Eight immortals sat on cushions in the dark and stared at the reports laid out before them on the hard stones. Silently, each one combined the words written within them with countless conversations lodged in the depth of their memories. They struggled to assemble and interpret these varied threads of evidence into a sensible explanation.

It was a most difficult task indeed.

The unfamiliar could be frightening after such long lives. Itinay knew this well, even as she strove always to deliberately embrace new possibilities. This case, however, left her bizarrely puzzled. She would not, she recognized, be able to weave a complete tapestry of events herself. A weakness she realized before any of her sisters.

Yang Sung, an awareness integration realm cultivator of the formation pavilion. That was the identity of the unfortunate scout slain up in the high hills. Not an idle death, he'd been targeted, stalked, and murdered with deliberate intent. His scout team partner, Meng Sen, made that conclusion clear in his reporting.

Killed while gathering lilies for his dao companion. A minor lapse, trivial even, one sufficiently small that Meng Sen, partnered with the fallen cultivator for decades, had never reported. A regrettable lapse, on both sides. Proper awareness might have prevented this tragedy, or if not, it could have at least spared the cultivation of the unfortunate woman who served as the recipient of those blossoms. She was laid low by qi deviation following her lover's death. Even if she managed to recover in time, it was unlikely she would ever overcome this bottleneck and progress further.

Grief often inflicted such doubled losses, the entwined blessing and curse of love.

The lapse did at least offer up one key fragment of information. Yang Sung had not been any sort of specific target. There was nothing special about him, he was simply a scout who had possessed a vulnerability making him comparatively easy to ambush.

Meng Sen's testimony contained additional valuable nuggets. He had, by quickly ascending to the highest point among the twisting ridges to the east of the gateway, managed to observe the demonic cultivator as she escaped. Critically, he had gained a glimpse of a woman covered in blood carrying the body of the slaughtered scout.

This had shocked the veteran disciple almost as badly as it horrified the elders.

Anyone slain by a demonic cultivator should be reduced to dust, body and qi alike consumed and subsumed into the endlessly myriad tiny maws of the plague. To keep the corpse intact required extraordinary measures. It demanded a plague-blocking barrier, most likely woven into some form of artifact clothing. Itinay knew those well, she'd produced hundreds of them over the course of her life. Yet such an implement would burn a demonic cultivator's skin at a touch. To use such a thing would demand a severe price in pain.

It was yet another mysterious puzzle piece. Why would anyone take such a risk simply to preserve a body?

Meng Sen's report also preserved another critical observation. The disciple, in the third layer of awareness integration, had considered pursuit, but upon observing the demonic cultivator, seemingly fleeing for her life, recognized that she was significantly faster than he. Wisely, he recognized this as indicating an enemy with superior cultivation to his own, despite observing her from beyond the extent of his qi sensing capability. Layer for layer, even demonic cultivators with excellent movement arts could not match the potency of the Stellar Flash Steps.

At the same time, the scout also judged that the demonic cultivator was far too slow to be immortal, even one with a terrible movement technique. He doubted even that she was capable of the speed a soul forging realm elder should produce. That deduction, and the implied existence of any demonic cultivator in the spirit tempering realm, led Itinay to a single, terrifying conclusion.

The murderer could only be a reborn Scoria Scorn.

The other seven immortals agreed on that point, universally. It was a horrific thing to contemplate. Their enemy had defied the odds and returned to life, and in mere decades, not centuries. She retained their most valuable secret: location.

Doom lay draped over them all. A few words from the mouth of the masked demonic cultivator and all of Mother's Gift could be destroyed.

Yet the armies of Bloody Roam were not standing upon their doorstep. She had not told him. Likely, she had not told anyone else.

Itinay could piece together the method behind the death of Yang Sung. Tracing his motions, discerning the timing pattern behind his patrol, and finally hiding submerged beneath the water lilies. It would not have been swift, a matter of months at a minimum.

"If she wished to reveal us to Bloody Roam, she would already have done so, there has been ample opportunity," she declared to her sisters. A chorus of agreement, silent and felt through qi rather than spoken, answered this determination. Though it was difficult to find any certainty beneath such a pall of devastation, it appeared to be true. Nor did she think it likely that circumstances would change that. Scoria Scorn would not inform Bloody Roam.

Agreement was universal on this, and upon the final aspect of the report, that she had fled to distant lands following Yang Sung's murder. There was no indication that she intended to return. She had killed a member of the sect, preserved the body, dumped it somewhere, and then vanished. Eight immortal minds deliberated and came to the confident conclusion that these things had happened.

Not one of them could guess her motive.

They passed the reports around, murmured, meditated, and struggled through devastating speculation at to what possible purpose the demonic cultivator intended to put Sung Yang's corpse. Hours passed. No one so much as turned on their cushions. They would not abandon this problem. Too much depended upon it. They would contemplate for weeks, or even months, if necessary. Failure to solve this puzzle was not acceptable, ever.

