Jiang looked at Violet, his focus on the world giving way to his focus on the small purple-haired girl. She was so thin. “You’re so small, child. Why are you here? You don’t appear to be a reawakened elder.”

  She scoffed and flicked her hair around. It didn’t hit Jiang in the face, but it did mess itself up.

  What was the point of that?

  She moved a hand to straighten it as if on cue.

  “I’ll have you know I was once a lesser tyrant.”

  “Then why do you look like a scared and malnourished child?”

  She shrugged.

  “Sympathy.”

  Jiang laughed.

  “So why did you have to rely on me for protection, miss lesser-tyrant? I’m not familiar with that title, but I imagine it implies you’re quite strong.”

  Violet looked dumbfounded at Jiang.

  “You’re not familiar with the title of lesser tyrant? Sequence ten?”

  “Oh, sequence ten, that must make you quite strong. Doesn’t change my question though, why did you have to rely on me?”

  Violet’s violet eyes didn’t stop staring at him. It was like she had been remade in the image of her name. Even her skin was slightly purple at a closer glance. Perhaps her blood and spirit were too.

  She scoffed but answered the question, “Because my power decayed while I was asleep. I was well-insulated in my tomb and judged a corpse by careless observers, but unfortunately the awakeners did a particularly thorough search.”

  “Do you have any idea why?”

  “I think it’s the same reason why my power is so weak even after more than two days. It shouldn’t be this way. I should be able to absorb the dark blood of the air—”

  “Is that qi?”

  “No, it’s something else. Why don’t you know this? How old are you?”

  Jiang laughed, “Don’t tell anyone else, but I’m older than dirt.”

  Violet scrunched her nose in disappointment at his vague answer, then looked around, clearly nervous that the next stage of the killing game was about to begin.

  “Then why don’t you tell me the secret to advancement? I’ll be forever in your debt.”

  Jiang leaned in close to her tiny ear and whispered,「World」「Body」「Spirit」「Will」, “If you live, I will tell you more.”

  Her eyes beamed, but she didn’t say anything. She would spend time digesting his words in order to determine if they held any truth. The prospect of knowledge was tantalizing beyond words for high-tier cultivators. For one who has tasted the peaks of ultimate knowledge and power, the prospect of more becomes their driving goal. If it were not they would never have made it as far as they did already, and so to promise them more becomes a promise to satiate their soul’s deepest desire. Jiang knew this, and he would drip-feed her knowledge as required to extract information about the world.

  I do have to verify she was sequence 10.

  A loud voice boomed as the arena-lighting turned deep red, an “X” hovering in the air above, “All right! You two fuckers in the blue and purple robes! Did you think you could skirt the rules by going first!?”

  The lights started blinking.

  “You can’t! Prepare to die!”

  Jiang laughed. There really was no way to avoid showing off his power.

  I’ll have to get out of this region as fast as possible, I don’t want them piecing together my sequence.

  Guards around the arena began approaching him, quarterstaffs raised, some mounted with spearheads, scythe-heads, hammer-heads, and long sword-blades. He laughed.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Violet, why are you unable to use your power?”

  Jiang spread his hands out behind him, circling the girl. The others that had previously relied on him for protection made themselves scarce.

  “I don’t know! It stopped working!”

  “Do you want it back?”

  “YES YES tell me how!”

  “Swear your soul to me.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Do it or you’ll die!”

  “You know how insane—!”

  “Do it!”

  She was panicking, her eyes wide and scanning for any way out, but there wasn’t one. Her power was gone and there was no way to survive if Jiang was unwilling to protect her. It was a horrible sacrifice, but with no other choice she made the oath.

  「I swear my soul to your service in exchange for your protection」

  Jiang smiled wide, his teeth bared like a wild dog. She knew that without him, she was dead.

  「Then be restored, my child, to power you once could scarcely imagine」

  The guards were closing in. Jiang was sure the only reason they hadn’t tried incinerating them from afar was because of his display with the bedtime star guy.

  I don’t want to do this, but if I have no other choice then I must.

  「Azafir」he knew the name in his soul despite never having met the deity, 「I call upon thee」

  The ground rumbled and the sky darkened.

  「Make thyself available to the child」

  The guards were within striking distance. Violet’s fingers crackled with pink lightning and she began laughing maniacally.

  The dirt shook as a booming voice spoke from far below,

  「It is done.」

  「A debt is owed.」

  The sky cleared and the ground grew still. Violet began to fly, sparks of lightning shooting out even as the guards began swinging at Jiang. Lightning bolts began approaching the guards coming mere millimeters from their flesh just centimeters below armor, but in the instant they should have come into contact, time seemed to freeze.

  「Hello」

  The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  *BAM*

  A thunderclap replaced the guards with a single man who appeared inside a bolt of blue lightning.

  「Hello」

  He spread his hands, the light fading so Jiang could get a good look at his chiseled face. The man was wearing a white greek toga and had a ridiculously handsome build, though he was far too muscly for women to actually like him. It was almost to the point of absurdity; did he think anyone actually liked muscles injected with oil? (The answer is yes, but they’re all men). Jiang recognized the man’s type and knew to be careful.

  His old face was withered by time, and his black skin was mired by scars hidden in shadow. It was likely he had spent thousands of years at his sequence, and allowed scars to remain as a sign of age. Many cultivators attempted to heal their age away, spending great sums of money on potions of youth and elixirs of healing, but in truth they all failed. The only path to youth was advancement, even if it was a truth they all tried to deny. They denied it all the way to the grave, but not

  “Ding Yi, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  He bowed slightly.

  “Likewise, great master.”

  Jiang bent over at the waist, his palms together.

  “You appear to have won this little game.”

  Jiang smiled.

  “Indeed I have, great master.”

  Jiang spread his hands.

  “How may I be of service to someone as powerful as yourself?”

  Ding Yi could teleport, and not just himself either, almost two-dozen guards were teleported away. If he was teleporting random guards it was likely the power was cheap to him, which meant he was incredibly powerful, at least by the weak standards Jiang had seen so far.

  Alternatively, he could have just been incredibly fast, faster than Jiang’s currently-weakened eyes and brain were capable of tracking. There was no way to tell.

  “Please, you may call me powerful but even I am unable to make deals so easily with Gods. Come to my palace and let’s talk.”

  “Of course. You honor me, great master.”

  In the moments before they left, Jiang looked around the courtyard, and saw that every face was planted into the ground. In an instant they departed, and before Jiang could register it they had already arrived.

  The palace was massive and opulent beyond imagination. Every surface was made of gold, every pillar encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones. It all gleamed beyond any opulence a mortal prince could imagine. It was the palace of a ruler beyond all means of the mortal realm. There was more wealth concentrated in a single pillar of the endless hallway than all mortal kings of all mortal realms could ever hope to possess in a lifetime, and it all sparkled with lights floating in the air by magic, a feat totally beyond any mortal realm.

  Each pillar was some five hundred feet tall, and the top of the room seemed like it could form clouds. It stretched on for thousands of yards.

  Ah, what sweet decadence. Jiang didn’t even think about stealing any of it. Oh to be such a vain man again.

  He knew this was a small palace. The true rulers of creation hollowed out stars to serve as treasury-vaults, and indeed Jiang himself had once owned such a star. Indeed, many such stars.