Leo could see the fighting from half a mile out.

  Three golden figures stood on an ancient boat, defending in tight formation against two Ferrari-red glows that circled them like sharks. The boat was massive, ornate, covered in protective formations that flared gold with each impact. It should have been an imposing vessel of war.

  Instead it was a sitting duck.

  Arthur's Eclipse banked hard left, then dove. The boat tried to turn to face him. By the time its prow had moved thirty degrees, Arthur had already completed his attack run and pulled away.

  Mike came in from the opposite direction, his movements more conservative, focused on harrying rather than damage.

  The elders on the boat spun in circles, trying to track both attackers at once. One of them launched a massive water technique that could have leveled a building.

  Arthur simply flew around it. The attack splashed harmlessly into the whirlpool below.

  And Shen Tianyi stood at the edge of the exposed entrance, his hands cupped around his mouth.

  "STOP!" His voice carried across the water. "STOP! STOP!"

  Arthur executed a barrel roll for no tactical reason whatsoever.

  "STOP!"

  Mike performed a loop-the-loop, coming up behind an elder who was still looking the wrong direction.

  Shen Tianyi's voice cracked with desperation. "PLEASE STOP!"

  No one stopped.

  Arthur saw Leo first.

  The boomer disengaged from his latest pass with a lazy spiral, his sword tracing a contemptuous arc that forced the golden-robed elder to stumble backward on the deck.

  He raised one hand toward Leo. A casual wave.

  Mike followed Arthur's lead. He pulled away from the boat, putting distance between himself and the two elders who had been trying and failing to corner him. He was grinning. A cut on his forearm leaked blood that evaporated in the heat of his Eclipse's fire arrays, but he did not seem to notice.

  The Pond Gazing elders did not pursue. They stood on their boat, weapons ready, breathing heavily, watching the newcomer descend.

  Leo landed beside Shen Tianyi.

  Arthur touched down a moment later, followed by Mike. Neither of them looked particularly winded.

  "Pond geezers didn't want to wait," Arthur said. He jerked his chin toward the exposed entrance at the bottom of the drained whirlpool. A stone archway had emerged from beneath the water, ancient and covered in formations that pulsed with dim blue light.

  "Tried to go straight in, without waiting for you."

  Mike wiped blood from his face, still grinning. "So we held them off."

  "Was pretty fun," Arthur admitted. "A easy dessert after that tough piece of meat we just ate."

  Shen Tianyi had stopped shouting. He stood with his shoulders slumped, his expression caught between relief and exhaustion.

  "They do not listen," he said to Leo.

  "I say stop. They do not stop. Your friends. No one. I know two words of English. Two words. I'm sure I said 'stop' and not 'kill'."

  Leo looked at the ancient boat as it drifted closer.

  Three Pond Gazing cultivators stood on the deck. All Gold Core. Mrs. Zhao was there as well as an unfamiliar man and woman.

  The man was eldest, his hair streaked with gray, his beard trimmed to a sharp point, his robes immaculate despite the battle. One of the women had removed her eyes at some point in her cultivation. The sockets were smooth, scarred over, empty.

  Mrs. Zhao stood apart from her companions. Her hands were shaking in anger.

  The bearded elder turned towards Leo. He clasped his hands and gave a daoist salute, his movements precise and formal.

  "Young Master." The bearded elder's voice was controlled, though a vein pulsed in his temple. "This humble one is Qu Wuyan, Sect Leader of the Pond Gazing Sect. These are Elder Suyin and Mrs. Zhao."

  He gestured to the blind woman and Mrs. Zhao who Leo was already familiar with.

  "We owe Young Master and Young Master Shen a great debt for subduing the demon and shielding our disciples from calamity. Such grace will not be forgotten."

  Leo said nothing.

  Qu Wuyan's smile remained fixed. "However, what lies below concerns internal sect affairs. These are ancestral grounds, sealed by our founders and guarded for generations. We humbly ask that Young Master withdraw and permit us to proceed alone. Naturally, your reward shall be delivered in full. The Great Water Spirit Improving Elixir, precisely as agreed."

  Leo let the silence stretch.

  Then he smiled back.

  "Sect Leader Qu," Leo said. "We appreciate your gratitude. Truly. But I'm afraid we haven't finished our investigation."

  Qu Wuyan's smile flickered. "Investigation?"

