The smoke from the Golden Crane Merchant Guild’s burned-out treasury drifted through the jade streets of Silver-Falls, a grey smudge against the clinical perfection of the city. Jian watched the Silver-Thread enforcers as they moved through the wreckage. They weren't just securing the area; they were methodically picking through the rubble for any surviving spirit-stones or loose silk. It was a practiced, casual looting, performed by men who spoke of "betraying the Heavens" while acting exactly like the petty tyrants the Heavens preferred.

  "No matter which realm it is," Jian murmured, his voice a dry rasp that barely carried over the sound of a crumbling wall. "When the disparity in power becomes apparent, the behavior becomes expected. The script for the 'Victorious Sect' always looks exactly like the script for the 'Bandit Raid'."

  The enforcers nearby ignored him. To them, Jian was simply the crazy guest of their Young Master, a useful tool whose ramblings were the price of his combat utility. Julian, however, adjusted his blue silks and stepped beside Jian, looking out over the cowed merchants.

  "It is simply nature up here, Brother Jian," Julian said, his tone one of mild, educational patience. "The law of the High Immortal realm is clear. The strong harvest, and the weak are cultivated. Everyone who enters this world knows that is how the cycle functions."

  Jian’s eyes glinted as he looked up at the sky. The bruising purple of the atmosphere seemed to pulse with a cold, geometric awareness. "Right," Jian whispered. "That is how the law is. The Director loves a consistent rule-set. It makes the eventual collapse so much more satisfying."

  Julian didn't understand the comment, though he noted the strange "Edge" that flickered in Jian’s copper pupils. He dismissed it as another symptom of the man’s fractured mind. In his view, Jian was a powerful outlier who lacked the fundamental understanding of cosmic hierarchy.

  "We should return to the Pavilion," Julian suggested. "The Azure Auction is being held in three days. We can acquire whatever herbs you require there, or perhaps raid a rival sect’s stores. There is no need for you to wander the dirt of the lower streets."

  Jian didn't move toward the floating islands. He turned his head slowly, sniffing the air with a rhythmic, twitching motion that made the nearby guards shiver. He pointed a long, scarred finger toward the distant, hazy blue of the horizon.

  "What I need isn't in a shop," Jian rasped. "It isn't in a box. It’s over there. Across the salt."

  "The Ocean of Infinite Silence?" Julian’s brow furrowed. "Brother, there is nothing out there but water-demons and stagnant Qi. We can buy high-tier sea-marrow at the guild for half the effort."

  "No," Jian said, his voice gaining a sudden, absolute weight. "I need that one. The flavor is specific. It’s the law of the deep, and it doesn't sell itself for gold."

  Julian sighed, but he knew better than to argue with the "Calamity" when his stomach began to growl. He signaled to his elite enforcers, a group of four men who had reached the second and third stages of High Immortality. These were masters of Law Perception and Domain Manifestation, men who could delete a mountain range if given a week to prepare.

  "Very well," Julian said. "If the sea is what you desire, we shall go. I will summon the Cloud-Piercer treasure-ships."

  They reached the cliffs overlooking the vast, churning expanse of the ocean an hour later. The Silver-Thread Clan brought out their finest flying vessels, sleek ships made of enchanted cedar with sails that glowed with a soft, white light. The enforcers began to board, their armor clanking in the salt air.

  Jian watched them with a look of profound boredom. He walked to the edge of the thousand-foot drop, his tattered rags whipping in the gale.

  "Senior, the boarding ramp is—" Julian began.

  Jian didn't wait. He stepped off the edge.

  He didn't fall. He walked. His boots hit the air as if it were solid stone, descending a staircase of nothingness until he reached the surface of the water. He didn't stop there. He kept walking, his weight simply pushing through the surface tension until he was waist-deep, then shoulder-deep, and finally, he vanished beneath the waves.

  The enforcers stared from the deck of the ship. "Is he... is he swimming?" one asked.

  "No," Julian muttered, his face pale as he looked into the dark depths. "He’s walking on the seafloor. Too slow, he said. Everyone, get your Yin-repelling talismans ready. We're going down."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The journey across the seafloor was a surreal nightmare for the sect disciples. They were forced to trudge through the silt and the kelp forests, their protective fields shimmering as the massive pressure of the deep attempted to crush them. Jian led the way, his "Edge Aura" creating a private bubble of airless void that ignored the weight of the ocean. He moved with a relentless, jerky pace, his eyes searching the darkness for specific resonances.

