Old Iron Anchor returned to his home — a place distinguished primarily by the sheer number of empty bottles.

He cleared a small space on the floor with his foot, then lay down amid the filth and stench with the complete ease of a man reclining in a fragrant garden. No one had walked through the door of this house in over three hundred years. The last person to enter had been a one-armed female soldier who’d once wanted to marry him — and when his indifference finally broke her, she’d left in fury and never come back.

Before Old Iron Anchor could fall asleep, several rats squeezed out through the holes in the baseboards and scattered in every direction, sending bottles rolling and clanking into one another across the floor.

Old Iron Anchor did not so much as glance at them.

The creatures skittering around in front of him might as well have been invisible air.

Outside the window, the proprietor of the Whale’s Drink Tavern — an immigrant merchant named Ganquan who’d built the place on land inherited from Old Iron Anchor’s family — was briefing a recently hired assistant called Xijiu: “Brother Anchor turns in early and likes his sleep. Don’t knock. Food goes straight through the window onto that highest iron hook — make sure your aim is good, because the rope has to catch the hook cleanly, or the rats will get it. And every three days he runs dry, so keep the wine ready at the door by then. He can skip meals. He cannot skip wine.”

“Understood. Leave it to me.” The new hand Xijiu was sharp — the kind of person who only needed to hear something once.

He stepped to the window, looked in briefly, then reached his arm through and gave the bundle of cooked food — wrapped in oil paper and tied with cord — a gentle toss. It caught the iron hook dangling from the ceiling perfectly. Whenever Old Iron Anchor wanted to eat, he’d only have to reach out from his spot on the floor.

Xijiu thought for a moment, then stacked a dozen or so bottles of wine along the left side of the door. Old Iron Anchor would see them the instant he stepped out.

This routine had been going on for several hundred years, uninterrupted through every kind of weather.

Old Iron Anchor charged no rent. Ganquan, on his own initiative, deposited the greater portion of what would have been due into an account at the Iron Guild, available for Old Iron Anchor to collect whenever he wished. Old Iron Anchor had never collected it. He had no interest in the money — his only condition was that Ganquan keep him supplied with wine. As long as there was enough to drink, nothing else mattered.

And so the daily delivery of food and wine had continued, unchanged, for centuries.

Old Iron Anchor began to snore.

The hungry rats were in considerably worse shape. They’d been watching that package overhead — the one that smelled faintly, maddeningly of food — for far longer than a day or two, but none of them had the intelligence to work out how to reach it. They went around and around in frantic circles on the floor.

When the rats had exhausted themselves trying every approach they could conceive of and come away with nothing, they finally slunk off in defeat.

The moment they were gone, Old Iron Anchor’s tightly shut eyes snapped open.

Sharp light flooded out of them.

His nose was still producing perfectly convincing snoring sounds.

He reached under the floor mat and produced a small black box, wound its spring mechanism with deliberate force, and listened as the box’s interlocking gears ground against each other and began producing a sound — snoring, deep and even, uncannily identical to his own. With the box standing in for him, Old Iron Anchor became smoke. Became a ghost. Moving with a speed and lightness that defied description — quiet as a cat on a night hunt — he drifted without disturbing a single mote of dust into the kitchen, which looked as though it hadn’t been used in decades and had the rust to prove it. He pressed something in a specific spot beneath the stove.

The entire stove unit split open without a sound.

A dark passage was revealed, angling downward into the earth.

Old Iron Anchor touched something else in some other location, and in the instant before the stove sealed itself shut behind him, he folded himself boneless into the underground passage and was gone.

Roughly a minute later, a faint glow appeared ahead in the black tunnel. Closer still, it resolved into a vast steel platform. On that platform stood a door of iron, its mechanism driven by interlocking cogs of enormous size — the gears were its hinges, its lock, its will.

The gorilla brute and the lobster-eyed man were standing guard before it, both now armored in a specialized steel plate.

When they saw Old Iron Anchor approach, both men greeted him with deep, unhesitating respect.

The lobster-eyed man ventured a question with mild curiosity: “Chief — you’re almost three minutes later than usual. You’re never off by more than a second.”

