-bottommost disk where the elder resided. The fighting was much thicker here, almost filling the main clearing centralized around the elder's manor. There was no way for Hedao to force his way through that. Fighting still loud and intense behind him on the stairs, he drew in a deep breath and began to circulate his spirit.

He closed his eyes and pushed the spirit out of his dantian, laboriously forcing it into into a current, circulating it through his limbs and core. Then, carefully, he took a step. The spirit circulating in his body shook, swam, but continued to flow, circulating. He took another this way, then another, then another, until he began to break into a run. Cultivation was not an easy feat, and to do so while moving and exerting oneself was like trying to thread a needle after having thrown yourself off a cliff. It was a risk, but it was one Hedao had to take.

It was not a risk without benefits, however, for as he ran, his body felt inexhaustible, energized, powerful. He leapt from the wide stone street to the roof of a building next to him, landed lightly, and continued towards the Elder's manor to the north. Leaping from roof to roof, he strained under the stress of maintaining his spirit's flow. Lose control while normally cultivating, and one's spirit will escape back into their dantian. Lose control while exerting oneself, and one's spirit could run rampant, ravaging their body. He didn't much enjoy putting himself at such risk, but he forced himself to continue. Too much was at stake.

Shortly he came to the Elder's clearing, a large empty patch of stone around the Elder's manor. The nature of the clearing changed from Elder to Elder depending on their tastes – some installed gardens, some allowed lessons. The current Elder, however, kept it barren, keeping the manor quiet and defensible.

Normally.

The fighting was reaching a climax below, ground beginning to look more blood than stone, and Hedao had no more rooves to climb to bypass it. He looked at the incredible distance between his perch and the manor's terrace. Taking a deep breath, he settled on a plan. He took several steps back from the roof's edge and began to direct his spirit downwards. He was already exhausted from cultivating during the short journey, and so it was a laborious process creating the currents and eddies in his lower body. A few minutes passed before he achieved a stable, if weak, flow throughout his lower body. He drew another breath and slammed his foot into the tiles, breaking into a sprint.

The current shook, threatened to collapse, but Hedao strained with everything he had to force it into place. Soaring forward, the other foot came down, harder than the first, strengthened by the spirit flowing within. The building shook beneath him, tiles falling. Picking up incredible speed, he brought up both legs, spirit-strengthened muscles coiled tight. As he approached the roof's edge, he brought them down ferociously into the corner and shot off of the roof. A snap rang through the air as the roof collapsed behind him and he soared over the battle below.

His mind raced those few seconds he flew. He was on target for the manor, but he was going to come down with fatal force. He felt his strength running out – his control of his spirit flow running thin. He didn't have the time nor the capacity to reorient towards his upper body – so he did the only thing he could think of. He twisted in the air so that his legs, current intact, would take the brunt of the landing. He came down on the tiled roof of the manor with a crunch of porcelain. Shock rang through Hedao's entire body, and he lost his focus. The spirit calmly running through his lower body had their dams removed and rushed violently throughout his body. Hedao wailed in pain as his spirit tore through him, ravaging him from the inside out. Despite the pain, he frantically grabbed the porcelain tiles to prevent himself from sliding off. Gripping the tiles tightly, he waited for the waves of fire and lightning coursing under his skin to die down.

He didn't know how long it had been; maybe a minute, maybe ten. But when his spirit had once again collected in his dantian and the pain had subsided, the fighting below was coming to a close. More bodies, sliced, battered, and broken, littered the ground than the number of sectators still fighting, and the smooth stone floor was no longer visible beneath the coat of near-black blood. He pushed down his sorrow for his sectmates – time for that later. Exhausted, Hedao slid down the roof and swung into a window on the top floor. The two floors below contained the kitchens and reception rooms – the chambers were at the top, near the back of the building.

He walked as quickly as he could towards the chambers, but awful sense of apprehension was already growing. He hadn't even anticipated the fighting; it had already been well underway by the time it made its way to his door. No, he knew he was too late.