After a full day of consideration, Artemay stood up, walked a circuit around the room, twisted her neck back and forth to audible cracking, and then stared at the ceiling as she returned to her position. "A thought," she announced, voice partially coy and partially confident. "This woman is unwilling to betray our location to Bloody Roam. Sensible of her, really. Suicide is a rather poor accompaniment to revenge."

This was not, Itinay recognized sourly, a universal truth. Many cultivators of the old world had been all too willing to sacrifice everything in such pursuits. All the grand old stories featured at least one such revenge-maddened fool, and some of them an entire sect's worth.

"It occurs to me that we have not followed this river all the way to its source," Artemay continued. "Bloody Roam is not going anywhere." This too was well-established. The armored demonic cultivator was positively ancient, old when the old world was young. Even Iay considered him a practically geological fixture. "Eventually, I imagine, he will discover that Scoria Scorn has reemerged from her remnant existence."

This was another broadly obvious observation. Demonic cultivators had no means to conceal their qi from each other, and while a wanderer might evade notice for centuries, that was not forever. Even if her death had gone unnoticed, it would be impossible to hide her reduced cultivation. "At which point he will, inevitably, kill her for the death of the Fuming Shade and concealing our location. As such," dark blue lips twisted into a cruel smile as Artemay came to her conclusion. "She is now his enemy too."

Itinay's eyes widened. She turned her neck and stared hard at her sister as she processed this. It took much rapid effort, but she could find no obvious flaw in the reasoning. Examination of the problem from every immediately available angle only served to reinforce the sensibility of this strange realization. History supported it. The demonic cultivators were not a monolith. Even during the demon war, with the world united against them, they'd fought each other. Two of the original seven great betrayers died at the hands of their comrades. If they had been able to drain each other's qi, they would have ceased to exist long ago.

Those who had betrayed all allegiance once would not hesitate to do so again.

"She cannot fight directly," Neay, it happened, reached the same conclusion with equal speed and chose to make the obvious audible. "Not in the spirit tempering realm, perhaps not ever. To survive, she must eliminate Bloody Roam, and infighting is the only path."

"No," the realization crashed through Itinay, an avalanche of bare truth. "Or, rather," she turned to her sister and declined her head. "It is more than that. She still wants to destroy us. That is her scheme. She intends to incept an attack upon us, one that will disadvantage Bloody Roam and perhaps even destroy him."

"Snow Feast," the green-skinned and vine-covered immortal replied. The connection flashed around the circle, immediate. "Sung Yang's corpse is a clue, a device to reveal a hidden land. Scoria Scorn will drop it into the river." The irrigation-minded farmer recognized an element Itinay had not considered. "That will draw Snow Feast's eye in this direction, to the place where Rust Reaper was dispatched on Bloody Roam's orders."

They all knew that must be so. It had been clear from the moment the scouts brought back a description of the demonic cultivator now lairing nearby. It had been a worrying development, now it was potentially one that would unleash the end. "Snow Feast knows this too. He will think a prize was hidden from him and not be wrong. He will shove Rust Reaper aside and bring his own alliance to besiege us when the next horde forms."

"Scoria Scorn knows there are at least eight immortals here," Itinay continued the thought. "Snow Feast will be tempted to attack, but he cannot lead a force powerful enough to overcome us, and she knows that too." Following the path, she traced a sketch of what must be Scoria Scorn's ultimate plan. "She intends to use Mother's Gift as a millstone, wearing down all the demonic cultivators that remain, until all who would oppose her are gone, and if we should fall in the process, so much the better."

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She rather admired the demonic cultivator's scheme. Every possibility led to gains for the rogue resurrectee, and none exposed her to any additional risk.

"Snow Feast is in the fifth layer," Ohlay spoke up for the first time. Carefully and slowly, she described the circumstances. "And ambitious. Many of those who would have sided with the Fuming Shade against Bloody Roam will now follow him. The scouts have observed patterns suggesting this. We can defeat him just as we did the Fuming Shade. This scheme would seem to favor us."

It was a reasonable reading. The mountain-dwelling demonic cultivator would bring a powerful force, knowing what had happened the last time. Doubtless he would gather every ally he could bribe or persuade. Somewhere between three and ten in total, that was the possible range. Dangerous indeed, but insufficient. They might need to wake those in closed door cultivation, and perhaps even Starwall city would be leveled as battle smashed through the walls, but they would triumph.

At first glance, it appeared an almost ideal opportunity, a chance to greatly prune enemy ranks.

Itinay refused to believe it. Scoria Scorn had sacrificed her arm and her body without hesitation, in order to seize a desperately slender chance to survive, successfully. She would not underestimate them that much, nor would her plan be so straightforward.

