Chang-li emerged into the court of the Jade Emperor. He didn't have to be told what this place was; it was obvious the moment he arrived. An enormous room, the floors of polished white jade stretching out all around him. Pillars of black jade held up the ceiling, at least thirty feet above him. The ceiling was the blue of the sky.

  At the end of the room was an enormous raised dais, on which a huge gold-inlaid throne sat, empty. The rest of the room was full of people. Courtiers in robes, scribes wielding brushes and paper, servants trying to remain invisible in their plain grey uniforms, guards armed with long polearms, nobles so made up and bedecked with jewels and beautiful clothing, Chang-li couldn't tell the men from the women. A majordomo stood on the steps of the dais beside an enormous bronze gong taller than Chang-li.

  As the four looked around, Sun Wukong appeared. He smiled. "Well, it has been some time. Come, let's seek our audience with the Emperor."

  "I thought we'd have more time to plan," Chang-li hissed as they strode forward. "How do you intend to—?”

  "None of that," Sun said. "Just be ready. I assume after all the fighting you've done that you know how to do it."

  "But all of these people,” Min whispered.

  "Yes, yes," Sun said impatiently. "It's an audience day. There are always people here. But don't worry, none of the courtiers are much higher than Peak of Spiritual Refinement. Can't you feel? And the guards are only borrowing the Emperor’s power. They are only as strong as he is."

  Chang-li didn’t find that reassuring. The guards radiated the power of Lux Embodiment. He resolved to protect Min and Hiroko. They had yet to reach the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, though with as much practice with their wills as they had been doing, he expected them to reach it soon.

  Sun Wukong strolled, unheeding, toward the center of the room.

  Chang-li's heart raced. The majordomo straightened up as they approached. "You are not next on the list," he said coldly, and a pair of guards stepped out to block their passage.

  Sun Wukong immediately disappeared, reappearing right next to the magistrate and snatching the heavy felt-headed hammer out of his hand. He smashed it hard against the gong, once, twice, three times. The deep thrum reverberated through the whole court, and the babbling and whispers all around died away.

  Everyone turned to face the front of the room as the Emperor appeared. Power radiated from him. He was as Chang-li had seen before: a man in the prime of his life, with long dark hair cascading down his back all the way to the ground. His robes were the finest jade silk. Gold and jade adorned his ears, hands, and neck. The crown he wore shone with its own light. The nobles of the court dropped to their knees and pressed their faces against the ground. The guards bowed but remained on duty.

  Chang-li and his friends strode forward, Chang-li feeling grim. If they were going to be killing the Emperor, then it didn't matter if they were discourteous now, after all.

  The Emperor frowned at Sun Wukong. "Troublemaker," he said.

  "You have no idea," Sun Wukong said pleasantly. "But look." He threw a hand back toward the Morning Mist Cultivators. "I have brought them to you here, just as promised."

  "I see," the Emperor said, his eyes narrowing. "So you have."

  "Our bargain was for you to set me free once I had brought them here," Sun said.

  "Is that the bargain we made?"

  "It is, and you know it," Sun said coldly. "Will you honor your bargain?"

  The Emperor seemed to consider him. "As it happens, we have a problem. There are cultivators outside waiting for me to open this tower. They want to take my power from me. I have been trying to find a way to save myself and my court, and I believe I have it." The Emperor smiled. "Sun Wukong, come forward."

  The trickster approached the Emperor, his face a show of fear and confusion. Clearly, he didn't want to obey.

  Sun Wukong knelt before the Emperor, his body moving stiffly, reluctantly. The Emperor smiled.

  "People of the Jade Court, hear me," he boomed. "In our long slumber, this tower has accumulated a great stockpile of spiritual luxes, giving opportunity to those bold enough to take it.

  "We have here four examples of outside Cultivators who have come seeking wealth and riches."

  He waved his hand at Chang-li and his friends. "They are welcome here, and I shall give them what they ask for soon enough. First, though, we have a bit of business to conduct."

  He gestured. The crown lifted from his head and floated over to the front of his face. "I am abdicating my throne in favor of the heaven-sent trickster Sun Wukong. He will be charged with the defense of our tower from the outsiders who would seek to seize it. His power will protect us."

  He reached out, holding the crown in both hands, and lowed it to Sun’s head.

  Just before the crown touched him Sun’s form rippled and changed. The former Emperor gaped in disbelief. Before him stood a log, as tall as a man, standing on end. A robe similar to Sun’s was wrapped around it and a wig was on its top. The crown sat on the wig. Chang-li gaped.

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  Just as suddenly Sun Wukong was standing beside Chang-li. "Now!" he shouted, and pushed Chang-li forward toward the front of the room. Even as he leapt into action, Chang-li felt something in the room change. There was a marked lessening of power from all around the room as the aura the guards radiated faded sharply.

  Sun Wukong split into a hundred copies of himself, racing about the room and engaging with the guards as pandemonium broke out. Everywhere a copy reached a guard, it cut through the soldier was easily as slicing through paper.