Old Iron Anchor’s expression was flat water. He made a low sound. “Ganquan’s place has a new hire. He may already know something — may have started getting suspicious. That new man Xijiu — looks useless on the surface, but he’s carrying Sky-rank cultivation underneath it. That kind of person doesn’t come to White River City to be a tavern apprentice. The cover story is laughable. Keep eyes on them both, quiet and close. The moment anything moves wrong, deal with Ganquan and Xijiu and whoever else is involved. We are at a critical juncture. I will not tolerate disruption.”

“Yes, sir.” The gorilla brute and the lobster-eyed man answered together, the light in their eyes going cold.

At that moment, standing outside Old Iron Anchor’s tin-roofed shack, was Xijiu himself.

He was there for only the span of a flash — a glance through the window, and he was gone.

When he returned to the inner room of the Whale’s Drink Tavern, the proprietor Ganquan — a man who normally wore a permanent, easy-profit smile — was waiting for him with a face that held no trace of it.

“He’s not there.” Xijiu bowed respectfully and made a subtle gesture indicating a passage behind.

“You took an enormous risk.” Ganquan’s voice was hard. “You’ve only been here a few days. You haven’t neutralized anyone’s suspicion yet — and you go scouting after that man? Do you have any idea what he’s capable of? Before you, twelve trackers — twelve, some of them better than you — died at his hands. I know what’s driving you. You want to prove yourself to the people above as fast as possible. But that hunger for achievement will only accelerate your path to a grave. Young tracker — do you have any concept of how long it took us to find this source? How many generations of effort? We’ve been working toward this for twenty thousand years. It took us three thousand years just to successfully establish ourselves inside White River City. And you almost undid all of it in three days.”

Ganquan’s voice never rose. It didn’t need to.

“I was wrong. Father.” Xijiu knelt. His voice broke. “But I cannot wait. They’re murdering people openly now — using slaves, using lives and blood for sacrificial offerings. Whether it’s to open the Water God Palace or some ancient ruin, we cannot let them succeed. If they do, we Hunters will lose the ability to contain them. Our strength has been declining. If these traitors acquire the secrets of the Water God Palace or the ancient ruin, the consequences will be beyond recovery. Father — please, send word up the chain to the Avengers and the Judges. Tell them to come now, destroy this city, and end this. If we wait any longer, we’ll watch them grow too strong to pursue — and eventually they’ll start pursuing us.”

“Don’t call me father.” Ganquan corrected him, firmly and quietly. Even in a sealed room, he never raised his voice. “Here there are no fathers and sons. There are only agents and trackers. Superiors and subordinates.”

“Yes.” Xijiu nodded, but didn’t rise — he reached out and wrapped both arms around Ganquan’s legs.

“You are an unqualified tracker.” Ganquan struck him across the face with genuine anger. “At no point, under any circumstances, can you allow emotion to direct your mission.”

“Father — the age when the Conquest Queen and the Prison Emperor shook the heavens is over. The gates of the Sky Realm are closed now. The Sky Tower cannot be returned to. We are cut off. And the Tower itself has been ground down by the Central Divine Hall until it can barely stand — who knows when, or if, another existence as powerful as the Prison Emperor will ever emerge. The traitors are growing stronger. More powerful individuals are rising among them. While we — our numbers shrink. Our holdings and territory have been broken apart by the Central Divine Hall again and again. Before long, we won’t be able to hold any position in the Sky Realm at all. Even if someone takes us in, we’ll be living under someone else’s roof.” Xijiu looked up, tears on his face. “Father, this is our moment. If we eliminate the traitors in White River City — kill every last one of those people who were cursed and warped into these fish-creatures — then this territory becomes ours. With the secrets of the Water God Palace or the ancient ruins, the Hunters could finally begin to produce more and stronger successors. This is our best chance. We have to move before the traitors do—”

“You ambition-poisoned, ungrateful—” Ganquan pointed at him, shaking. “Do you know why we are different from those traitors? Precisely because we have never let our hearts become what theirs are.”

“Even forced to live as guests in the Sky Realm, unable to return to the Sky Tower — our hearts have not changed. We are still Sky Tower warriors, and we are still proud to be.”

“The moment we bow to greed and gain, what right do we have to call ourselves Sky Tower people? What right do we have to claim we still carry the Sky Tower’s sovereign will — that will which has never been extinguished? We are the Hunters. We are not those traitors hiding in the Central Divine Hall, and we are not those cursed fishfolk hiding in this city. We are the Hunters because we have never been seduced by the material rewards of the Sky Realm. Our hearts belong to the Sky Tower, and no benefit in the world will make us forget what we are.”

