Jiang didn’t wait for the cultivators to finish their posturing. As soon as Zhang had drawn his sword, he knew how this was going to end.

  Really, he didn’t know why Zhang had gotten so offended. This wasn’t even the first time – though, admittedly, the confrontation back at Qinghe hadn’t been entirely the disciple’s fault. Was this just how most cultivators interacted? A bunch of posturing, some very unsubtle insults, then immediately devolving into a fight?

  And if a fight was the expected outcome, why the hell had Li Xuan and Mistress Bai left them to deal with it?

  He drew his own sword, holding it defensively even though he knew he was barely competent with it, and these were Sect disciples who had likely been training since they could walk. Still, it would be a useful distraction.

  Shadows, lengthened by the low afternoon sun, writhed to life. They didn’t form complex shapes; they just surged forward like a tide of crude, dark water, aiming for the ankles of the two disciples nearest to him.

  It worked, mostly. One of them, a lanky youth with a patchy beard, stumbled with a startled yelp as the darkness wrapped around his boot. The other, stockier and quicker, hopped over the tendril with a sneer.

  “Cheap tricks!” the stocky one shouted, lunging forward with his sword raised.

  Jiang threw himself sideways, rolling across the snow-dusted clearing. That… wasn’t ideal. Those shadows were meant to injure his opponents, not just trip them up for a moment. When he’d used that same trick against the Iron Dogs back when he was rescuing Lin, it had been as deadly as any blade – but now Li Xuan’s explanations about how free-form manipulation wasn’t useful against cultivators were already proving to be true.

  How irritating.

  He came up in a crouch, eyes flicking across the battlefield. Zhang had already engaged the leader – the loudmouthed one – and the more timid-looking one who’d tried to de-escalate, and was holding his own. Interestingly, Zhang wasn’t using any of his fire techniques. He was fighting purely with the sword, his movements tight, controlled, and far more aggressive than Jiang remembered. It seemed Li Xuan’s beatings were already bearing fruit.

  That left Jiang with the other two.

  The stocky disciple pressed his advantage, his sword a blur of motion that Jiang barely managed to evade. He needed space. Well, actually, he needed a way to fight back that didn’t involve attacking someone far more skilled than him with a sword.

  The stocky disciple advanced again, pressing him hard. Each swing came faster than the last, and Jiang barely managed to parry one before the next was already incoming. He fell back another step, shadows twisting up around his feet like restless serpents. He flicked his wrist and sent them surging forward towards the disciple’s face, spreading wide enough to blot out his vision.

  Unfortunately, his opponents were not idiots. The man lunged backwards before Jiang could take advantage of the moment, and his friend fell back with him, covering each other with their swords.

  Jiang grimaced, letting the shadows sink back into the ground. They weren’t stupid enough to rush in blind, and keeping that much Qi moving just to maintain the darkness was draining. His reserves hadn’t been full even before this mess started, and wasting them on parlour tricks was stupid. His pride wouldn’t let him just keep dodging until Zhang finished his own fight, either.

  Part of him – the part that remembered the lessons he’d learnt as a hunter – wanted to grab his bow and keep his distance, whittling them down bit by bit. Unfortunately, he knew that was a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

  He had to find a way to make his shadows work, or, failing that, learn to fight properly with a sword. His bow would always be useful in certain situations, especially once he managed to get his hands on a bow that could stand up to his new strength, but until then, he found himself fighting in close quarters far too often to not have a solution.

  The stocky disciple lunged again, his blade a fast, clean arc aimed at Jiang’s ribs. Jiang parried, the impact jarring his arm, the man’s strength and skill greater than his own. Even as he gave ground, Jiang cast his mind back to the last time he’d fought cultivators, under the streets of Qinghe. His shadows had been strong enough then to carry his entire weight, if only for a moment – not to mention how he’d extended the length of his sword to kill that arrogant cultivator.

  Why did it work then, but not now? Was it as simple as his shadows being stronger when they had something to build from? He just needed something physical for them to anchor to?

  He drew a deep breath and let the shadows slide up his arms, curling over his sword. The blade darkened, lengthening slightly as he poured Qi into it – not much, just enough to feel the difference. The shadow clung to the metal like oil, its edge wavering faintly.

