Faced with three opponents, Jiang didn't hesitate.

To turn and run.

He heard the fancy cultivator shout in outrage a moment later, and a fireball came racing down the pathway after him, but by then he'd already made enough distance that dodging it wasn't an issue. The full sprinting speed of a cultivator was nothing to be scoffed at, after all, not to mention that this cultivator didn't seem to be as dangerous as Zhang. His fire came slower, seemed less hot, and faded quicker.

Fortunate, that – if he was going up against three cultivators at Zhang's level, he may as well give up now. Even still, this was going to be… difficult.

"What sort of coward runs!?" the first cultivator shouted from behind him. "At least die with some honour!"

Honestly, what did they expect? That he'd just stand there and fight them directly when it was three on one? Not to mention the woman who'd tried to kill him while invisible – how was that honourable? The narrow walkway was a killing ground, and the absolute darkness was his only real ally. He needed range for his bow, and if he could separate them, his chances would improve from impossible to merely terrible.

Another fireball sizzled past his shoulder. He spun – both to loose an arrow and also to see how close they were. If they were faster than he was, he'd have to try something else. Fortunately, it seemed like a combination of surprise at his actions and a better reinforcement technique on his part meant that he had opened up some distance.

His arrow seemed to almost vanish into the dark as it sped towards his pursuers – he hadn't bothered taking much time to aim, so it was more to keep them cautious than to actually hit anything. A heartbeat later, there was a dull whump of flame as the fire cultivator burned it out of the air.

Well.

That wasn't ideal. Certainly, it cost the cultivator Qi while costing Jiang nothing – except for an arrow, of course – but it also meant his only weapon was going to be significantly less useful than he'd hoped.

A whisper of leather on stone scraped behind him – soft but distinct. Jiang's instincts screamed. He kicked off sideways just in time to feel a blade's edge cut the air where his ribs had been, the missed strike sending a spray of water at him and revealing the woman again. Fortunately, the spray of water didn't seem to be an attack, just the remnants of her technique failing.

His first thought was that fighting another stealth user was deeply unpleasant. Her technique wasn't flawless, but it seemed much better than his. She didn't make much sound moving, but she wasn't entirely silent. The faint drag of her boots, the way the water on her cloak hissed against the stone – even how each strike seemed to disrupt her technique and force her to reactivate it – made it possible to react to her attacks.

But she only had to hit once.

Most concerningly, she was clearly faster than the other two. Jiang scrambled back to his feet and continued his retreat, mind racing as he tried to figure out how to slow her down.

The crossroads he passed earlier came into view up ahead: the path splitting in three different directions, black water yawning beneath. Taking the corner would slow him down, giving the woman time to catch up. He didn't have time. He poured Qi into his legs, more than he ever had for a single movement, and leapt.

He had intended to simply clear the corner, to land on the walkway a few dozen paces ahead. But he had never truly pushed his reinforcement technique like this, had never put his full, cultivator strength into a single, explosive jump. He sailed past his intended landing spot, the sheer, unexpected power of his own body a shocking revelation. For a terrifying moment, he hung above the black abyss of the water, on a collision course with the side of a massive stone pillar.

His reflexes, honed by years of hunting and now sharpened to a razor's edge by Qi, took over. He twisted in mid-air, planting his feet against the cold, damp stone of the pillar for a fraction of a second. The impact jarred him to the bone, but he pushed off instantly, using the pillar to kill his forward momentum and redirect it, launching himself back towards the walkway. He landed hard, stumbling a few steps before catching his balance, his heart hammering against his ribs.

That… had worked better than he'd expected.

The extra distance gave him a moment to think. He turned to face where the cultivators were coming from, pulling an arrow and nocking it to the string of his bow as he pulsed his Qi outward. It wasn't much – just a thin ripple – but the wave slid over the darkness, over the pillars and walkways, over the water below. For a heartbeat, everything felt still… except for the faint disturbance in the centre of the path, moving directly towards him.

The woman's stealth was good – better than his in a direct fight – but unlike his own, it was focused on fooling physical senses, not Qi senses.

He drew and loosed in a single smooth motion, packing his bow with as much Qi as he could manage to keep it from shattering. A hiss of pain and a shimmer of water was his reward as the woman's technique broke, revealing her as she fell backward, clutching her leg.

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A non-lethal wound, but enough to slow her.

Another fireball hissed across the water at him before he could finish her off, the other two cultivators closing rapidly. Instead of continuing to flee back down the path towards the Broker's office, though, Jiang turned towards the edge of the walkway. His last attempt at a jump had given him an idea.

Jiang sprinted for the edge of the walkway and leapt again, out over the black water toward the nearest pillar. As he flew, he poured every ounce of focus into the shadow clinging to the pillar's side, forcing it into a thin ledge no wider than his palm. His boots hit it, and it held for a fraction of a second before shattering like brittle glass. But that instant of traction was enough to let him kick off towards another pillar.