  "Into the murders." Leo kept his tone light. Conversational. "Five people dead. Four disciples with their chests opened from the inside and an elder found in a meditation cave. We agreed to solve these deaths."

  "The demon was clearly..."

  "That was completely unrelated." Leo denied unconvincingly. "But we still don't know what killed those disciples. We still don't know what killed Elder Zhao. Mrs. Zhao gave us an important commission and we intend on seeing it to the end."

  Mrs. Zhao made an angry sound.

  Qu Wuyan's expression hardened. "Young Master presumes too much. There are boundaries you juniors should not cross."

  "Maybe." Leo shrugged.

  Leo turned to Shen Tianyi and indicated the entrance with a tilt of his head.

  "After you."

  Shen Tianyi hesitated for only a moment. Then he nodded, gathered his spiritual energy, and jumped onto the exposed stairway. Ancient stone accepted his weight. Formations flickered to life along the walls, dim blue lights that illuminated a path descending into darkness.

  Leo followed after, riding his Eclipse.

  Sect Leader Qu directed the sect's treasure boat forward. "You dare desecrate our ancestral..."

  Arthur's Eclipse screamed across the boat's path.

  The boomer pulled up at the last moment, close enough that the heat of his sword scorched the deck. Sect Leader Qu stumbled backward. The boat's momentum died as the pilot at the stern yanked hard on the steering formation.

  Mike came in from the opposite angle, and cut off their retreat.

  Sect Leader Qu raised his hand, spiritual pressure gathering around his fingers. Words poured from his mouth, rapid and commanding, the tone of a man accustomed to being obeyed.

  Arthur circled back around. He was laughing.

  "Sorry, what?" Arthur cupped one hand to his ear. "Can't understand a word you're saying, mate."

  More words. Angrier now. Sect Leader Qu's face had gone red.

  Arthur reached into his storage ring. Golden light flashed as he withdrew his T3 tower shield, the metal humming with defensive formations. He held it in his off-hand, his Eclipse in the other.

  "Look," Arthur said, still grinning. "I don't know what you're going on about. But my friends went down there." He pointed at the entrance with his sword. "And you're staying up here."

  He dove.

  The shield led the way, absorbing a water technique that Sect Leader Qu launched in desperation. Arthur crashed through the spray, came up spinning, and drove the three elders back toward the center of their boat with a sweeping arc of fire.

  Mike followed. The two of them fell into a rhythm, circling the vessel like wolves around a wounded deer. Every time the boat tried to move toward the entrance, one of them was there.

  The sounds of combat faded as Leo descended deeper into the darkness.

  ---

  The stairway descended for what felt like miles.

  Blue formation lights flickered along the walls, ancient and dim, barely sufficient to illuminate the steps ahead. The air grew colder with each level they passed. Moisture clung to the stone, condensation from centuries of stillness.

  Leo broke the silence first.

  "The Nascent Soul," he said. "Luo Mingxia. When I was fighting her, I saw scenes from her life. Memories, maybe."

  "She was searching for someone. A man. Her lover, I think. He died a long time ago, but she never stopped looking for him." Leo paused, remembering the desperation in those phantom images. The endless wandering. The hope that refused to die.

  "It felt real. Tragic, even."

  Shen Tianyi made a dismissive sound.

  "Most likely fabricated. Or at the very least, polished so many times the original shape is gone." He waved a hand. "A convenient origin story worn smooth by eight hundred years of telling."

  Leo frowned. "You think she made it up?"

  "I think suffering deserves to be approached with respect and care." Shen Tianyi's voice carried the weight of someone reciting a lesson learned through bitter experience.

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  "But demonic cultivators wrap their suffering in silk and parade it through the streets for everyone to admire. They turn their pain into a weapon, using it as armor against accountability, a lullaby to quiet the slaughter qi that screams louder with every life they take."

  He leaned forward, his expression hardening.

  "Think about it carefully. You have committed unspeakable acts. Consumed innocent cultivators. Bathed in blood for centuries. The Slaughter Qi piles up like a mountain, corroding your spirit, demanding justification. Your heart demon whispers that you need a reason, an excuse, anything to balance the ledger."

  "So what do you do? You take some old wound from childhood, and you polish it until it shines like a treasure. 'I was wronged when I was weak. The heavens owed me this violence. The world forged me into this blade, so how can you blame the blade for cutting?'"

  "But her lover actually died," Leo said. "I saw it happen."