“As your superior and your father, I will warn you one final time. Son — your thinking is dangerous. Turn it around quickly, or I will strip you of your status as a tracker. A Sky Tower warrior may be defeated in battle. A Sky Tower warrior may die in battle. What a Sky Tower warrior may never do is retreat without fighting. Fear is not your sin — you are a mortal being, and fear in the face of such an enemy is understandable. But as a Hunter assigned to this realm to track down and destroy traitors, you cannot flinch from the unknown like a coward. My son — without a sovereign will that stands like a mountain, no amount of power gained through shortcuts will ever make you a qualified Sky Tower warrior. More than that: whatever strength you obtain, without comprehending true sovereign will, you will never become a real powerhouse. Never.”

Ganquan let out a long, heavy breath. He waved a tired hand. “Leave tomorrow. With your current state of mind and cultivation, you cannot function as a tracker. Your recklessness today may already have put us all in danger — you need to be gone before it gets worse.”

Xijiu was silent for a long moment.

Then he stood and asked, quietly: “Father. Have you yourself ever perceived what true sovereign will is?”

Ganquan shook his head.

Xijiu’s face flushed. He lowered his voice. “Maybe that’s something they told you to keep you compliant. Maybe sovereign will isn’t actually necessary. If it were, why do the powerhouses of the Central Divine Hall not need it, yet wield such immense strength? We follow the prescribed path, cultivate exactly as instructed — and what do we get for it? The old methods may be obsolete. Strength is the most direct measure of a person’s real ability. If we could simply obtain the greatest power, wouldn’t this so-called sovereign will follow naturally on its own?”

Ganquan looked at him.

The expression on his face was the expression a man uses when looking at a stranger.

After a long silence, Xijiu lowered his head. “Father. I… was wrong.”

“You don’t actually believe that. And that breaks my heart.” Ganquan’s voice went flat. “I thought you were the sharpest of all of them. It turns out you’re worse than your brothers, who are dumb as stumps. Get out of my sight. Someone with your cultivation level daring to question methods that have been passed down across generations — that is absurd. An ant cannot understand what it is to be a dragon soaring above the ninth heaven. Go. Return to where you came from. Reflect for a hundred years. I do not wish to see your face before then. Get out.”

The fury finally broke through, and Ganquan kicked him out.

“Yes.” Xijiu picked himself up, disheveled, and bowed with full formal respect — then walked out with a face full of defeat.

He packed his personal belongings quickly. Essential travel items went into his storage ring. He returned to Ganquan’s door to say farewell.

He knocked several times. Ganquan, still furious, did not respond.

Xijiu knelt and pressed his forehead to the floor several times in silence. Then he slipped out of the Whale’s Drink Tavern without a sound, moved toward the city wall, and launched himself skyward. With a movement technique of extraordinary subtlety, he evaded the half-fishfolk sentries and dropped into an isolated, unobserved corner of the waterway. He produced a small watercraft from his storage ring, checked the area carefully with every sense he possessed, and began paddling away in careful silence.

When the craft had traveled a hundred meters out and was nearly past the outer edge of the sentry lines’ blind spots, Xijiu reached into his storage ring and withdrew a vial of black liquid — a concealment mist, to cover his withdrawal.

But someone was already standing on the bow of his boat.

A half-fishfolk man — translucent as a jellyfish, body visible through himself — stood there as though he had always been there.

“Little brother Xijiu, you’ve only just arrived — why the hurry to leave? Are you unhappy with the hospitality we defectors have been showing you trackers? Come now, we all came from the same Sky Tower once, we’re practically neighbors. How could I let you go away empty-handed? At the very least you should get to learn something worthwhile, don’t you think? Come along, little brother. Let me take you to our underground city. Every secret you’ve been wondering about — you’ll see it all at once. And please — don’t try anything foolish. Against me, whatever you’re considering will only humiliate you, and you’ll regret it afterward.”

“Even death isn’t an option?” Xijiu’s face was ashen. He laughed coldly and drew a blue dagger.

“Not an option.” The jellyfish-man laughed with great enjoyment.

One long arm swept outward.

Xijiu felt his entire body go numb.