The second jump went cleaner, but the third didn't. His foot slipped on the wet stone, and he threw his arms around the pillar, hugging it as tightly as he could and narrowly avoiding a plunge into the water below.

Good thing he wasn't heavy – and even better, the shape of the pillar meant he was able to hang on easily enough. He pressed himself against the cold, damp stone, listening. He couldn't hear his pursuers, but fortunately, the few jumps he'd managed had carried him far enough away from the path that he could be easily seen.

With a little luck, none of them would be able to follow his path – but then, his luck had been pretty bad lately, so he reactivated his stealth technique just in case. Unfortunately, while he was temporarily safe, he was also a little stuck.

How was he supposed to get off this thing? He couldn't just drop into the water; the splash would give him away instantly.

He shifted one boot, testing the slick surface. Awkward or not, he had to move. Jiang pushed himself slightly out from the pillar and coaxed a shadow into shape beneath his foot, forming a platform no wider than his boot. He didn't quite know how he'd managed to get a shadow to solidify enough to take his weight, even for an instant. He knew he was doing something different, but somewhat irritatingly, the effects of the Pact were purely instinctive – they didn't come with an instruction manual. Still, if he'd managed it once…

Jiang focused on the platform beneath his feet, concentrating on trying to make it more real. It wasn't anything he hadn't tried before, but to his surprise, something seemed to have changed – he could feel himself investing something into the construct.

Interesting. It wasn't Qi he was spending – or, at least, not entirely. It wasn't an entirely distinct energy either, but something softer, almost like a blend of Qi and something else. It felt like… mental endurance? Concentration? Something like that, anyway.

He didn't have time to explore it here, but the implications were pretty amazing: this could very well be how he could make his shadows combat viable. If he could maintain that mental pressure under stress, he could form weapons or footholds. Probably not defences, considering how quickly the constructs shattered under his weight, but that was still a lot better than he'd had an hour ago. He filed the thought away for later – right now, he was stuck on the side of a pillar hanging over water of uncertain depth, while being hunted by a trio of cultivators.

He pushed off. The shadow shattered under him with a faint hiss, but it held long enough to fling him toward the next pillar. Without the momentum of a running start, his jump was a lot less impressive, and he landed much lower on his destination pillar than he would have liked. Still, he was able to push off towards the next pillar, aiming to curve back towards the path a little bit past where he'd first encountered the cultivators.

Another platform. Another push. Each jump cost him height, and the pathway seemed to loom higher with every leap. By the final jump, his legs ached, and his lungs burned. He threw himself forward, stretched to his absolute limit—

—and slammed stomach-first into the edge of the walkway. The impact knocked the breath from his chest with a painful whuff. For a moment, he dangled, arms trembling. Then he hauled himself up and rolled onto the path, sucking in sharp breaths while trying to stay as quiet as possible.

Probably a lost cause, considering his method of travel was hardly silent, but hopefully the echoey nature of this place had helped disguise his actual location. Either way, he couldn't afford to wait around and see.

He pushed to his feet and started running again, boots whispering against damp stone. The walkway sloped upward, hugging the cavern wall. With each step, the oppressive silence returned, broken only by his breath and the faint drip-drip of water echoing through the darkness.

A few minutes later, Jiang slowed. It looked like the path ran directly into a wall, but even in the gloom there was an obvious difference between this section and the rest of the wall: the surface was cleaner, less weathered, almost polished.

He approached warily, bow ready. A quick tap with his knuckles produced only a dull, solid thud. No hollow spaces, no seams – just an unbroken barrier. Tellingly, he could feel the faint thrum of Qi under his fingers when he pressed a hand to the surface.

It wasn't hard to figure out who was responsible for this – the woman clearly used water techniques, while the man dressed in the more practical robes had been throwing fireballs at him. That left the arrogant one. He must have a stone affinity – or maybe it was earth. Jiang hadn't paid much attention, and in all honesty, it didn't really matter; the only relevant part was how he was going to get past this.

There was no way his shadows would be of any use here – even if they were stronger now, it wasn't going to be enough to carve his way through a boulder. His bow was useless for obvious reasons, and his knife would be rendered little more than useless scrap long before he made it through.

"Figures," he muttered, voice flat. All that effort to avoid the cultivators, and he was going to end up running right back to them.

It wasn't that he couldn't get out of this place – if nothing else, he could always just return through the Broker's office – but that would leave him trying to track down the man the old-fashioned way, and in a city like this… those were some very long odds. No, the only way he'd be able to find the Broker was to follow his path and hope that wherever it ended up gave him some clues as to the man's identity. Fortunately, it seemed like the Broker was trying to protect something – why else leave three cultivators to try and kill him?

Which meant Jiang only had one way to get past this obstacle: kill the man who made it. He suspected – hoped, really – that the barrier wouldn't outlast its creator.

So he was back where he started: fighting three cultivators by himself. The woman was injured, true, and his shadows were now a potential weapon. But his Qi was dangerously low, her stealth still made her a threat, and the fire-wielder could still burn his arrows from the air.

He almost felt sorry for them.

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