  "Did you? Or did you see the painting she wanted you to see? The one her heart demon spent centuries perfecting?" Shen Tianyi shook his head slowly.

  "After that degree of corruption, who can distinguish true memory from the heart demon's brushwork? It reshapes everything to serve its master."

  He paused, letting the words settle.

  "I will tell you something that should disturb you. If Luo Mingxia were alive today, and you brought her childhood lover before her, alive and whole, proving her entire tragedy was built on a misunderstanding, do you know what she would do?"

  Leo waited.

  "She would kill him where he stood. Then she would forget he ever drew breath, and go right back to nursing her delusion. The grief was never about the lover. It was about justifying what she had already become."

  "Every living being under heaven possesses an innate sense of right and wrong," Shen Tianyi continued, his voice quieter now. "Justice and injustice. This is precisely why investigating a demonic cultivator's suffering is like trying to weigh smoke. They will fabricate, exaggerate, and twist whatever memories they possess until everything fits neatly into a box they can label 'Justice.'"

  He met Leo's eyes.

  "Childhood suffering is real. Pain is real. But treating that pain as currency to purchase forgiveness for evil? That is the corruption of the heart demon speaking. That is the line between a wounded soul searching for healing and a monster searching for excuses."

  They continued downward.

  The stairway ended at a stone archway. Beyond it lay a circular chamber, perhaps fifty feet in diameter. Leo had expected treasure. Artifacts. Something to justify eight hundred years of secrecy and a Nascent Soul remnant.

  Instead he found emptiness.

  The room contained nothing. No scrolls. No containers. No spiritual treasures glowing with ancient power. Just bare stone walls covered in strange patterns that seemed to shift when he looked at them directly.

  Shen Tianyi stepped into the chamber and began pulling talismans from his storage ring.

  "What are you doing?" Leo asked.

  "Documenting." Shen Tianyi activated the first talisman. It flared with golden light, then settled into a steady glow. "There are several ways to study Profundities. Several rewards for resolving them."

  He placed the talisman against the wall and moved to another section.

  "The first reward is the Great Merit of Resolution. By eliminating a Profundity, you erase corrosive decaying karma from the Heavenly Dao." He activated a second talisman. "In theory, this earns you cosmic favor. Heavenly protection. Good fortune."

  "In theory?"

  "Nobody can prove whether it actually does anything." Shen Tianyi's tone was dry. "Scholars well studied in karma generally hold that Merit cannot be earned through action. They argue it is a gift, bestowed by the Heavenly Dao according to its own inscrutable will, not something you can accumulate like spirit stones. The Great Merit of Resolution, then, is widely considered the most worthless of the rewards."

  He finished placing his talismans and turned back to Leo.

  "However, it is recordable." He reached into his storage ring and withdrew four jade talismans, different from the ones he had been placing. "These are Merit stamps. Proof of resolution."

  He demonstrated, pressing one of the talismans against his forehead. "You stamp it here, then look inside with your divine sense."

  Leo extended his spiritual awareness into the talisman Shen Tianyi held. Characters appeared in his mind, clear and official.

  Luo Mingxia, Nascent Soul

  "My first Profundity resolved." Shen Tianyi said. He grinned. "I should thank you properly.."

  Leo took one of the empty talismans. He pressed it against his own forehead, feeling the cool jade against his skin, then inspected it with his divine sense.

  Luo Mingxia, Nascent Soul

  "That's really cool," Leo admitted.

  Shen Tianyi's grin widened. "Indeed. Many cultivators enjoy collecting these merits. Display them. Brag about them." His expression shifted slightly.

  "Of course, resolving Profundities is extremely dangerous work. Those who develop a taste for it tend to burn bright and die young."

  He tossed Leo a jade slip. "Here. A technique for manufacturing such stamps yourself."

  Leo caught the slip and stored it. "What's the second reward?"

  "The physical manifestation of the Profundity itself." Shen Tianyi gestured vaguely diagonally, toward where Kevin had fled with the demon heart.

  "These cannot be destroyed easily. They can potentially be refined or absorbed. The Demonic Heart you received is one such manifestation."

  "Valuable?"

  "Extremely. But also extremely dangerous." Shen Tianyi's expression grew serious. "If I were to carry that heart, I would probably eat it within a few hours. The temptation would overcome me. You desperadoes are uniquely suited to handling such objects."

  Leo filed that information away. Kevin would need to be careful with his cargo.

