Eri fought the man who had been her companion, her lover, her rival, and now finally the obstacle getting in the way of her desires. She was filled with a sense of regret.

  Where had Li lost his own independence? That woman had put a leash on him, turning him into just another one of the Emperor's dogs. She had hoped that with the woman's influence gone, perhaps he would have regained his former clarity of thought. But it had been almost twenty years, and here he was, still fighting to uphold a corrupt regime.

  She would have spared him if she could, but it was clear he meant to stop her from taking what she needed. The disc at Eri's waist called to her. All she needed was to fill it with the dense purified spiritual luxes here in the tower and she would have the weapon she needed.

  Perhaps the Emperor had put soul oaths on him. Yes, that had to be it. He would have wrapped his great general in so many different oaths and promises.

  "No one has to die, Li,” she called, preparing and launching an attack. Multi-hued weaves shot out like fireworks, exploding all around then looping back in toward the fighters. “Not even the Emperor. We can still do this without violating your oaths. All I want is to have the Emperor do what he should have done centuries ago, and ascend.”

  The weapon would do that. Would make it so he had to ascend or die. She was only finishing the work that should have been done a long time ago. "You have to know it would be best for the empire if he did," Eri called. "One man ruling for so long? We've stagnated compared to the world beyond."

  "You say stagnate. I say we have had peace," Li replied as he countered a pair of her Comets with a Swallow Slash. "The Emperor is not perfect, by any means, but it's better than what I have seen out there. If he chooses to ascend, so be it. But I know you, Eri. You wish him to leave so that you can take his place."

  Eri laughed and tossed her hair. She brushed her hand through it, snagging a handful of loose strands, then working them into the weave she perfected as she sparred with Li. With one hand on her sword, her other commanded lux. Both of them were flinging out techniques casually, testing each other's shields and defenses, looking for weaknesses while they wove stronger attacks to launch whenever they saw an opportunity.

  In this place, this space between spaces, with the void oppressing in on all sides and raw lux in a storm all around them, she felt in control. This was her sort of place, the embodiment of chaos.

  "I can hardly take his place," she said. "I do not intend to have a dozen children every year in order to prop up that preposterous Gem Court. With him gone, the empire will change."

  "It will fall to chaos, you mean,” General Li said. "The remaining Prisms, every powerful sect leader will fight for the scraps of what remain. Every tower will become a contested battleground. The result will be devastation."

  "The result will be the strong becoming stronger," Eri said. "We have turned this empire into a feather mattress for coddling the weak and infirm. There's a reason why, whenever our cultivators step out into the world beyond, they are ripped to shreds by the powers they find there. That cannot go on. We need strong cultivators. Sooner or later, the empire would fall, either from within or without. I'm just making sure it's at a time when I'm available to help clean up the mess."

  "You've never cleaned up a mess in your life, Eri," General Li said calmly. He hurled a technique at her. A hundred lightning bolts stabbed all around, each charged with a different mix of lux. Some sizzled their way through Eri's shields and struck her, jolting her with raw lux. She cycled her core, quickly taking it in and cleansing it.

  He was testing her, looking for a weakness in her defenses. But there would be none. Her Intent was perfect. She was ready for this, and he wasn't.

  She still couldn't believe that her old friend had allowed himself to be defined by such a weak Intent. As I serve, so I command. What sort of Intent was that?

  He might style himself a general, but that was just because he'd never had what it took to be a sect leader. A general could afford to fill his ranks with mediocre soldiers so long as they were willing to follow orders. A sect leader had to raise up disciples strong enough to aid her while also watching them like a hawk for the moment that they decided they would rather take than be given.

  She had sent her most promising crop of disciples into this tower, and now they were all dead. That was going to be a setback in the coming war. Eri might only be able to take half of the territory she had intended. But no matter, she'd raise up a new crop sooner or later. Perhaps she could recruit the Morning Mist cultivators who had defeated her own disciples once she found them.