  Occasionally, Jian would lunge into a crevice or a forest of glowing coral. He would emerge moments later clutching a "Void-Eel" or a "Crystal-Scaled Octopus," the creatures writhing in his nothingness grip. He would flick the best cuts of the meat into a ripple in the air—a gateway to his internal realm.

  "Saphra," Jian’s voice would echo through the water, amplified by his Qi. "Prepare these. The children need the fluid-yin to stabilize their new cores."

  Inside his soul-realm, the alchemist would catch the offerings, her hands busy with jars of brine and celestial vinegar. To the enforcers outside, it looked like their "Master" was simply grocery shopping in the middle of a lethal abyss. Jian even stopped occasionally to cook, using a compressed flare of Dragon-Fire to sear a piece of sea-bass right there on the seabed.

  "Even in the killing sea, he’s holding a picnic," one enforcer grumbled, his spirit-shield flickering as a giant crab scuttled past. "Does he have no sense of danger?"

  "He is the danger," Julian whispered, his eyes fixed on the back of Jian’s head.

  After two days of trudging through the dark, the seafloor opened into a vast, silent plain of grey silt. In the center of the plain sat a stone tablet, jutting out of the mud like a rotted tooth. It was weathered, covered in ancient, non-sect script that seemed to shift whenever someone tried to read it. There was no obvious Qi emanating from it, but Jian stopped dead, his head tilting.

  The enforcers circled the tablet, their hands on their weapons. "It looks like a boundary marker," the eldest enforcer said. "Or a seal for a curse. We should probably leave it alone, Senior."

  "Touch it," Jian commanded.

  The disciples looked at each other, their faces filled with hesitation.

  "You touch it," the youngest whispered to his captain.

  "No, you’re the scouting specialist," the captain hissed back.

  Julian, feeling the pressure of Jian’s gaze and not wanting to appear cowardly, stepped forward. He reached out a gloved hand and pressed it against the cold, slimy surface of the stone.

  The reaction was not a flash of light. It was a spike in water pressure so violent it caused the enforcers' shields to crack. The light from the surface vanished as a massive shadow moved overhead, eclipsing the dim bioluminescence of the trench. The tablet beneath Julian’s hand didn't just break; it disintegrated into a fine, black sand that was instantly sucked upward.

  The seafloor beneath them began to rise. Or rather, the mountain they had been standing next to began to uncoil.

  From the silt and the darkness, the Leviathan emerged. It was a primordial spirit, a tier of existence that made the Flood Dragon of the lower realm look like a common worm. It was mountain-sized, a draconic whale-serpent with entire islands of coral and skeletal shipwrecks embedded in the thick, leathery hide of its back. Its eyes were twin, rotating storms of grey-blue energy, and each breath it took created a current that shoved the High Immortals back fifty yards.

  Jian stood his ground, his rags fluttering in the new current. He looked up at the massive, prehistoric face of the beast and licked his lips. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face, his copper eyes reflecting the storm in the creature's gaze.

  "Primordial," Jian whispered, the word carrying a weight of absolute hunger. "Good. I was getting tired of the appetizers."

  He turned back to the squad of Silver-Thread elites, who were currently struggling to maintain their footing against the Leviathan’s aura.

  "Get it," Jian commanded, his voice a low, vibrating thrum that ignored the water. "I need the core. And the meat... the meat looks like it has a very rich, fatty texture."

  The enforcers let out a collective, soul-weary groan. They were second and third stage High Immortals, the peak of their generation, and they were being ordered to hunt a literal god of the deep as if it were a stray hog.

  "Senior... that thing is a world-ender," the captain gasped, drawing a sword that glowed with the law of "Severing."

  "Then end it," Jian said, stepping back and leaning against a coral outcrop. "The script demands an 'Epic Boss Battle.' Don't let the audience down. If you fail, I’m eating the survivor."

  The Silver-Thread elites realized they had no choice. They formed a high-tier battle formation, their domains overlapping to create a zone of stabilized reality in the center of the Leviathan’s storm. Julian took the lead, his silver-thread energy weaving a web of lethal snares in the water.

  The Leviathan opened its maw, a cavern of darkness filled with rows of serrated, obsidian teeth. It began to gather a beam of "Black-Tide" energy, a force that promised to erase the very concept of the seabed.

  Jian watched with a critical, hungry eye. The Silver-Thread elites thought they were here to chaperone a madman. As the ocean itself rose to crush them, they finally began to suspect that they were just the garnish on someone else’s main course.

  "More salt," Jian muttered to himself, his hand tightening on the hilt of the Nothingness. "Definitely going to need more salt for this one."