The Flood Dragon had chased the Corvid for two full days before it finally gave up, or got tired, or decided that whatever it is Flood Dragons do when they stop trying to murder something was now more pressing. The Corvid did not care why it stopped. He only cared that it had stopped.

  Well, that and the fact that he was still alive. That part mattered.

  “I only took the thing’s eye,” he muttered to himself as he tucked his singed feathers close. “Just the one. It’s a Flood Dragon for heaven’s sake. It’ll grow another. Gives him character.”

  He laughed, sharp and raucous, the sound bouncing down the side of the cliff face where he had finally taken shelter. The laughter echoed strangely in the narrow stone cleft he had claimed. He ignored that. Everything sounded strange now. His body was not what it used to be. He was not what he used to be.

  He wedged himself deeper into the small crevice carved into the cliffside, the Great Green rising like a living ocean around him. The trees towered far above and far below, an impossible labyrinth of trunks and branches and shadows. It was one of the few places in this entire monstrous forest-world where a creature like him could hide, lick its wounds, and regain a little strength without something larger trying to eat him.

  He had to admit it. He was exhausted. He, the Corvid, the nearly phenomenal, semi-cosmic trickster bird of two worlds, had been run ragged. That damn dragon had nearly cooked him half a dozen times. He could still smell burnt feather if he breathed too deeply.

  So yes, he would be staying in this little cubbyhole for a couple of days. Maybe three. Maybe a week. Let his new eye fully settle in. Let the remaining power inside him knit itself together again. Let his nerves stop screaming at him every time something boomed in the distance.

  He closed his newly restored left eye, marveling again at the clarity. The vision was sharp and clear, but it was not entirely his. Something in it felt borrowed. Something in the shape of the pupil felt very slightly wrong. The Flood Dragon’s contribution, perhaps. Or the tribulation’s. Hard to tell. Harder to admit.

  “Still,” he grumbled, “it is nice being able to see out of both again.”

  A pause.

  “Stupid wyrm. Should’ve taken the other one too.”

  He settled himself down, resting beak on chest, letting his nature draw in the energies that circulated through the world. Thin stuff, this world’s qi. Weak. Watered down. Hardly enough for anything meaningful. But he would make do. He always did.

  For an entire day, he sat quietly, slowly pulling in wisps of power, slowly smoothing out the scorch marks on his soul.

  Until something tugged at him.

  A sharp, sudden pull.

  A hook in his nature.

  A thread winding itself around the core of him.

  The Corvid snapped fully awake.

  “What. What is that.”

  The sensation grew stronger.

  “Hey. Hey. I didn’t authorize this.”

  He fluffed his wings, feathers bristling.

  “I didn’t agree to anything. What the hell is this supposed to be?”

  The tug deepened, threading through him like a karmic chain. He turned his attention inward. There, wrapped around his essence, was a strand of metaphysical binding, thin and bright and unmistakably permanent.

  A karmic tie.

  A foundational bond.

  A connection of fate.

  “Oh no. No no no. Absolutely not. What is this garbage.”

  He looked up through the narrow crack of sky visible from his crevice.

  “What are you doing up there? Anyone even paying attention? Hello? Heavens? Bureaucracy of cosmic incompetence? Anyone?”

  Silence.

  “Right. Of course. Nobody looks down here unless something is on fire or exploding. No wonder you all missed this. That’s how I got here in the first place.”

  He fluffed again, pacing the small space.

  “Bottom-of-the-rung trash to your world. That’s me. The great Corvid. Reduced to patchwork feathers and bad luck.”

  The tug pulled again, and he followed it with his awareness.

  His eyes narrowed.

  The thread pointed toward the clearing.

  Toward the meditation site.

  Toward the young man.

  “…Oh. Oh no. Meathead, what did you do?”

  He felt it now, clearly. The imprint. The conceptual anchor. The forging of an idea inside the young man’s inner world. And tied to it, tied irrevocably, inexcusably, inexorably to him was the Corvid’s own karmic signature. A foundational piece of his nature folded into the anvil the boy had awakened.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “No. No. No this is not good. This is not good at all. This is the opposite of good. This is something I would do. You are not allowed to do things that I would do.”

  Another tug.

  Another confirmation.

  The bond was complete.