Swiftly and carefully, she read through the reports one more time, and added to them another examination of the old profiles from the demon war the sect had established for every last known demonic cultivator. She had memorized them all long ago.

Rust Reaper's was the key. It was detailed, for he had been part of the orthodox alliance, even fighting valiantly in numerous battles, for some time, only turning when his mentor changed sides as the demonic cause rose towards triumph near the end. Itinay had even observed him in person, in council, once.

He was a follower, one who bowed before strength rather than opposing it. While he gave his loyalty to the strongest possible master, in this case Bloody Roam, he was, critically, openly subservient rather than resistant when faced with a superior foe. He would not, Itinay realized, fight Snow Feast over territory.

Instead, he would concede. He would fawn and plead and then, when an opportunity arose, he would run back to his true master. The location of Mother's Gift would be lost for certain. They would win a great victory in one battle only to be destroyed in the next.

It took mere moments to relay this conclusion to her sisters. Silence fell as they digested this possibility. In the end, Artemay broke that soundless interval with a single word. "Trap."

"So it would seem," Neay's spoken agreement solidified the assembly behind this conclusion. "How do we respond?"

Another lengthy interval of silence fellow over the sisters. Itinay chose in that moment to step back, to consider not merely simply things, the practical and possible, but to dissect the true nature of the problem before them. Scoria Scorn had gone away, the scouts were certain of this. Protocols had been changed in any case; her little trick would not be soon repeated. They need only respond to this specific release, to the acquisition of critical information by their enemies; a loss already incurred, impossible to prevent.

She stopped, all thoughts flash-frozen and paused mid-thought.

That frigid clarity, a single step back, provided a powerful reflection. She, and her sisters, had jumped too far ahead.

Snow Feast would find Yang Sung's body. That could not be stopped, it was something moved beyond their reach. But that did not mean they could not act at all. Meng Sen's report was clear that Rust Reaper had not witnessed anything, not yet. He was blind to these events, made to dance along to proxy actions and outcomes because Scoria Scorn could no more speak to him directly than Itinay herself.

And a proxy scheme such as this could be, at least in theory, forestalled. All was still liquid. The ice had not yet solidified.

Rust Reaper was the key piece, one that they could, in theory, reach. A simple solution, eliminate the problematic element from the game board. Only implementation remained an obstacle. "We need to kill Rust Reaper," Itinay declared in an ice-cold voice. "Now, before he learns any of this, before he encounters Snow Feast. With him gone, all Snow Feast will know is that there is a hidden land here, and since a horde will tell him that in time, nothing changes." Vocalization served to confirm her conclusions. It was the eternal danger of tricky schemes; anything that relied on the motion of many pieces could collapse if a single one was unexpectedly removed.

"How can we possibly kill him?" Neay, as ever, did not hesitate to raise the obvious practical objection. Her normally serene face bent in gritted irritation as she gave voice to the obstacle. She, clearly, wanted this to work. "He is too far away from the gateway and shifts his motion in a complex pattern. No counterstrike can pin and catch him, not without revealing Mother's Gift to all. He knows he's too weak to fight alone." Old profiles and scout reports alike suggested he had just barely reached the second layer of the celestial ascendancy realm. Typical of a follower to make no progress without the war to support him. Few would be eager to share their rewards with such a limited ally.

Itinay softly turned her gaze towards Artemay. She knew full well that she must not be the one to say the words, to give voice to a wild scheme they had concocted during long sessions over the game board. Only her hooded sister, known for her convention-defying ways, had the ability to convince the others it was anything but madness.

It was also inevitable, for as much as she might wish it, Itinay knew this was not her fight. In a duel, she could defeat Rust Reaper and lay him low before her, but it would take some passes. She could not slaughter him in a single blow. That lack, that weakness, she recognized it as the price to be paid for constant involvement. Immersed too deeply in the world, in planning, she did not rise.

If they managed to survive this crisis, she vowed to fight against that bottleneck. She needed strength, not simply that of the sect, but her own. That, in turn, would make the sect stronger.

For now, she could only trust in her sister, as she always had. Thankfully, such ties were the opposite of weakness.

"There is a possibility," Artemay whispered this quietly, but there was no hiding the wicked smile that her bare blue lips adopted as she spoke. "Though it is somewhat," she paused for effect. "Gruesome."

Neay gave her sister an arched, vaguely mocking look, as if she could well guess where this scheme was proceeding. Possibly she could. She did not lack for creativity and knew the rest of them as well as anyone ever would. "Do elaborate sister," she suggested.