But he had to know.

He made his way down the opulent, yet barren hall, with walls and floors of marble inlaid with jade and completely free of furniture or decoration. He approached modestly decorated door to the Elder's chambers. Quiet, heavy conversation could be heard inside. Closing his eyes, he pushed open the door.

The first thing he saw was the elder Jinhai, master cultivator, leader of the Waterfall sect, on his knees. He was bound hand and foot by spirit-infused chains, and tightly around his neck was a glassy black collar of obsidian. Hedao looked at the elder for a moment, his worst fear realized. There was no escaping that: Spirit-infused steel, impenetrable to a cultivator, and obsidian round the neck to cut off his mind from his spirit. It was only then that he took in the rest of the room – ten of the strongest cultivators in the sect stood near the windows and lined the edge of the room. Finally, he noticed the tall, lithe woman standing behind Jinhai's kneeling form. Liyang, the strongest known cultivator to have ever come to the Waterfall sect, and the most infamous to have left it. Hedao knew she would return one day.

Liyang looked up at Hedao in surprise – surprise quickly replaced with a cold smile.

"Hedao! You're just in time. The succession is nearly complete!" She waved the knife in her hand around the room. "Some of my disciples are here to witness the ceremony. I'm glad you could make it." She grabbed Jinhai's hair, matted with blood, and yanked his head up to expose his face. She laid the flat of the blade against his forehead, tapped it. A sinuous dragon was etched along its length. "Old Jinhai here just won't tell me how to get into the ancestral cavern. I know he knows, but no matter how much incentive we give him, he just won't budge." She dragged the tip of the blade along his forehead and leaned down to speak into Jinhai's ear. "Why is that, Jinhai? Are you so proud?"

Jinhai didn't respond, eyes lightly closed, head bowed. Liyang frowned and gripping his hair, slammed his forehead into the ground in front of him, putting him back into a bow. She put a boot on his back, leaned on her knee, and looked at Hedao, pretense gone from her face. "Detain him," she said to her disciples.

Hedao was quickly immobilized as several of her cultivators pinned him against the floor, face towards Liyang. She walked over to him, squatted down. It was disgusting that she was that beautiful. "I'm glad you could be here," she told him, then rose. "Make sure he has a good view."

She walked back across the room towards Jinhai, adjusting her grip on her dragon-etched blade, as Hedao began to struggle, thrashing against his captors. "No! Wait! Liyang, he's not worth killing. You've won, the sect is yours. Your disciples massacred everyone. There's no one left to oppose you! Don't you see? There's no reason to kill Jinhai. Just take his cultivation and go. Please." But Liyang kept walking as though she hadn't even heard him. Hedao continued to plead as Liyang grabbed the old man's chin, brought him up, laid the knife on his neck above the collar, and slid it across. Hedao wailed, thrashed harder against the iron grip holding him down, as Jinhai's blood drained over the collar and soaked into his robes. Liyang let the body collapse, and wiping her blade with a rag pulled casually from her pocket, she strolled over to Hedao once again.

She didn't deign to squat down to Hedao this time. She simply asked, "Does it hurt, Hedao?" She paused, asked again, "Does it hurt having the only one that knows you taken away?" She peered out the window at the water rushing down, down. "I know you don't really care about this sect. The only thing you cared about was your pathetic little father figure." She looked down at him as he tried to control his tears. "Twenty years you've been here, and you've made less progress than I did in five." She shook her head. "You're pathetic, Hedao."

Hedao's grief began to turn to rage. "Fight me, Liyang. I want a duel. You'll pay. You'll fucking pay for this." Adrenaline filled him as rage bloomed in his chest, and he thrashed against his captors harder than ever. Their grips tightened in response, or perhaps in surprise. "Let me go! Liyang, fight me you fucking coward! I want a fucking duel!"