He was rigid as stone — couldn’t move, could barely breathe. In that instant, the shadow of death fell across him, and only then, in that moment, did he understand that his father’s worry and his father’s anger had been entirely right.

I’m sorry.

He wanted to go back. He wanted to say it to his father directly — to say he had genuinely been wrong.

But there was no longer any opportunity for that.

“Little fish like you — I kill at least five a year. Young man, don’t think that one hot-blooded impulse makes you a Hunter. The Sky Tower’s justice doesn’t need the likes of you to uphold it. And even if we are Sky Tower defectors — what is that to you? You’ve been living comfortably in the Sky Realm for generations. Married, had children. Have any of you gone back to the Sky Tower even once? Have you ever seen it? No. Nothing. To you, the Sky Tower is nothing but a legend, a dream. And you think there are still powerful figures there? What a laughable notion. The Central Divine Hall reduced that place to rubble long ago. Whatever still survives there is no more significant than an ant. Young man — stop treating legends as reality. Your ancestors built up this Prison Emperor figure as something extraordinary — if he was so powerful, why did he die at the Central Divine Hall’s hands? Don’t talk to me about conspiracies. You know how it is. There are only two kinds of people in this world — the living and the dead. The Prison Emperor, however powerful he may have been, is dead. We defectors, however weak you may think us, are alive. Between the two, who is stronger? Maybe the Prison Emperor was just some simpleton your people talked up into a myth, a failure propped up by propaganda. You’re all just living inside a dream you built for yourselves. Justice? Judgment? I’m sorry — you’ve never had the standing for any of it.”

Xijiu had no power to contest the words and no cultivation left to resist. He closed his eyes and waited for death. He was a young man with an admitted streak of impatience — but even so, he had his pride, the most fundamental pride of anyone who cultivated. If this man wanted surrender, or intended to torture information out of him, then the only thing Xijiu had left to say was: you’ve got the wrong idea.

“Start talking. Even if that idiot Prison Emperor himself were resurrected right now, he couldn’t save you. So make things easier on yourself — or I won’t mind running every interrogation technique I know on your body until something loosens. Smart young man — you know what I need.”

The jellyfish-man smiled with great satisfaction.

Xijiu answered with silence.

His heartbeat was already slowing — deliberately, trained. He’d received specialized anti-interrogation conditioning. The moment torture began, his body would begin accelerating toward systemic failure and death.

He might not manage to die with a smile on his face through whatever was coming. But there was nothing his captor could do to stop the slow death process that this erring young Hunter had already initiated within himself.

“You Hunters are all the same breed. Fine — I’ll send you on your way and save myself the time.”

The jellyfish half-fishfolk man leaned close to Xijiu’s ear and murmured, almost gently:

“You wanted to know our secret, didn’t you? Then I’ll tell you — since this is the kind of secret that only the dead get to hear. That’s right. We are performing a blood sacrifice. We are right now in the process of resurrecting our ancient forefather. Once he awakens, he will open the ancient ruins beneath White River City, and we defectors will rise in a single stroke — become the ones doing the hunting, and deliver every last one of you self-righteous fools straight to the Central Divine Hall. Certain parties there have expressed considerable interest in you. Isn’t that a magnificent secret? Too bad you’ll never be able to carry it back to your people.” He began to laugh. “Shouldn’t you be thanking me? Young Hunter — before you die, don’t forget that my name is—”

“Honestly, your name isn’t that interesting to me. But could you possibly repeat what you just said about the secret? In a little more detail?”

A young man in a silver mask appeared from behind the jellyfish-man, placed a hand on his shoulder with every appearance of friendliness, and smiled.

“I’ve been running around out here all night and my clothes are soaked through. All that effort, and I only just caught the part about secrets that only dead people know. Can you appreciate how hard my life is?”

Both the jellyfish-man and Xijiu stared.

Who was this?

When had he arrived?

The jellyfish-man moved to strike — and discovered, with genuine shock, that he could not move at all. More than that: he was being lifted off the ground by the collar, dangled like a small animal. He was a national-ruler-level cultivator. In front of this person, he was less than a shrimp.

“You — you’re—” The jellyfish-man’s soul nearly left his body.

“Me? I’m probably that Prison Emperor your people keep describing as too stupid to be real.” The silver-masked young man produced a smile of blinding, uncomplicated brightness, and added as an afterthought:

“The new one, of course.”