  He met their next charge head-on. The first clash rattled his arm, but he wasn’t trying to beat them in a contest of strength. Instead, he focused on extending the edge of his blade, sending it lashing towards the disciple with the patchy beard. The man yelped and ducked, but not before Jiang’s shadow-extended blade tore a shallow line across his shoulder.

  Perfect.

  The stocky one came at him from the side. Jiang spun, dragging his sword through the snow. He willed the shadows downward, shaping them into spikes, but they were too far from him—too diffuse. The pressure of the cultivators’ Qi smothered the formation before it could solidify. The snow only rippled uselessly.

  He realised, with a jolt, that the distance was the key. The further the shadow was from his body, the more it was affected by the passive, suppressive Qi of his opponents. Closer, it was stronger.

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  He hadn’t realised it quickly enough. His failed attack left him overextended. The lanky disciple’s blade lashed out, catching him high on the shoulder. It wasn’t a deep cut—the leather turned most of it—but it burned with the man’s Qi. Jiang hissed and threw himself back, clutching the wound.

  The stocky disciple lunged again, confidence returning now that he saw Jiang’s technique ‘failing’. Jiang ducked, then kicked out with his heel, scattering a spray of small stones and snow towards his opponent’s faces as a distraction.

  And then, on instinct, he reached for them.

  The shadows leapt from his sword, latching onto the stones midair, anchoring a tiny, sharp spike of shadow to each one. It wasn’t a powerful attack. But, crucially, it was more structured than his typical shadow manipulation. The physical weight of the pebbles gave the shadows just enough reality to survive the passive Qi of the cultivators for a fraction of a second.

  They hit like darts.

  Weak darts, perhaps, as even with a cultivator’s strength behind the motion it was hardly too impressive, but that was enough. The pair cried out as the sharp-edged pebbles struck, more from surprise than pain – but that heartbeat of distraction was all Jiang needed.

  He closed the distance, shadows crawling up his arm as he swung. The stocky disciple tried to parry, but Jiang’s blade slid along his, shadow edge bending, then snapping straight again as it caught him under the chin. The effort of keeping the shadow together was significantly more than he was expecting, even with it being anchored to a physical object, and his vision swam for a moment.

  Fortunately, his strike had been deep enough that it didn’t matter, and the stocky cultivator dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

  The lanky one shouted something – Jiang didn’t hear what – and charged. He twisted, the motion half-reflex, half-desperation, driving his knee into the man’s chest and swinging upward even as he fell. The shadow around his sword thickened in time with the movement, coiling tight against the steel. The strike wasn’t clean, and again the effort of keeping his shadows solid and dangerous made his head throb, but it was worth it as a shallow line cut across the man’s throat.

  For a long second, Jiang stayed on one knee, panting. The shadows clung to his arms, trembling like they were alive, then began to unravel. The strain of keeping them tethered – anchored to the blade, to the stones, to anything – pulled at his Qi until his vision flickered at the edges and he remembered to let it go. The darkness melted away, leaving only the two bodies cooling beside him.

  The clearing was quiet now except for the sound of his own breathing. Dimly, he realised that the silence likely meant Zhang had defeated his own opponents – a good thing, too, as Jiang was wiped. He could still feel the weight of his opponents’ Qi pressing faintly against his skin, like a phantom pressure.

  Good to know I can get my shadows to work, he thought grimly, prodding gently at the stinging wound on his shoulder. Now, if only I could have learned that without getting cut open.

  He pushed himself upright, glancing around the campsite.

  Zhang was standing a few paces away, his sword still drawn but held loosely at his side. He was breathing a little hard, but his robes, unlike Jiang’s, were relatively clean. At his feet, the arrogant leader of the group lay still, a dark stain spreading across the front of his robes. The fourth disciple, the one who had tried to de-escalate things, was on his knees, his own sword thrown on the ground in front of him, hands raised in clear surrender.

  Jiang felt a sharp, irritating pang of envy. Zhang looked like he’d barely broken a sweat. He hadn’t even used his fire techniques. He’d just... won. Cleanly. While Jiang had been rolling in the dirt, bleeding, and resorting to throwing rocks.

