"But what can I do?" I repeated.

The Fisherman, the Dragon, and the Carp that leaped over the Dragon's Gate all looked at me.

I was small, so incredibly small in front of them. I felt like a spark against the sun, like the shadow of a man staring into the depths of a black hole.

"Fate is the sum of our actions and the expression of our desires. Dane was fated to die in that moment not because he chose to do so, but because his actions would lead him there. A boy you've met, Barlo Hew, is fated to be a God-King and has a chance at Imperium not because the world will bend for him but because he will bend the world or die. And your fate? Do you know your fate?"

I shook my head.

"It is death or preventing death. It is running and hiding. You know your own insignificance. That is good; knowing your limits means staying alive, but you revel in it. You refuse to grow and even when you did it was by wasting Primordial Qi. Any God-Imperium who has made it to this rank did not do so with a slow saunter but a consistent run. They saw insurmountable odds and fought against them. They knew they were doomed, yet they walked forward anyway. If you can not fight now, then train to fight tomorrow. If you cannot win now then hide to win another day, but do not just sit with your small moments and wait for eternity to swallow you whole."

The dragon roared and flew up into the clouds. He flew above fate, above me, and above the river.

"Cultivators are flawed. Our persistence, at times, is fueled by twisted desire, but there is still beauty in it, there is still strength. I was there when desire overtook the man's soul and turned the land into a desert waste. I was there when Ah-Min-Tah gained false immortality. I was there when Orpheus looked back at his wife and I was there when Rin Wi freed herself from servitude. I will be there if Chin ascends and I will be there if he fails. I am the Fisherman of the Damned, I change fate and I witness it. You have been given a gift, and opportunity so rare that few could compare themselves to it. And yet you sit still and do nothing while surrounded by mortals who will walk to the ends of existence for their beliefs."

The words rang true but I still didn't understand what he wanted. He just said an eternal war was in the works.

"What can I do then?"

"Cultivate."

"I am. I'm trying-"

"Not enough," he spoke. "You train to run and hide, you train to keep. You lavish in the protection of Wukong and that book and now even me, you sit and wait like an ant in a cage."

"You?"

The man came back and the dragon was gone.

"Me," he repeated. "My fate and actions have interfered with yours and now the nature of four Imperiums has interacted with you and you have witnessed the Dragon's gate. This alone is a gift. The touch of an Imperium hides you from the others. Wukong and the Tome are allies. They can touch each others powers more than most, but now I have touched you and added onto that as has Nei Lo, as has the Gate."

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"But the war," I replied. "Once it starts, the authority of an Imperium will mean nothing to other Imperiums. Its not that they can't touch it, but that they refuse to instigate just yet."

"Do you think I don't know my own kind boy?" The Fisherman asked.

"How long do you think you'll have? A year? A decade? The river is far from the waterfall. The war is soon but it is soon for Imperiums. They cannot act without moving a lot of the others first. The Second Pact of Life prevents that. The Pact is a living thing made out of all Imperium, a power that limits them through their own nature. To rebel against it alone, no matter the Imperium's power is lunacey. Its more likely that you will fall to a fellow cultivator than Tai Jey or Tiamat.

"You are practically hidden from all Imperium until the moment when the war starts and unless you shelter under Wukong or Nei Lo, that moment will be your end. And still you do not prepare, you just wait and wait, ruling over mortals and wasting your time away with little men."

"I'm not wasting my time," I replied, feeling insulted at his reference to the villagers for some reason.

And that made the old man pause.

"Perhaps not with them, but when you spend ages doing nothing. When you lay quietly staring at a sun you will outlive and gain nothing for it. That is a waste."

I looked towards the river.

"How old are you?" I finally spoke back. "How many other fish started that journey with you? What happened to them now? How many enemies do you have?"

I saw the river, I saw the struggling fish and I saw the Gate. I knew what was up there. It wasn't peace.

"You will not find peace with power," he replied. "There is no Heaven so true for the powerful."

"Then why? Why cultivate to grow more powerful?"

"Why live?" He answered. "Why breathe now to breathe again later? Why eat? Why wake? Why don't you just end it all again as you had once before?"

I kept looking at the river, unable to answer.

"To live is to act. It is to fight and fight again and continue until you can't. You cannot have peace, not forever, but you can give it. Like you do now for the village you can do so for the world.

"To live is to care no matter how quickly things end. To live is to see death behind you and know that even if he will take your life, he cannot take your heart. Wrap yourself in the warm blanket of oblivion but fall not to its slumber, boy. You know this, I speak nothing new and now I ask you to live and not waste your gift."

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