  "The third reward," Shen Tianyi continued, "is the most tangible, especially for Nascent Soul level Profundities. The history."

  He began walking along the chamber walls, examining the patterns more closely.

  "Luo Mingxia was what we classify as a 'Low Ranked Partial Demon.' Nascent Soul is the absolute minimum threshold for achieving Profundity. It is exceedingly rare for a cultivator at that realm to cross the line. There must have been compounding factors."

  "And those factors are valuable to your family?"

  "Very." Shen Tianyi traced one of the patterns with his finger, careful to avoid direct contact. "Figuring out what elevated a lowly Nascent Soul to become a Profundity can reveal extremely useful information."

  He pointed at various sections of the wall as he spoke.

  "The first compounding factor is obvious. Luo Mingxia was part demonic being. She must have accumulated enough slaughter qi in her lifetime that her heart demon physically manifested." He shook his head.

  "However, that alone is insufficient. If every Nascent Soul cultivator who became part demonic transformed into a Profundity, every minor sect would have one in their backyards."

  "The second factor." Shen Tianyi pointed at the strange patterns covering the walls. "Luo Mingxia was researching ancient formation techniques. Look at all these lines."

  Leo examined the patterns more closely. They covered every surface, intersecting and overlapping in ways that made his eyes ache. Some he could almost recognize. Others seemed to slip away from his perception entirely.

  "They don't look like any formations I've seen," Leo said.

  Shen Tianyi raised an eyebrow. "Do you know anything about formations?"

  Leo felt his face heat slightly. "I, uh. I skipped all my lectures."

  "Of course you did." Shen Tianyi sighed, but there was amusement in it. "Very well. Consider this a free lesson, then."

  He pointed at a section of wall towards the back. Two Polarities." Another. "Three Talents. Four Symbols. Five Elements. Six Harmonies. Seven Stars. Eight Trigrams."

  Each time he spoke, he indicated a corresponding pattern somewhere in the chamber. Leo could see them now, different styles of formation work, different approaches to structuring spiritual energy.

  "Formations build structure from chaos," Shen Tianyi explained. "You need some method of separation, some principle of division, to take the chaos of raw qi and arrange it into ordered arrays. Every formation system provides that principle. Eight Trigrams divides reality into eight aspects. Five Elements divides it into five. Each is a different lens, a different way of carving the whole into comprehensible pieces."

  He walked toward the center of the room.

  "Yet how can you make a formation without separation? Taking a lump of spiritual qi and spilling it into a puddle and calling it a formation? That is absurd." He gestured at a pattern in the center of the room.

  "But it is right there."

  Leo approached cautiously. The pattern seemed to shimmer, to shift, to exist in multiple states simultaneously.

  "Every child knows how to count," Shen Tianyi said. "Three, two, one. From our formation systems, we also can also count backwards."

  He pointed at a section of wall near the entrance. "Eight Trigrams." His finger moved to another pattern. "Seven Stars." Another. "Six Harmonies. Five Elements. Four Symbols. Three Talents. Two Polarities."

  "And finally..." Shen Tianyi pointed again at the center of the room.

  "That."

  Leo squinted at it. The harder he tried to focus, the more it seemed to slip away.

  "That is not one of the seven known formation systems," Shen Tianyi said. "No one knows what it is. Or what it should be. Formation masters like to debate endlessly about the proper name. Chaos. Origin. Primordial. The arguments have existed since the dawn of mathematics."

  "If every child can count backward, can formation masters not count as well? What about the One System? Or the Zero System? Or the Negative One System?"

  He paused, letting the implication settle.

  "Those would be impossible," Leo said slowly. "You can't have a formation without a system. There's nothing to separate."

  "Exactly. It is like trying to cut water with water. No one has been able to deduce or inscribe any formation of the impossible systems. No one sane, that is." Shen Tianyi's eyes gleamed.

  "Yet it is well known that such formations exist. The rumored Heaven Pivot Array Supreme Treasure is said to contain One System formations. And possibly Zero System as well."

  "Heaven Pivot Array Supreme Treasure?" Leo asked.

  "The great secret of the Azure Profound Continent." Shen Tianyi's voice dropped, as if speaking of something sacred. "A great secret in the sense that no one knows what it truly is or where it hides. But most well-informed cultivators have heard the name."

  He began pacing around the chamber's edge.

