The impact of the fall didn't just rattle Jian’s bones. It sent a shockwave of stagnant recycled air back up the shaft he had spent twenty-four hours digging.

  He hit the floor with a dull heavy thud, ass meeting cold stone carved by hands far older than the Empire. He sat there for a heartbeat, head tilting in darkness, copper light of his pupils flickering like a dying candle as his vision adjusted to the absolute crushing gloom.

  He wasn't ready for the landing. His physical vessel lagged behind the frantic obsessive energy of his mind.

  Kiri, however, needed no time to orient herself. The ninja goblin had been a shadow in his wake for thirty years. Her instincts were honed to the frequency of his survival. Even before the dust settled around Jian’s hunched form, Kiri was a blur of black leather and bared steel.

  A wave of leather-winged horrors descended from the ceiling. Not just bats. Yin-starved scavengers with fur matted in deep soot and eyes glowing with sickly red hunger. They screeched, tearing through the silence like a saw blade. Kiri was already among them. No shouts. No flashy spells. Daggers surgical, cutting through wings and throats with silent lethal efficiency, leaving the tunnel floor littered with twitching grey corpses.

  As Jian stood, wiping dust from his tattered robes, a larger shape detached from the shadows of a stalactite. A wendigo-type creature, a spindly nightmare of fused bone and pale translucent skin, jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-like teeth. It lunged at Jian, claws whistling through the air.

  Jian didn't draw his sword. He caught the creature’s arm mid-swing, fingers sinking into cold rubbery flesh. He didn't feel fear; he felt technical curiosity. He twisted the arm at an angle ignoring anatomy, snapping bone with a sound echoing down the tunnel.

  "Messy," Jian rasped.

  His other hand came up in a horizontal palm-strike hammering into the wendigo’s chest. He unleashed a micro-burst of Dragon-Yang energy. Heat vaporized the creature’s internal organs instantly. The wendigo slumped, chest cavity smoking. Jian tossed it aside with indifference.

  Oh, Jian, you’re finally awake, Kyuzumi’s sultry voice purred in his mind. And look at all these lovely playmates. I can hear more of them coming, darling. Clanking, heavy-footed little morsels. Why don't you go and greet the visitors? I’m sure they have all sorts of delicious secrets buried in their pockets.

  Jian ignored the fox-spirit, searching for the deepest part of the tunnel. "Not interested in talk," he muttered, nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of earthen treasure. "I’m going down."

  He walked, boots silent on stone, Kiri melting back into his shadow. But the visitors were already upon them.

  A squad of dwarves emerged from a side-passage. Encased in heavy runic armor, beards braided with iron rings, hammers and axes glowing with faint earthen Qi. They didn't see a man; they saw a lunatic who had just slaughtered their tunnel-scourge.

  "Halt, surface-dweller!" the lead dwarf roared, raising a hammer humming with mountain weight. "You trespass in the Ancestor Tunnels! Lay down your steel or be crushed!"

  Jian didn't stop. He didn't look at them. He kept walking, gaze fixed on a crack in the floor.

  The dwarves launched an attack. Axes flew, hammers swung, blasts of concentrated Earth-Qi erupted around Jian. He didn't fight back. He moved with terrifying fluid grace, body twisting through gaps in their formation like mist. He didn't parry; he simply wasn't there when blows landed.

  "Enough!"

  A figure in the back of the squad stepped forward. Smaller than the others, dressed in midnight blue robes over intricate silver-filigree mail. A mask of polished obsidian covered their face, leaving only sharp intelligent eyes visible.

  The dwarves went silent, weapons lowered in absolute deference.

  The masked figure—the royal-lineage leader—stepped toward Jian. "You move like a ghost, surface-man. And you smell like a sun buried in the dark. Why are you here? What is it you seek in the depths of our home?"

  Jian stopped. He looked at the masked person, searching for the script. No ripple. No yellow tint. Just a woman genuinely afraid and curious.

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  "I’m going down," Jian rasped, voice a low rhythmic thrum. "There is a power beneath your halls. It’s breathing. It’s waiting. And I’m going to see if it deep-fries well."

  Oh, Jian, you’re so blunt! Kyuzumi giggled. Why don't you tell her she looks like a very elegant snack? I’m sure she’d appreciate the compliment.

  Jian’s stomach let out a low predatory growl. His cultivation flared, heating the air in the tunnel, making the dwarves stumble back.

