Cultivator Shi Bo laughed as he cut through the attack launched by his two opponents.

The large, balding cultivator rushed him, staff whirling, but awkwardly, the way Tower Beasts often wielded weapons they didn't truly know how to use. That would be to his advantage. As the swordsman swung at him, Shi Bo unleashed a Nine Prongs attack. The mirror copied it, shooting it at the bald cultivator as well.

There were other enemies lurking. Someone shot arrows at him, but Shi Bo's Intent was strong enough to knock them aside. He had expected the Nine Prongs to drop one or the other of the bandits, but both of them dodged the assault ably. One single prong of the attack struck the bald cultivator's staff, and it dissolved away into nothing.

The bald man growled, and lux gauntlets formed on his hands. He crouched, setting himself and looking much more comfortable now. Something about this struck Shi Bo as wrong. Tower Beasts weren't usually up for this kind of subterfuge.

There was a flash overhead and a discordant note against Shi Bo's Intent. He recognized that feeling as a lux creature in the area. Now that he was looking for it, he sensed it hovering not far from the bald bandit.

Then Shi Bo realized what was subtly wrong with the notes he was hearing. Blue lux surrounded him, weaving deftly into his own, a subtle technique disrupting his own channeling.

An illusion cast by — not a Tower Beast. No. He knew this sort of signature. There were cultivators here.

Shi Bo roared and flexed his will, countering the illusion with the tricks he'd been taught by his grandmaster, and the strings of blue lux fell away from his mind. He saw with his own eyes the reality of his attackers.

He wasn't facing Tower Beasts after all. There were a handful of them across the river, gamboling and swimming, which had doubtless helped confuse his senses as he approached this ford. But he was facing four cultivators, and weak ones at that.

Now Shi Bo felt equal parts amusement and disgust that such weak opponents had thought they could fool him. "I see through your tricks!" he shouted as the swordsman came at him.

The man was wielding a blade in each hand, the left-hand blade aflame. The other man came in punching on his right-hand flank. Shi Bo laughed and called up a technique. From the feel of it, neither of them was past the Lux Endowment stage. They had been a threat before he had seen who they truly were. But now, with their traps sprung and their faces revealed, he had nothing to fear.

"Are you the ones my mistress told me to find and kill?" he demanded. "She will reward me when I bring her your heads!"

A series of arrows came raining down on him, their heads tipped with encapsulated lux techniques, a bit more advanced than he had expected from the low-ranking archer he sensed lurking just out of sight. He knew now what they were doing. These four had planned an ambush for him and had set a trap for him. They were using up days, perhaps weeks, worth of scripted techniques all in one burst, trying to capture him, and it wasn't enough.

Again, he pulsed his lux. He heard two different people crying out, both women from the sound of it. That was the source of the two weak signatures he'd felt, Peak of Mental Refinement at best cultivators. The arrows stopped coming, and the illusion that had been formed around him once more was gone.

The two men stumbled backward, the swordsman recovering first. He rushed forward, his face intent rather than angry.

Shi Bo laughed again. "I will enjoy crushing you beneath my feet!" he called. "It has been some time since I've had the pleasure of putting insects in their place. I will—"

Something passed between the two men, and they moved at him in a coordinated pincer movement. The bald one threw out a technique that wrapped around Shi Bo's ankles like a chain. He reached down to sever it, but the swordsman took advantage of the distraction, following up, pulling a technique scroll from his soul space and hurling it at Shi Bo.

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It exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke that stung his senses and rattled his Intent. He'd never come across a technique like that from such a junior cultivator before.

Shi Bo's hand grasped the chain and the lux in it began to unravel. Through the smoke and fire came the swordsman, slashing with his burning blade. He caught Shi Bo across the shoulder, slicing his robe and causing a narrow gash to appear on his chest. The gash immediately began to burn.

Shi Bo shouted, now in shock at the audacity of these upstarts. "You continue to struggle?" he yelled. "You must know that it is hopeless! I eat cultivators like you for breakfast!"

He pushed out with his Intent once more and was pleased to see how badly the bald one staggered, how sharp the screams from the women were. Only the swordsman kept his feet, but even he bowed his head.

