It was good to have ditched that pushy bastard, Shi Bo, Mai Yin told herself as she and her sister rushed through the dark forest. Her intent was spread out all around.

She caught glimpses of tower beasts here and there. Weaklings. Nothing to threaten her. This tower was not nearly challenge enough for a Lux Embodiment cultivator.

"What do you sense, Mai Yen?" she asked, irked as always that she had to ask.

On the previous floor, nothing had risen above the Peak of Spiritual Refinement level. Even here, they had seen only a handful of Lux Endowment cratures.

"I don't sense Shi Bo," her sister said. Mai Yen was rushing along with a concentrated look on her face. The emerald slippers on her feet moved silently on the hard-packed dirt of the path. "Something has happened to him. There are others here, but… masked."

Mai Yin pushed down jealousy. While Mistress Eri had given Mai Yin the priceless dragon fan, those emerald slippers called to her. From the moment her sister slipped them on, she'd wanted them.

It was how their duo had always worked. Mai Yin did the heavy lifting. She was expected to carry out the offensive attacks, and Mai Yen stood in the shadows waiting until the fight was almost over before stepping in and claiming credit for the kill.

It wasn't fair. They had been born on the same day, in the same hour, under the same stars and joined at birth in a single sack, and because of that their lux channels were somehow shared.

Mai Yin was mistress of physical luxes, red, yellow, and orange. No one could touch her. Mai Yen had seemed to lag behind as a child, even the simplest cultivation beyond her. Their parents had always told Mai Yin she would have to protect her younger sister, that she would be the cultivator for their family and rise high.

It was not until at eight years old when they presented Mai Yin to the sect they'd chosen for her, when the Grandmaster had sat down, looked at her, and demanded her parents bring in her sister. He had poked and prodded them both with his lux senses. Mai Yin had bristled while Mai Yen sat quietly, accepting the intrusive touches of lux.

And then the Grandmaster had delivered his pronouncements.

"These girls are one soul in two bodies," he told their parents. "Your elder daughter, Mai Yin, can touch only physical luxes. Her sister Mai Yen, only spiritual luxes. Ordinarily, that would disqualify both of them from being cultivators, but I see a possibility here."

He stroked his chin, his white beard wagging. "I will take them both. But their training will be exquisitely hard."

Mai Yin hadn't minded that. She'd always expected to work hard. What she hadn't expected was for her sister to be proclaimed as some sort of cultivating genius when, after only a few months of cultivating, both broke through to the Peak of Bodily Refinement at the same time.

Mai Yin had the benefit of years of education, while Mai Yen had only started her cultivation on entrance to the sect. The Grandmaster had come once more and explained to them that their cultivation would always be linked thusly. "You must remain close your entire lives," he told them. "You each have half of what you need. Together, you two will outmatch any pair of cultivators of your rank. But separately? You have no chance at all."

Mai Yin wouldn't have minded that. She wouldn't have cared that for the first dozen years of their cultivation she practically carried Mai Yen on her shoulders.

It wasn't until Mai Yen caught Mistress Eri's eye and the Prism issued them both an invitation to her personal sect that Mai Yin began to truly resent her sister.

Now, at a rank where the spiritual luxes mattered as much as the physical, her spirit-talented sister still kept her shy and retiring habits, but Mai Yin knew better. Three decades of life together had taught her to read her twin's reactions.

Mai Yin's sense of her sister's insufferable smugness had only grown since entering the floor. "What do you sense?" she asked again.

Mai Yen shrugged. "Shi Bo is gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone where? Gone how?"

"His lux was taken up by a more powerful being," Mai Yen reported. "He must have challenged a champion in his arrogance, and fallen."

"Not surprising," Mai Yin said. Her sister's intense look increased. "What are you thinking about so deeply?" she demanded. "We have a task to do."

"Something is wrong in these woods," Mai Yen said. "I feel as though the trees themselves are whispering to me… telling me terrible things. Take care of your spiritual defenses."

Easy for her to say. Mai Yin accepted some of the refined spiritual lux from Mai Yen's core and used it to bolster her defenses. That was about the extent of what she could do with spiritual lux.

At the same time, she shaped her lux armor just in case. Mai Yen wasn't wrong. There was a presence in this wood, something watching her.

She formed armor from red lux, enhancing it with orange to add spikes to the shoulder pads and along the gauntlets. It settled over her form, shaping itself perfectly, barely hampering her as she walked.

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Her sword was in her right hand, the dragon fan in her left. She snapped it open and closed, feeling the power.

Mai Yen glanced at it. "Don't do that. It's breaking my concentration. I'm trying to cover for both of us, keep our presence muffled. But with you plodding along like an ox, that's hard to do."

Stung, Mai Yin retorted, "Maybe you should give me those slippers then. They seem to be masking your footsteps well enough."

"They'd be as much use to you as an umbrella to a fish," Mai Yen snapped. "The slippers enhance my spiritual senses. My use of indigo lux, something you don't know anything about."

She demonstrated, skipping forward and suddenly appearing thirty paces ahead, then stepping back.

Mai Yin watched in jealousy. What she could do with that ability! She could be engaged with one enemy and then suddenly step in behind the back of another, stabbing where she wasn't expected, darting back.

Movement had always been one of her weak places, with no spiritual lux available to her to develop a technique using indigo lux the way Mai Yen had just done.

Her control slipped and she snapped at her sister. "Show-off."

Mai Yen glared back. "I'm tired of you always acting like I'm the burden here," she retorted. "Both of us have to work together, but going forward, as we advance farther in our cultivation, you'll be relying on me more than I ever relied on you."