  Eri was preparing her most powerful technique yet, but something held her back. She found, even though she was prepared to sacrifice Li, she didn't want to do it. She didn't want to do it until he had seen her victory. She needed him to acknowledge what she had done.

  She tossed out a dozen different techniques to cloud his eyes and keep his vision off her as she wove a cage. Each bar was taken from her own hair, her Intent permeating it as she bent indigo lux to create a cage that even a Lux Dominator would not quickly be able to get out of, enforcing it with red to protect the indigo, covering it all with blue to hide the details of her weave.

  Then, as Li prepared to unleash a technique of his own, she struck.

  She thrust the technique forward. It enveloped the general, forming around him, the strands of the technique covering him as he stood in the cage and fumed at her.

  "There," she told him. "Now just wait while I take what's mine."

  In the center of the storm waited the treasure. She had known it was there, felt it all along, just hadn't been able to get there with General Li standing in her way. She strode forward toward the heart of chaos, feeling the lux waiting for her there.

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  A man appeared, a strange man. Long red hair flowing down his back in a tail. He wore odd old-fashioned sorts of clothes, a long tunic that fell past his waist, a copper cap atop his hair. "Greetings, Mistress Eri," he said cheerfully. "I've been watching you closely."

  This must be the Tower Guardian. Eri stabbed out casually with her sword and skewered him in the chest. The man fell to pieces.

  A moment later, he reformed next to her. "It seems we've gotten off on a bad foot. My name is Sun Wukong, and—“

  She stabbed again. This time he appeared as three, circling her.

  "That is to say, I think you are going about this all wrong," Sun Wukong said to her cheerfully.

  She smashed outward with her Intent. To her surprise, it wasn't as effective as she had expected. She shattered him into pieces, and now a dozen different Suns stood around her, hands on hips, judging her. "Hm. You've been draining off your Intent to fuel your techniques, I see," Sun commented. "That is effective against lesser enemies, but dangerous when you're fighting someone of your own strength. I'm surprised General Li didn't take advantage of it. He seemed to be holding off on some of his blows. I wonder if he perhaps felt some affection for you."

  Eri lowered her hands. "Just what is it you want?" she asked.

  Sun smiled. "I'm so pleased that you asked."

  While Sun was distracting the Prism, Noren approached the cage in which she'd locked General Li. It was filled with her own Intent, and he didn't want to disturb that, though he was certain he could have broken through. Their plan counted on Eri's Intent being weakened, which was why they had waited until she had ripped off so much of it in order to defeat the general.

  Instead, Noren wove a small violet and indigo technique himself. The spatial and temporal effect rippled. It gently bent the bars of the cage without disrupting Eri's technique.

  General Li didn't have to be told what to do. He slid through the opening and bowed to Noren. "Thank you.”

  They looked into the storm where Eri had disappeared. "We need to stop her."

  "My friend is already preparing the groundwork for that," Noren said. "We had a thought, though." He explained it quickly.

  Li frowned. "I wanted the refined lux. I'm ready to ascend."

  "Yes, yes. But on speaking with my new friend Sun, you don't want to ascend here," Noren said. "Sun has explained why that’s a bad idea. Basically, the lux quality of this tower is not enough to reach the better parts of the Heavens. You would, in essence, be ascending into the slums rather than the Royal Gardens, which you no doubt wish to reach."

  "Once I'm there, I will fight my way across the heavens to find my wife. I don't care how many eons it takes."

  Noren held up a hand. "What if instead we let Eri visit the sewers, and we find you a more direct route? The chat I've had with this fellow has been most instructive. Please. Or are you really going to ascend to the heavens and leave the rest of us to deal with your psychotic ex-girlfriend?"

  Li's shoulders slumped. "I thought I would be able to kill her. She's stronger than I thought."

  "Then let's work together and force her ascension," Noren said. "We'll talk tactics after that. I need your help, though. It's time to unleash your best techniques."

