“Wake up!”

  Ishin’s eyes snapped open. Before he could even locate his mother, he felt his pack slam into his chest, knocking him backward. It felt heavier than usual.

  “Up!” Akira demanded.

  At last, he spotted her. She was already standing at the shelter’s entrance, her spear gripped in one hand—his in the other. Her pack was slung across her back, and she wore only her Daihu Tribe cultivator robes, no armor or outer cloak.

  Rising quickly, Ishin asked, “What’s happening?”

  Akira’s eyes flicked to the side. Behind her, the storm raged through the narrow passageway. “There are intruders.” She tossed his spear at him. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  Ishin didn’t waste time with more questions. If his mother was this alert, something was truly wrong. The only time he’d ever seen her that serious had been when they first encountered Lou Heng.

  This seems worse.

  Akira led him out of the shelter and toward the western edge of the summit. Ishin hesitated—wasn’t the original trail down the southern side?

  Outside, rain still fell beneath thundering skies, but the storm’s fury had dulled. Perhaps it was a sign that the storm would soon pass.

  “Get to the edge,” Akira ordered, pushing him forward. “If something happens, get out of the Nine Striped Hills. Don’t go back to the Daihu Tribe.”

  That stopped him cold. “Mother, what are you talking about? And why aren’t we heading toward the trail?”

  Akira didn’t answer with words.

  Instead, she pointed her spear at a fallen pillar. In the blink of an eye, a thorn of lightning the size of an anvil formed at the tip. Its glow was so blinding Ishin had to shield his eyes.

  The projectile launched, consuming the pillar in a violent sphere of destruction.

  Then came a pulse of air pressure that swept across the summit, Akira at its epicenter.

  She thrust her spear forward at a large marble tile that jutted eight feet out of the ground.

  “You can come out now!” she shouted.

  A figure in pitch-black yoroi appeared atop the tile, feet dangling from the edge. A hood concealed her face, and two ninjatō rested at her hips.

  She looked nothing like an honorable cultivator. She looked like a demon born from shadow.

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  Dropping silently to the ground, the woman stepped forward.

  “What gave me away?” she asked, her voice female beneath the cowl’s darkness.

  Ishin didn’t wait to see more. He moved toward the edge as instructed—but kept watching.

  “I’ve been using a perception technique every day since we arrived,” Akira replied, spear unwavering. “Your stealth was flawless otherwise. Tell the others to come out as well.”

  The assassin didn’t argue. She lifted two fingers, and four more dark-clad figures emerged from the shadows, spreading into a crescent formation. They blocked every path but the west.

  The leader tilted her head toward the space Akira had just obliterated.

  “Six of us wasn’t excessive after all. You’ve earned my respect, First Warrior of the Daihu Tribe.”

  Akira twirled her spear. Lightning and wind surged around it, forming a coiling vortex.

  From where Ishin stood near the cliffside, she looked like a storm goddess—wrathful and divine.

  This… this is the First Warrior of the Daihu Tribe!

  “You’re clearly not from the Nine Striped Hills,” Akira said. “From the Empire proper, then? Who sent you?”

  The assassin only shook her head. “We don’t reveal such secrets. Besides, you won’t live long enough for it to matter.”

  “If you think this will be easy,” Akira sneered, “then come!”

  “Unafraid of death. I respect that.” The leader gestured. “Numbers 20 and 21—eliminate the kid.”

  Two assassins broke from the formation, shooting toward Ishin like arrows loosed from a warbow.

  Too fast. He barely had time to blink before they were nearly on him.

  But then—lightning burst into existence. Akira stood between them, her voice like thunder.

  “Cowards.”

  Curved arcs of lightning slashed from her spear, bisecting both attackers down the center. Their bodies collapsed in steaming, bloodied halves.

  Ishin stood frozen. He had never seen someone die before—let alone be killed.

  “They’re too weak,” Akira spat.

  With a swing of her spear, she unleashed a cyclone shaped like a lance at the assassin leader.

  The woman drew her twin ninjatō, meeting the storm head-on. Sparks of raw qi erupted between them as the cyclone clashed with the blades. With a grunt, the leader managed to deflect the storm to the side—where it shattered part of an abandoned ruin behind her.

  “I hope the rest of you are stronger,” Akira called. “Or maybe I’ve overestimated the Hidden Ring.”

  “Confident, are we?” the woman asked, now scrutinizing Akira more closely. “You’re not from the Nine Striped Hills either, are you?”

  “That’s right.” Akira slammed her spear into the ground. “But unlike you, I don’t sneak up on my enemies.”

  “I’ll honor that,” the woman said. “You deserve to know the name of the one who’ll kill you. I am Master Seven.”

  Akira lifted her spear again, pointing it at the assassin. “Come then, Master Seven—if you don’t fear death.”

  The leader’s blades hissed as phantasmal energy leaked from them.

  “Very well.”

  Even without opening his third eye, Ishin could feel it. His mother’s spiritual pressure was a razor-edged storm. The assassin’s was a suffocating specter of death.

  Violent waves of qi pulsed across the summit. The air itself seemed to scream.

  This was a battle far beyond him.

  Akira turned once toward her son. Her free hand lifted and pointed.

  “Go!”

  A gust of wind exploded from her palm, launching Ishin off the cliff’s edge.

  He let out a scream as the world dropped beneath him, leaving his mother to face the battle alone.