Liyang began to look amused. "You know, Hedao, fine," she replied condescendingly. "A duel you want, a duel you'll get. How about this: if you win, I'll leave the Waterfall sect, and never return. But if I win, I'll strip your cultivation, and you'll have to serve me until the day I decide to kill you."

Hedao barely cared if the terms would send him to hell. "Deal. Let me go and you'll fucking pay." He heaved one final time against the arms that bound him as they let go. He vaguely heard her tell her cultivators to stand down behind his rage. He pushed himself off the ground and immediately forced all of the spirit he could out of his dantian. Pain bloomed in his solar plexus as it all left in a rush, heat flooding him as the spirit rushed to circulate throughout his body, and he coughed up blood at the exertion. Liyang slowly walked towards him, knife lightly held in her hand, tip pointing down. Hedao, for the third time today, broke out in a sprint with a stream of spirit flowing through his body.

The spirit shook, burning him from within, as he ran, and he didn't bother to correct it. He simply rushed Liyang with everything he had, attempting to sweep her off her feet. He went in for a grab, but she danced out of the way and left him with two neat marks on his arm and cheek. He swung once, twice, and she twisted out of the way once, twice, and hit him one, two times in the face. Dazed, Hedao stumbled backwards, spirit shedding its place in the current, radiating out into his body. Liyang grabbed the back of his head and brought it down hard into his knee. Hedao went down, and Liyang kicked him one, two, three times in the stomach. Hedao felt nothing besides pain, didn't hear as Liyang told him he was pathetic, and didn't see as her cultivators brought her a small jade box.

Liyang opened the box and took out a small shard of obsidian. "Curious little stone," she marveled, "free of spirit. Almost a void. And all it takes is one little stone run through the dantian to ruin a cultivator, like a hole in the heart of a beast." She closed the box with a snap and handed it back to one of her disciples. "I'm glad it worked out this way, Hedao. You'll be almost like a trophy. A reminder of today." Her disciples uncurled Hedao and held him in place as she handled the black shard of glass.

Hedao didn't panic. There was nothing left to get panicked over. Really, there was nothing to hold on to anymore. His mentor, his only friend had been taken. His cultivation would be stripped. And his home had been ravaged. There really was nothing at all. And so, he let go. He surrendered control of himself, allowed the river of spirit in his dantian to rush through him, round and round, faster and faster. Hedao felt panic beginning to grow – the rush of spirit circulating within him with the speed and force of a flashflood was almost too much to bear. His skin felt as though it was searing, his blood as though it was boiling, and lightning arced through his mind. It became more and more tempting to seize back control, to cram and force the spirit through his body as he had so many times before. But he had let go fully and completely, and simply allowed the spirit to flow. The pain peaked, and Hedao screamed as it felt he was being torn from the inside out – and then, suddenly, the pain vanished.

It was exhilarating. Spirit flowed through in a volume ten times what he had ever felt before – and he didn't lift a finger. He grabbed the arms of the two men holding him down and simply snapped them as he would a rotten stick. He didn't hear their scream, only heard the rush of spirit within him, thunderous like the waterfall outside. He saw the eight other cultivators lining the walls, unsure whether to attack or to allow Liyang. He saw Liyang snarl and point at him, her knife clattering to the ground, saw the disciples rush him down. He dodged, wove between and through them as they attempted to take off his head or his arm or his leg, more on feeling than thought. He scooped up the knife, and he made his way to the window, gripped the top of the frame, slung himself on the roof. A thin shard of black glass flew out the window mere moments later.

Hedao bounded from rooftop to rooftop heading towards the edge of the disk. It was so easy this way. Spirit thundered through him like a river, far from the trickling stream he had managed before. It was letting go; it was surrendering; but it was freedom. He reached the edge of the disk, standing only meters from the rushing curtain of water surrounding the walls. He looked at it, looked behind him at the other cultivators slowly giving chase.

Then he smiled, approached the ledge, and fell in.