  "Did you bring my army with you?" Li asked. “Because my best techniques require an army.”

  Noren raised an eyebrow. "No, but I think I can find one for you to use," he pointed. "Shall we go?"

  The two flew into the maelstrom together, seeking out Eri. As they approached, General Li's breath came in an audible gasp. Sun Wukong had duplicated himself over a hundred times. He surrounded Eri, taunting her, his voice strident, mocking.

  Eri had apparently decided to ignore him. She was trying to press forward toward the trove of lux at the tower's center. Every time one copy of Sun got in the way, she blasted through him.

  "You're up," Noren said, pointing.

  General Li began his weave.

  Noren had been watching the battle, and while the general had managed to hold back Eri fairly well, it was clear she was the better fighter, and the better at weaving techniques.

  The general, however, was a specialist. His best techniques were all designed to empower his soldiers. Now, as he wove and flung techniques, he targeted the copies of Sun Wukong. Each copy of Sun strengthened, growing taller, lux techniques infusing them.

  Eri turned, her eyes falling on the general and Noren. "How did you escape?” She summoned her sword.

  Li gave the order, his Intent resonating the lux around them. "Take her."

  And Sun fell on her.

  Even with the general's enhancement techniques, the copies of Sun Wukong were no match for Eri. She blasted them with techniques thrown so rapidly Noren would have thought she was unleashing scrolls that she'd previously constructed, if he wasn't watching her weave them in fractions of a heartbeat.

  Her sword flashed, cleaving illusory copies of Sun into pieces, but each blow took effort on her part, and there were so many copies.

  Sun reformed himself. Noren merely looked on in satisfaction.

  As the Sun wave crashed into Eri, though she destroyed copy after copy, enough of them reached her, plunging short swords into her, and Eri began to weaken.

  The general was growing tired. Noren could see his techniques flagging, and Sun was down to creating only a dozen or so copies of himself instead of the hundreds. But Eri was flagging too.

  It was time to act. Noren pushed forward through the maelstrom.

  It was hard for him to maintain himself in this chaos. His Intent and the soul oath he'd made to the Emperor was preventing him from exerting himself to his best. The raw lumos swirling around him, the void space itself, tore at him.

  But he would finish this.

  He pushed through, holding up a hand as the last dozen copies of Sun surrounded the wounded Eri.

  She turned to him, her blue eyes pained and resigned. "Come to take the finishing blow?"

  "Yes, actually," Noren said.

  He reached forward and ripped the disc from her belt. It was clear it was a powerful weapon, and he had a use for it later. Then, with the weapon retrieved, he shoved Eri forward into the maelstrom, the rich, lux-dense center of this tower.

  She screamed as she touched it, the lux rushing into her body. Pure and strong, so dense and refined, it was only half a step away from being Lumos.

  Her body was so weak, damaged from the attacks, that she instinctively began to cycle. That was her mistake.

  As the lux flowed in and she cycled, Noren could see it building up into a backlash.

  Her eyes widened in horror. "What have you done?"

  "Just sped things along a little," Noren said. He stepped back. General Li came to stand beside him, looking sad.

  "If you do see Akiko, let her know that I'll be along shortly," General Li said. "Goodbye, Eri."

  The forces of lux in her body were too strong. Noren could see her fighting them, but no matter. This much lux in a place where they already were halfway out of this world, the end was inevitable.

  Eri's body shifted. He could see her losing her grip on this realm. "No. No, I won't, " she began, but there was no stopping it.

  Li nodded. "You were right," he told Noren. "This is more satisfying. This is what she did to my Akiko."

  Eri wailed, but her Intent was too weak to fight this, not with half of it still left in the cage that Li had escaped from.

  In another moment, she was gone.

  Li stepped forward.

  "Some still remains," he said. “I could try my own ascension.”

  Noren put a hand on his chest. "No. You’ll find another way," he told the general. “Now, come and let’s see to the children.”