My head slumped back on the pillow, and I let out a breath. A part of me couldn’t help but feel utterly defeated, as if all of this had been for nothing. Then my head shot back up as an idea came to my mind.

  “One or two spells a day, until I’m healed?” I asked. The priestess nodded, and I let out a breath, then reached into my Etherius locker, pulling out a bundle of papers, fanning through them.

  “I have hundreds of spells, they’re just not mine,” I said. “I’m going to have to be judicious with my use of them, but…”

  Salem started to laugh, and then he reached into his own locker and pulled out glyphs of his own.

  “Here,” he said. “We prepared a few each, but none of us have learned that paper spell of yours.”

  Each of my other friends handed them over, writing down the various words they’d used to set them off, while Shé Rui just looked confused. Martha was the one to explain it to him.

  “Each sheet has a stored spell that I assume goes off with the words written down. I don’t know what paper spell he’s referring to, but–”

  “Paper swarm,” I said. “It reinforces and allows me to control swarms of paper. It’s usually seen as a sub-par combat spell, unless you have something else that makes it useful. Paper can be useful, but it isn’t an affinity spell, there won’t be any honeycombing structures to make armor or anything.”

  “Ah, talismans!” Rui said, nodding. “I see. It could be compared to the Path of the Wind Talisman Master. Store techniques from yourself and others in arrays, then use wind to move and release them strategically.”

  “More or less,” I agreed.

  “I don’t advise this,” the elderly priestess said. “Fighting is draining and straining. Even with only one spell…”

  “It’s her life,” I said. “I can do a bit of strain. But don’t worry, I don’t plan to die today. I’ll stop myself when it starts hurting.”

  The old woman clacked the prayer beads around her neck, then placed her hand on my head, sighing.

  “So be it, child.”

  Our group – minus the priestess, who had to leave to attend to other duties – started discussing how we could re-tool our plans. The Shé family was in the city in its near entirety, save for a handful of young people who were too weak to be of any major help.

  All of that plan went out the window when we arrived back in the Citadel of Ether. The city was partially on fire, the Erudite was floating overhead and releasing blasts of magic down on strange figures.

  Aberrants. Three of them. One looked like a mass of a hundred teeth, and was firing off blasts of spiked canine tooth-spears, each of which bled thick, gelatinous globs of blood whenever Henry struck it down. Another looked like a six-headed figure made of smoke, vanishing and re-appearing, tendrils attempting to force their way down his throat to choke and strangle him. The third looked like a human who had been turned inside out, with organs on the outside, bones sticking out at odd angles. It used ropes of its own veins and tendons to attack. All three of the aberrants were surrounded by clouds of demons, constantly pulled fresh from the hells thanks to their mere presence.

  But there was a fourth figure, one not surrounded by crowds of demons hungry to sup on human flesh. They were cloaked in a veil of rippling light, and thus hard to see, but they moved with a speed entirely unlike anything I’d seen before. I thought they were teleporting, if not for the fact that every time they appeared, the demons around them were blown back by the force.

  “Nascent immortal,” Yushin said quietly, watching the figure. “Nearly powerful enough to match an Erudite one on one.”

  “No,” Shé Rui disagreed. “She is a nascent immortal. But only the first step. She is powerful, but she needs the aberrants to close the gap.”

  I turned, taking in more of the city, and quickly realized Henry wasn’t the only one fighting. There were more aberrants elsewhere in the city, and the demons had spread out to terrorize. A handful of champions stood against the aberrants. I spotted a woman wearing a dress of what looked like flowing liquid gemstones, a tiny figure surrounded by a half-dozen demons and elementals who had to be professor Toadweather, and a nraig breed dragon, scales glimmering like opals, blasting out cones of multicolored light. There were other figures too, professors from across the university, and in the distance I could see saint Hykym, Amos, and the other wadjetktt. There also seemed to be an alarm voice of some sort, currently ringing out into the air.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Multiple aberrants have formed within the city. All citizens, please evacuate to the nearest emergency shelter immediately. All combatants, assist as needed. Multiple aberrants…”

  My eyes shot over to Yushin, and then to Martha. Martha’s face was white, and her hands were shaking. Jackson’s lips pressed together

  In some ways, it wasn’t as bad as the fight against the Matriarch. Her aberrant had been far more powerful than this one. The demons she had summoned had been stronger as well. In the end, Henry had been forced to use a tremendous amount of magic to take her down, as well as call upon many of the school’s nastier artifacts, paying a price I didn’t understand. He didn’t need to do that for this.