  "It is a Supreme Treasure, which is a realm above Great Ascension artifacts. Very little is confirmed. What we do know is that powerful cultivators from other realms have crossed vast distances to search for it. And to fight over it. Most of our understanding comes from deduction and careful speculation."

  "Deduced how?"

  "By examining what Profundities leave behind. The remnants of their birth. The shell of the egg, so to speak." Shen Tianyi gestured at the walls around them.

  "Luo Mingxia had possessed cultivation. The Heaven Pivot Array possesses high cultivation. Luo Mingxia was demonic. The Heaven Pivot Array is demonic. Luo Mingxia drew a Chaos Formation. The Heaven Pivot Array must have Chaos Formations on it."

  "So this place is connected to the Heaven Pivot Array?"

  "All three qualities are well documented from other Profundity sites." Shen Tianyi's excitement was palpable. "Since Luo Mingxia transformed into a Profundity, that means the Chaos Formation she created must be genuine. Real. Functional."

  Leo looked at the impossible pattern again. "I thought you said these formations were impossible."

  Shen Tianyi had already produced a scalpel-like tool from his storage ring. He approached the wall where the Chaos Formation existed, beginning to carefully cut around its edges.

  "They are impossible," he said. "Which is why this is very valuable."

  The tool hummed with spiritual energy as he worked, separating the formation from the surrounding stone with surgical precision.

  "So," Shen Tianyi said without looking up, "what do you want for this? Will you let me have it?"

  Leo considered. The formation was obviously precious. Shen Tianyi's entire demeanor had shifted the moment he recognized it. This single inscription might be worth more than everything on earth combined.

  But Leo felt like his immortal destiny didn't lie with formations. His greatest advantage was being able to revive in this world, being able to treat it like a game.

  "I want to learn more about Profundities," he said. "And maybe explore more with you."

  Shen Tianyi's cutting paused. He looked up, surprise evident on his face.

  "Granted," he said. "Of course, I would have asked the same from you desperadoes regardless. Clones that can endlessly explore Profundities? Anything under Great God realm is basically free for the taking."

  "Great God realm?" Leo asked. "What is that?"

  "Tier 6. The realm above Deity Transformation and below Great Ascension."

  "I thought that realm was named Void Refining."

  Shen Tianyi paused in his work, considering.

  "Void Refining." He turned the name over as if tasting something unfamiliar. "Interesting. Very interesting." He resumed cutting. "Well. I suppose we will have to discover the reason why when we arrive there ourselves."

  Leo laughed. "That's a lot of confidence in both of us."

  "I have seen what you can do." Shen Tianyi finished his cuts and carefully peeled the formation away from the wall. It came free as with a slab of rock, shimmering with patterns that hurt to observe.

  "By the way," Leo asked, "are there realms above Great Ascension?"

  "Well, clearly, since the Heaven Pivot Array is a Supreme Treasure, there must be a Supreme realm." Shen Tianyi stored the formation in a specially prepared container.

  "But no one knows for certain. The path beyond Great Ascension lies within the great void."

  He pointed upward.

  "And that is a one-way trip."

  Shen Tianyi finished packaging his prize and turned to Leo.

  "I will leave you my message talisman. I will probably say goodbye to your friends, then head to the central continent to deliver this to the main clan. I will return to pay my debts afterward, if that is acceptable."

  "Sounds good to me." Leo paused, then added, "Maybe ask Kevin if he's interested in following you to the central continent? I think he would enjoy the travel."

  Shen Tianyi's eyes lit up. "Of course! Perhaps he will be able to impress some girls with his merit stamp!"

  They both laughed.

  Leo took one last look at the patterns covering the walls. The impossible formation was gone now, leaving a blank space where it had been. But the other systems remained. Eight Trigrams and Seven Stars and all the rest, layered over each other in ways that suggested decades of obsessive study.

  Luo Mingxia had spent her final years here, trying to understand something beyond understanding. Searching for her lost lover or searching for power or searching for something else entirely. In the end, she had become a monster that needed to be put down.

  But she had also created something genuine. A working Chaos Formation.

  The implications staggered Leo the more he considered them. Every formation master in history had tried and failed to create such a thing. The greatest geniuses of the cultivation world had declared it theoretically impossible, a contradiction in terms, structure without separation.

  Yet a single Nascent Soul cultivator, driven mad by grief and demonic corruption, had somehow succeeded where they all failed.

  A broken woman searching for a dead man had stumbled upon the secrets of creation itself.