"Nonsense," Mai Yin spat. "You're the one holding me back."

She'd always known it was true, always resented her sister for taking the spiritual luxes that should have been hers. Without Mai Yen's existence, Mai Yin would have reached Lux Dominion stage by now. Already, she had done far more than any other cultivator with such a ridiculous handicap could have been expected to do.

She snapped the dragon fan in her hand again.

Mai Yen glanced down. She scowled and raised her hands. Mai Yin could feel her begin a weave. "You dare move against me?" she snarled, and reinforced her lux armor.

"What? Mai Yin stared at her, mouth open. "What are you—"

But Mai Yen had had enough. The voice she'd been hearing all this time whispered more clearly now. She could hear it.

Take what is your birthright back from the one who stole it. Cut the head from her shoulders. Take the slippers from her feet and your lux channels will be healed.

Mai Yin snarled. She raised the fan in her left hand and snapped it open, waving it at Mai Yen.

A flame dragon snaked from its folds, hurling itself at Mai Yen's shocked and horrified face as Mai Yin swung her sword. Her sister would be dead before she knew what had happened.

But Mai Yen wasn't there. The dragon exploded. Her sword passed through flame and air, touching nothing.

Where had she gone? Mai Yin whirled. There was her sister, hands raised, a weave coming at her.

"You need to listen to me!" Mai Yen was shouting. "Block out the voice! I know you haven't as much spiritual lux, but your Intent can stop it! There's a technique on you, can't you see? You've got to stop it! I'm sorry!" Tears were streaming down her face. "I'm sorry! I didn't see it before, I wasn't looking for it, I... I failed you, sister!"

Good of her to recognize that before her death.

Mai Yen screamed, raced forward, slashing, her Intent focused entirely on her sister, to hold her in place for the strike.

And then she felt cold and burning at the same time.

She looked down, there. Her own sword, embedded in her chest. Her hand on the handle. She stared. "How? What?" and fell to the ground.

Even as her blood pooled out, her sister bent over her, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mai Yin. It was the only way."

Mai Yin's eyes closed, a final time, as Mai Yen bent, taking the fan.

Joshi turned back to the others.

"Your technique worked better than we'd hoped," he told Hiroko grimly. "They turned on each other. One slew the other. She will be here shortly."

"Well done," Chang-li said.

Hiroko was looking pale. She nodded. "I don't know how much of an illusion I can keep up on this one," she said quietly. "She's strong in the spiritual luxes."

"You've done well. Help us counter whatever she tries to use," Chang-li said. He placed a hand on Hiroko's shoulder. She twitched, then gave him a forced smile. "I know this is hard for you," he said quietly. "Using spiritual lux as a weapon like this. But you have already won two victories for us. Thank you."

Joshi cleared his throat. "Let me face her," he told Chang-li. "You work the scripts and keep her contained. I need an impetus to push me to Lux Endowment."

"Are you sure?"

Chang-li and Joshi stepped away, lowering their voices.

Joshi nodded. "I do. I've been focusing on my Intent. It's not right. Sun Wukong was correct in telling me that. I need to use it in a fight. If I'm forced to use my Intent against a cultivator two tiers higher than myself, one who's strong in spiritual luxes, it will force me to concentrate."

"I thought you understood your Intent already."

"So did I," Joshi said. "But Sun Wukong showed me it's not right."

"Your Intent was not to be bound," Chang-li said. "Or so you said." He had always found it a confusing sort of Intent, but that was the point. A well-formed Intent meant something to the cultivator in question, not to others.

Chang-li was still trying to find a pithy phrase to explain his own Intent, and he was concerned too, because he felt like he had multiple focuses. The idea of learning cultivation and passing it along was strong, but was that truly enough to make him a cultivator?

"What I can do to help?" he asked Joshi.

Joshi was looking at Hiroko, who was standing with Min. The two were drinking water and talking quietly. "You have helped me," he said. "So has she. I need to work the rest out. But thanks to the two of you, I'm close."

"All right," Chang-li said. "But if you get in trouble, I'm not holding back just so you can hopefully push a revelation. She's stronger than either of us. We just saw her, she just killed another cultivator in her own rank."

"Her sister," Joshi added. "She killed her own sister."

"It was rather tragic. Hiroko's skills are beyond anything I could have imagined. Well," Chang-li took a deep breath, "then we need to prepare ourselves for what comes next."

He took a look at the battleground they had chosen. Here, the forest road passed through a clearing with dense trees all around. Remembering the spiders he and Joshi had fought, Chang-li and the others had filled in the gaps between trees with webs of lux and concealed techniques. They would keep the cultivator trapped here in the glen until the fight was concluded.

He'd been preparing for two and was more glad than he could say it would only be a single, especially if Joshi wanted to face her on his own. Chang-li thought it too much of a risk, but he respected Joshi's decision. He would not interfere except as a last resort.

Now, Chang-li checked his buried scripts again. He'd used a lot on the fight with Shi Bo and more here, but he was also creating new scripts with every moment of idleness, then storing them for later.

These new scripts were stronger than the ones he had created just a few weeks before. Not only had he reached the Lux Endowment tier, increasing his strength, but his command over different shades of lux meant that with the same quantity of lux, he could get more precision, more control.

He would not say he was confident in this upcoming fight, but he was as prepared as he could ever hope to be.

"She's coming," Joshi warned.

"Positions, everyone," Chang-li ordered, and the four scattered across the grove to prepare for their enemy's arrival.

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