  The window where he could have dodged this, shoved the tie onto something else, maybe dropped it into a passing beast or a shrub or a particularly unlucky stone, had closed. And he had been too busy being chased by a half-blind Flood Dragon to notice.

  “Well, this is perfect,” he muttered. “Just perfect. Everything is my fault, apparently. Again.”

  He stared upward once more.

  “Is anybody listening? Anybody watching? Of course not. Let me make this clear for the record. This is not my fault.”

  His voice echoed against the stone.

  Only the forest answered, rustling somewhere far below.

  The Celestial Administration of Natural Order was many things, but efficient was not one of them.

  At the moment, one of its mid-tier officials was buried in paperwork. Literal paperwork. Scrolls, jade slips, stamped wooden slats, inked feathers, requisition forms, karmic audit sheets, destiny flow manifests, emergency tribulation authorizations, and the occasional handwritten note from a supervisor who retired a century ago but whose instructions still counted because no one had filed the counter-request in triplicate.

  It had taken nearly three days for the alert to even reach his desk.

  Now he stared at the report in front of him.

  A summoning event.

  Unauthorized.

  Unregistered.

  Unanchored.

  Three entities of unknown identity listed only by mantle titles had interfered. Moon. Thread. Essence. Old designations pulled from archaic ritual protocols that practically nobody used anymore.

  The mortal involved was not a mortal.

  Technically he was three mortals.

  Technically he was one.

  And then the final note.

  A Corvid entity exerted influence at the point of crossover.

  Entity power level: flagged as impossible.

  The official stared at the paper.

  Then the heavens.

  Then the paper again.

  “This should not be my job,” he murmured.

  He made tea.

  He read the incident again.

  He made stronger tea.

  Three days later, after tracing every possible record, the conclusion was clear. Someone had used the mantle protocol to hide their identities. Someone very high up. Someone with authority. Someone the official did not want to anger.

  He looked at the time remaining until his retirement.

  Three centuries.

  He looked at the report.

  This investigation would take at least five.

  Slowly, methodically,... respectfully, he scrubbed his entire investigation from the system. Every trace. Every file. Every copy. Every backup.

  He bound a single hard copy.

  Stamped it anonymously.

  Sent it up the chain.

  Then he took a three-hour break to sit on the nearest cloud and stare into the void.

  Far across the administration, another functionary paused mid-review. A single alert chimed on their desk. A new cultivation path had begun in a low-tier world.

  They reviewed it.

  Old style.

  Obscure structuring.

  Unusual conceptual layering.

  Something not seen for several million years.

  They frowned.

  Made a note.

  “Review on next realm up,” they murmured.

  “No. Not realm. That is too soon.

  Second realm. That will give enough time to see whether he dies.”

  They stamped the file and moved on.

  The forest here was deeper. Older. Its breath slower. Its thoughts heavier. Ancient spirits slumbered beneath moss and root. Rivers glided silently under shadowed canopies. The air itself seemed to hum with memory.

  And in a small clearing, barely a notch of light carved into a continent of green, sat a man.

  He was scarred.

  He was broken.

  He was burned in ways that had nothing to do with flesh.

  Moon.

  Or what was left of him.

  He sat cross-legged, body trembling under its own weight, cultivating with the desperation of someone who had once known what true power felt like. His cultivation had been mighty enough to tear mountains apart with idle gestures. He had lived longer than empires. Longer than some small stars.

  Now he was Realm Two, Rank Two.

  Barely above the common rabble of this world.

  The rage kept him alive.

  The hatred kept him breathing.

  The memory of humiliation kept him focused.

  He did not know if Thread or Essence had survived.

  He did not care.

  He could still feel the leftover burn of tribulation lightning in the air, slowly fading, still dense enough to keep beasts away. He had maybe a week or two before they returned. Before he would need to run. Before he would need to hide.

  He thought of the Corvid.

  He thought of the old man.

  He thought of the stupid, idiotic summoning that had destroyed everything.

  Never once, not even in passing, did he consider that any of it had been his fault.

  He was Moon.

  He had been right.

  He had been powerful.

  It was the others who had wronged him.

  He would survive.

  He would rise again.

  He would rebuild.

  And then he would take revenge.

  The Great Green rustled faintly around him.

  He ignored it.

  He closed his eyes.

  And he cultivated.