"Our younger leatherworker, Qing Liao, is immune to, and therefore undetectable by, the plague. Had he the strength, he could kill Rust Reaper easily. He does not, but his immunity, as it happens, is a properly of the blood, and the blood retains it for some time; a protection far more potent and durable for an immortal than any concealing array." With each word, the smile grew ever more terrifying, until it might have killed a mortal to look upon that horribly vicious face. "It could even, if it coated the whole body, render one of us entirely undetectable to the plague for the duration of a hunt."

Green eyes moved between Itinay and Artemay in rapid succession, not fooled in the least as to the origin of this macabre option. Eventually the glare settled on the youngest sister to level its accusation. "And you have some means of achieving this without killing our young initiate?"

Thankfully, Itinay had prepared exhaustively for this question. "I have experimented extensively and have uncovered a means to fashion an outfit that can cover the skin from toe to scalp and will hold a very thin liquid layer between the two surfaces, including a hood to cover the ears and much of the face. It has been tested using animal blood and the qi signature remains viable for nearly four hours." That was already more than double the best concealment formation they could use for any immortal. "And it can be renewed, without producing any gap, at least once, perhaps even twice." Qi could force the drying blood out in favor of new blood coming in, though this strained the fabric and would eventually burst it.

"Miraculous," Neay noted with more than a little obvious suspicion. "And why have you not mentioned this previously?"

It was and exceedingly fair question. Thankfully, the answer was equally so. "The only material that works, that is sufficiently hydrophobic, is sharkskin. The sect has very little of that stored. At present there is enough to garb one of us, for one mission."

The rivers and lakes of Mother's Gift contained many different types of fish, but no sharks. It was over a thousand kilometers, as the crow flies, to the ocean. Resupply was utterly impossible. "I have tried every possible alternative but found nothing." It was a seemingly ridiculous restriction, and she intended to keep trying, but success seemed unlikely. No expression of cultivator power, of qi manipulation, could bring the ocean closer. The whole panoply of truly marine resources was lost to the sect, and no amount of rationing had prevented depletion over the millennia. "Also, this is not an accommodating garment. Whoever is dispatched will need to be sewn into it and," Itinay paused to take a careful breath. "Shave their hair."

Six faces stared back in shock. Such an action was no small thing, not to those who had melded flesh, mind, and soul into an immortal body. It was an act of deep mutilation, not some transient adjustment. Hair would grow back, of course, but so would an arm. Cutting off either was almost equally unwelcome.

Neay recovered quickly, possibly because she realized that she was not being asked to volunteer. "If only one can go, then the choice is clear." Her head turned to focus her gaze on Artemay. "And that is appropriate, as this was surely your wild idea." No one brought up the possibility of shaving Iay's head and covering her in blood. Some things were not to be contemplated, not even in the face of possible annihilation. "Sister, please do try your best to keep young initiate Qing Liao alive." The pale green expression turned sour, like fruit left out too long. "I recognize that you must take him with you, but this bizarre idea to use his blood only emphasizes how irreplaceable he is."

No one asked if the young man was willing to donate blood on behalf of the sect, or to be hauled through the sky to bear witness to a battle between immortals. It was what must be done, so it would be. Yet Neay was not wrong to not the potential consequences of this new revelation. The ability to channel the initiate's gift through the medium of blood, however limited it might be, opened up a wide range of grim possibilities. Itinay trusted her sisters to avoid any irreversible actions, for now, but in extremes knew that she would be the first to reach for the knife.

Survival was an absolute necessity. They would hold nothing back to accomplish it. All had made sacrifices, including the lives of others, and they would do so again, many times. The price, though high, was worth paying. To save humanity, almost anything could be endured.

Frightfully, she suspected Scoria Scorn thought much the same, but only regarding herself.

They voted, but it was swift, perfunctory, and unanimous. All understood the choice, and what was necessary.

When it was done, Itinay quickly approached Artemay. "I will meet you by the gateway." There was no point, in taking this path, of doing so with even tiny inefficiencies left behind. It might take no more than a minute to cross the Killing Fields at a run, but why waste that? "And sew you up. You will have to collect Qing Liao. I suspect he will be rather terrified." A suitable response, she conceded privately. Artemay was just unpredictable enough to have properly earned her reputation.

"Thank you, sister," the hooded gaze focused, calm now, all humor removed. "This is a good opportunity you spotted, though it is not a solution. It will only buy time. The vultures have caught out scent, and their circles are growing smaller all the time."

Itinay nodded. It was surely true. If Scoria Scorn could ignite a civil war among the demonic cultivators simply by leaving a corpse in the right place, matters had reached a truly extreme state. "Sister, Neay is right. We need Qing Liao. Once he becomes strong enough, all of this will come to an end. We just need to hold on until that day."

"I'll be careful," Artemay nodded. She smiled brightly, light on her feet. "Such strange circumstances the plague creates. If it weren't so awful, it might almost be fun."

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