The swordsman raised his eyes, and for the first time, Shi Bo felt a pang of fear. They were so cold, so intent.

He spoke. His words were lost in the noise all around, but in answer, a dozen scripts flared to life around Shi Bo.

Too late, the Golden Locks cultivator realized that the pair of men had backed him into another set of concealed traps.

"How do you have so many scripts?" he shouted.

As the techniques tore at him, he conjured a knife. The duplication mirror in his hand also became a knife, and he began to hack at the various techniques unleashed upon him.

"Even if you defeat me, you've used up all your weapons. There are five more of us here in the Tower!"

The swordsman approached, his swords gleaming as he loomed over Shi Bo. He pressed his Intent down, and its weight was enough to make Shi Bo stumble.

Was this really a Lux Endowment cultivator? He felt far too strong for that.

Shi Bo screamed as he went down on one knee. He dropped the mirror, and the second knife vanished. Gritting his teeth, he clutched the true remaining blade in both hands and began sawing at the techniques, but it was hopeless as enemies stood over him.

"Wait!" he shouted, and raised one hand in supplication. "Wait, I can help you! I can— "

"Min, end it," the swordsman called, and an arrow arced down out of the chaos straight into Shi Bo's chest.

The wound itself wouldn't have been fatal to a Lux Endowment cultivator or even a Peak of Spirutual Refinement cultivator. But the arrowhead exploded and delivered a concentrated spiritual lux technique directly into his core.

Shi Bo's eyes rolled back in his head. His body froze. A chill crept through his limbs as he shivered and trembled, feeling the chains wrap themselves around his mind, his soul, his core.

A ferocious Intent pressed down against him, driving into him. Shi Bo fought, but his own Intent shattered as though it were made of ice. His lux ripped from him, draining his core, emptying him, leaving him no choice but to try to cycle.

As he did, he took in the enemy technique. It seared into his core and chilled him, cutting off his lux channels. He grasped for more lux, but his channels would no longer accept it. His core gasped for more, without success.

Shi Bo fell forward onto his face, desperately reaching for the lux that was now forever out of his grasp.

Chang-li and Joshi stood over the corpse of the Golden Locks cultivator. He wanted to rush to Min and ensure she was really all right, but they had to finish this.

The free lux from the enemy cultivator that had siphoned out of his core when his Intent broke was dense in the air. That kind of rich, purified lux from a cultivator was dangerous to leave unattended. Even as he watched, it began to stream off toward the gamboling raccoons playing across the river.

Chang-li reached out and intercepted that lux, directing it into his own core. He felt it burning on the way down, stronger, more pure than he was used to, and grit his teeth as he pulled it into his core and processed it.

The Lens was humming in time with his core, and he allowed it to siphon off as much of the enemy's lux as it wanted. He was surprised at how easily the Lens was purifying and converting the lux into something his core felt comfortable with. That was part of what the Lens was meant to do, he was realizing: taking outside power and convert it into the lux he most needed.

Chang-li took a deep breath as Joshi carefully checked the enemy. His eyes were open and he wasn't breathing, but Joshi stood for a long moment before nodding. "His body is empty of any spark of life. His core is drained of lux."

Chang-li stooped and picked up the mirror that the cultivator had dropped, then turned as Hiroko and Min emerged from their hiding places. both looked pale and shaken.

He embraced Min. "Well done," he told her. "That timing was perfect."

She nodded, looking tired but determined. "I wasn't going to let you down."

"You didn't," he assured her.

Hiroko, though, seemed worried. "I've lost the strings I had on the trio that went east," she told them. "I still have the confusion technique on the other two who were with this one. It must have worked well since we got him alone," she added.

"Then we haven't much time to waste," Chang-li said. "We must try to outmaneuver the other two."

And the Golden Locks cultivator hadn't been entirely wrong. They had used a great portion of the scrolls that Chang-li had prepared in order to kill him. Still, he felt a boost of confidence. Not only that, they had the mirror as well.

"He used it to duplicate his techniques," Chang-li said, holding the mirror out so the other three could see it as well. "I think we might be able to make use of it ourselves. When we have time to spend figuring it out. Let's move quickly." He pulled out the map he'd made of this floor, its outlines rough but useful. "I think we set up… here."

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