  It seemed Li Xuan’s lessons really were paying off.

  Jiang glanced briefly toward the treeline, half-expecting Li Xuan or Mistress Bai to appear now that the work was done. Nothing. No movement. No trace of Qi.

  Of course.

  He sighed and trudged toward Zhang, wincing with each step. His shoulder throbbed from where the sword had caught him earlier.

  Zhang didn’t look at him when he spoke. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I noticed,” Jiang muttered. He crouched, wiping a streak of blood from his hand onto the snow. “You done over here?”

  Zhang nodded at the kneeling cultivator. “He’s smart enough to stay alive. The other wasn’t.”

  Jiang followed his gaze to the dead man. The scorch mark along the man’s ribs told the story – so Zhang had used a little fire after all. That made him feel a little better, at least.

  He exhaled, his breath fogging in the cold air, then glanced between the bodies and the kneeling survivor. “So,” he said. “What now? With him, I mean. Or… in general.”

  Zhang didn’t answer immediately. He stared down at the captive, jaw tight, the point of his sword still aimed toward the ground. “We can’t let him go,” he said finally. “He’ll run back to the Sect, and we’ll have a dozen more like him on us within the week.”

  Jiang grimaced. “Figured as much.”

  “We’ll tie him up,” Zhang said after a moment, tone flat. “Wait for Li Xuan and Mistress Bai. Let them decide.”

  As if summoned, a flicker of Qi rippled at the edge of the clearing. Mistress Bai and Li Xuan stepped out from between the trees, silent as ghosts. Snow didn’t even crunch under their feet.

  Jiang straightened, though his expression soured. “Speak of the devils,” he said.

  Li Xuan ignored him. His eyes swept across the bodies, the surrendered cultivator, then Zhang. “You handled yourselves adequately,” he said. His tone was even, but his gaze lingered on the man kneeling in the snow. “Though it would have been simpler if you had finished the job during the fight.”

  The implication hung in the air. Mistress Bai said nothing, but her silence was agreement.

  Zhang shifted, his knuckles white around his sword hilt. “He surrendered,” he said quietly.

  “That was his mistake,” Li Xuan replied. “Mercy doesn’t change what comes next. If you let him live, he’ll report to his superiors. Then we deal with pursuit, not one man.”

  The surviving cultivator bowed low, his voice shaking. “I swear I won’t say anything. I don’t even care about this mission—I just want to live.”

  Mistress Bai tilted her head slightly, studying him. “I believe you,” she said. “You probably mean that, right now. But fear fades. Regret grows. People change their minds.”

  Zhang’s jaw clenched. His eyes flicked from her to Li Xuan, then down to the trembling man in the snow.

  Jiang crossed his arms. “So that’s it, then? We just execute anyone who sees us?”

  Li Xuan looked at him. “If you prefer to be hunted, feel free to argue the point.”

  Jiang didn’t respond. He understood the logic – he’d just spent the last few minutes killing men who’d been trying to kill him, to say nothing of his actions in Qinghe and against the bandits he’d been hunting – but killing someone who was kneeling, unarmed and terrified, was something else entirely. There was no victory in that.

  Zhang still hadn’t moved. He stared at the man in front of him, expression unreadable. Jiang thought for a moment he might actually refuse.

  Then Zhang took a slow breath, raised his sword, and drove it forward in one smooth motion. The blade slid through the cultivator’s chest, a short, wet sound breaking the still air. Jiang flinched despite himself.

  The man collapsed soundlessly into the snow.

  Zhang stood very still. His grip on the hilt trembled before he pulled it free and stepped back. His face was pale, but his voice, when he spoke, was steady. “It’s done.”

  Li Xuan nodded once, as if that settled everything. Mistress Bai’s gaze lingered on Zhang for a moment – dispassionate, assessing – then she turned away. “Clean up the camp,” she said. “We’ll move before nightfall.”

  Jiang stared at the body for a moment longer, then let out a slow, tired breath.

  He understood why it had to be done. He just didn’t like that it was starting to feel increasingly normal.