  Not only that, but there were far more warriors this time. Even as I watched, priests of a dozen small gods – gods of baking, of smithing, of butchery, and more – were sanctifying sections of the city. Demons were banished en masse as those little gods, the ones not seen to be great warriors, mighty poets, or powerful spellcasters, worked through their clergy to save as many lives as possible.

  But in other ways, this was far worse. The aberrants had appeared all across the city, and had summoned loads more demons. Far more of the populace was in danger. The nation had its methods of dealing with aberrants who appeared, or even those that broke through the wall to kill, but none of them were designed for eight aberrants appearing at once.

  And this time, there were cultivators moving about.

  I didn’t have long to think, however, as a pack of imps turned and began to rush down the street, spotting us as fresh meat. Shé Rui slashed his hand out and a current of wind transformed them into mincemeat. It killed most, but several more rose up from their blood, oddly larval looking worm creatures. Jackson and Yushin handled them, a flash of fire and a pulse of chi wiping them out. As Yushin’s chi built, however, Martha’s eyes widened.

  “Yushin, wait!”

  It was too late, the power had already flared out from her.

  “You don’t have your defenses,” Martha finished quietly.

  “What? Why?” Salem demanded.

  “Well, she had needed them off so the seal could work. After that, we were teleporting back here. She had to leave them unmasked to draw out the sect cultivators, especially before the ritual.”

  Shé Rui’s eyes swept the sky as several forms began moving toward us with shocking alacrity. I focused on them as well, and could make out four, or maybe five. Two were so close together that I wasn’t sure to count them as separate or not – probably the dual cultivation elders of the clan. A powerful looking old woman was moving on a flying sword, racing towards us, presumably the leader of the clan, while a woman who looked remarkably like Yushin was vanishing and re-appeared, teleporting. But it was the last figure, who ran across the sky as if running on a paved road, who had me most concerned. As soon as she locked eyes with Yushin, she turned and began running toward the Erudite battling overhead.

  That was all I had in mind before the leader of the Shé clan slammed into the ground in front of us, sliding off her sword.

  “I felt your chi, but so too did the sect sent to kill us,” she said. “We must prepare to fight.”

  “We need to help the cit–” Yushin started to say, but the elderly cultivator was already shaking her head.

  “The defenders of the city have this well in hand,” she said. “If you had arrived a quarter hour ago, perhaps. But they are doing better.”

  As if to prove her words, a man in chef’s clothes who wore the symbol of a god of baking around his neck stepped around a corner. A faint light pulsed around him, and he had three children clinging to his legs. Imps swooped down, thinking them easy prey, only for the necklace to pulse and the imps to fall to ash.

  “The most effective solution we can do is eliminate the dark sect,” Yushin’s mother said, appearing next to us. “Near as I can tell, they have six cultivators of true strength, as well as their leader. Matriarch, can you kill the leader?”

  I watched, hoping Yushin’s mother would do something, say something. If not, her daughter should. Instead, they simply nodded to one another, and remained focused on business. I couldn’t be too upset about that – there was a demon attack – but it still felt sad to me.

  “Most likely. We are both stagnant at the first step of Nascent Immortal, but I have been in the stage longer than she has.”

  “We will take on three of the core cultivators,” the dual-cultivators said as they landed. “Together, we are worth more than two.”

  “I can handle one,” Yushin’s mother said.

  “Martha and I can handle one as well,” Shé Rui said. “Which means you children have one to fight.”

  “We can–”

  “No,” the elders said as one.

  “If you over-extend your power, you will not be in fit shape for the ritual,” explained the eldest. “Yushin, you must preserve your strength. You are already drained. Why?!”

  “Sense his spirit,” Yushin said, waving at me. “We assisted him in undertaking a ritual to expand his ether and flame.”

  I felt a shiver as the cultivator’s perception locked onto me. It had been a quick lie, and a good one too. With the state of my spirit, it was clear I’d been channeling a lot of power. But I’d also at least doubled, maybe tripled, the size of my pool from channeling that much power. Claiming she’d played a minor role in helping me shouldn’t raise suspicions around cultivators – lots of Paths required taking injuries for greater power in the long run.

  “Are you even in a fit state to assist?” snapped the eldest.

  “It injured me, far more than I expected,” I admitted. “I can fight, but not for long. Still, if it is only one elder, and the help of Jackson and Salem? We can do that.”

  “It will have to do,” Yushin’s mother said. “If only you had told us before, we could have planned for it.”

  That was all she had time to say, as with a surge of light, a half-dozen cultivators appeared around us.

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