  The masked leader didn't flinch, though her hand trembled as she reached for a sigil at her neck. "The Ancestor Halls are directly below us. But they are no longer a place for the living. The ancient spirit that once blessed our people has been corrupted by the immortal taint of the upper world. Its fumes are lethal. Even we cannot stay there for more than ten minutes without our lungs turning to stone."

  She looked at the corpses. "You can go down. But only if I escort you. No one goes to the Halls alone."

  "I don't care," Jian said, turning his back. He dropped to all fours, fingers tracing the grain of the stone as he searched for the ley-line. "Do what you want. I’m going either way."

  Kiri appeared, gave a short silent nod to the masked woman, and vanished again.

  "Follow him!" the leader commanded her guards. "And get the breathing tools! We’re going to the deep."

  The descent was a journey into a nightmare of history. As they walked, the masked woman—Princess Valen—talked about the tragedy of her people. Ancestors forced upward when spirit-wells turned sour, infected by the waste of high-tier immortals who used the mountain as a playground.

  "The energy flows from the corrupted spirit," Valen explained, voice muffled by a heavy rebreather. "It doesn't leave the cavern, but the air is a poison that eats the mind. It’s sad... we can see the glory of our past, but we cannot stay to reclaim it."

  Jian walked through thick grey mist without a mask, sniffing the air with annoyance. "It smells like old laundry and rot. You talk too much about the past, dwarf. The past is just a script you’ve already finished."

  The soldiers looked at him as if he were a dead man walking. They clutched breathing tools, eyes wide with disbelief.

  "He’s a fool," one guard whispered. "Going to his death. No man can breathe the Taint and live."

  Valen watched the mist avoid Jian’s skin, as if the heat of his Dual Yang burned the poison away before it could touch him.

  They arrived at the base of a massive spiraling staircase opening into a cavern the size of a city. The Ancestor Halls were a labyrinth of white stone and gold covered in a thick pulsing layer of black oily fungus. The air was a soup of toxic earthen Qi that felt like lead in the throat.

  "Where now?" Valen asked, voice tight with the strain of the ten-minute clock.

  Jian sniffed. He pointed a scarred finger toward massive bone-white doors at the far end of the hall. "Straight. That’s where the heartbeat is. That’s where the rot is the thickest."

  "The Lair," soldiers whispered. "He’s going to the heart of the Beast."

  "If you aren't brave enough, leave," Valen commanded. Rank-and-file scrambled back toward the stairs. Her personal guard and a few zealots remained, hammers raised.

  Jian didn't wait. He walked forward, boots clicking on fungus-slicked stone. Kiri tucked into his shadow, a comforting weight against oppressive gloom.

  The energy here is quite... spicy, Jian, Kyuzumi whispered. It’s the Tainted Earth. It’s old, it’s heavy, and it’s very, very bitter. I hope you’ve brought enough salt.

  They reached the doors. Thirty feet high, carved with the history of a forgotten civilization.

  "Wait!" Valen shouted, reaching for a ritual bowl. "We must place an offering at the altar! We must appease the creature’s hunger before we enter, or it will strike before we can speak!"

  Jian didn't look at the altar. He walked to the bone-white doors, Ember-Steel Plate flaring with violent orange light.

  "Don't care about offerings," Jian rasped.

  He raised his boot and kicked the doors.

  A reality-warping thunderclap shattered the ancient stone, sending the doors flying inward. Jian stepped into the dark chamber beyond, voice a jagged roar echoing through the cavern.

  "You giant earthworm! I’m going to see if you deep-fry well!"

  The dwarves stood stunned. Valen’s mask slipped, revealing absolute shock.

  From the center of the chamber, something moved.

  Not a worm. A nightmare of evolution. Fifty feet long, body thin and whip-like, covered in translucent scales pulsing with sickly violet light. Head of a dragon, elegant and filled with thousands of serrated teeth. Body segmented like an insect. The Earth-Dragon, corrupted spirit of the mountain, sleeping for a thousand years.

  It uncoiled with the sound of a thousand dry leaves being crushed. It reared up, head touching the ceiling, and let out a roar that wasn't sound, but a blast of pure chemical poison. The air turned into thick corrosive green.

  Jian stood in the center of the cloud, a slow predatory smile spreading across his face. No mask. No shield. He looked at the creature like a particularly interesting menu item.

  Kiri appeared beside him, daggers drawn, yellow eyes fixed on the dragon’s throat.

  "Finally," Jian whispered, copper-gold light exploding into predatory brilliance. "A meal that actually looks like it’s worth the effort."

  The dwarves scrambled for cover. Valen stared at the madman preparing to feast on their god. The Backstage was about to get a lot more interesting.