  Nobles screamed. Servants vanished into their halls and side rooms. Guards raced forward. Chang-li had his sword in his hand and a technique in his right before he stopped to think what he was doing. Joshi and Magen were at his side.

  The Imperial Log wobbled and toppled over as the former Emperor scrambled forward. He snatched up the crown as it hit the floor and thrust it back on his own head.

  The Emperor whirled to face Chang-li and Sun Wukong. "Usurpers, then?" he snarled. "Why? I would have given you the power freely!”

  Chang-li understood. Being granted the power of the Tower Guardian would only have bound Sun to it, and he clearly didn't want that. He wanted his freedom. That meant the Emperor needed to die.

  He only hoped Sun would keep his promise.

  The Emperor wove a technique around himself, and a two-headed dragon appeared over his shoulders, spitting flame and ice from its maws.

  Chang-li dove, one arm catching a spike of ice on his cloak, which sizzled as it absorbed the lux. He sensed the Guardian's strength. This was a creature made entirely of lux, infused with knowledge and power accumulated through centuries.

  It was impossible to measure him on a human scale, but Chang-li suspected he was more powerful than any of the Cultivators they had faced.

  Behind him, Min's bow twanged as she picked off the guards who had eluded Sun Wukong to attack them. Hiroko was reinforcing Joshi and Chang-li with a blue lux technique. He felt it take effect, strengthening him. His lux sang in his channels as he cycled.

  Joshi reached the Emperor first, smashing his sword aside with one arm even as he crashed his lux gauntlet against the side Emperor’s head.

  The Emperor head rocked to the side a few inches. He turned, releasing the technique he'd been holding. Flames spouted up around Joshi, but with a blink of an eye, Joshi’s emerald green slippers carried him out of the flames.

  "You dare try to attack me?" the Jade Emperor cried as he scrambled back to his dais. His crown was atop his head again. “My servants, kill them!”

  "Behind us!" Min cried.

  Chang-li turned as a horde of courtiers, faces flushed with anger, rushed toward him. He had just time to pull one of his last Earthshaker scrolls and activate it, knocking them back with a wall of force.

  As they rose to their feet, Min picked them off with her bow.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Chang-li saw the emperor working a vast technique. He wove flowing ropes of indigo lux, enforcing it with green and blue, as they orbited around himself. A glowing green barrier sprang up across the steps leading to the throne. The emperor threw himself back onto the throne his smile triumphant. “Now, you die!”

  The handful of remaining guards pushed forward from the edges of the room, forming a square around the cultivators.

  Sun Wukong turned to Chang-li. "You deal with them. I'll take down his protection."

  Chang-li could feel its weight from here. The barrier was formed of lux shaped by an almost perfect Intent.

  Sun Wukong vanished, reappearing on the steps beside the majordomo. Courtiers rushed to attack him. Chang-li and his allies had no more time to watch as the guards fell on them.

  Imperial Guardsmen arranged themselves in a square formation, with more flooding in through the doors. At the same time, servants and the nobles of the court were still fleeing as chaos erupted.

  Hiroko was weaving her blue technique. She flung it out quickly, ensnaring one of the approaching soldiers. He turned on his neighbor, attacking, slashing with his polearm. The victim was taken by surprise and fell under the onslaught.

  Min peppered more arrows into the guards on that side, throwing their flank into disarray. Chang-li hadn't been wasting his time. He wove a pair of Blindfolds, flinging them at two of the guards on the right. The men began to claw at their faces as the blue lux cut off their sight and started to confuse them. He summoned Mirage Blade and, with two swords in hand, met the closest guards.

  Joshi had snared several with Binding Chains. They hung back from the rest, struggling against the technique. Now he turned and unleashed the Thousand Fists, striking three at the same time.

  Chang-li's dual swords blurred as he fought two of the guards at once. Their spears had reach, but he moved faster than they did, his body responding perfectly to his commands as he cycled lux to reinforce himself.

  He stepped aside, dodging one spear, came up inside, and struck down the guard wielding it. Even as the man was falling, he wheeled and thrust both of his blades into the next guardsman.

  They didn’t bleed, he noted. Instead, strands of lux began to unspool from their wounds, wafting skyward. That was not always the case with lux beasts.

  Chang-li reached out with his will, enforced with Intent, seizing the strands of lux and pulling them into his core. At first, the lux came easily. Then, the Emperor from behind his barricade of lux raised a hand and pointed. Now a second will worked on the loose lux.

  It was like fighting Young Master Feng again. Chang-li felt himself struggle against a stronger will. He refused to back down. His Intent flared in him. I master. He could not let go of this and still make that claim.

  Cycling, with his will engaged in a deadly tug-of-war, he turned and cut down another soldier.

  The cultivators had utterly destroyed the initial attack, but more were streaming in from the sides at the front of the room.

  Sun Wukong sparred with the majordomo. The trickster had a long black parasol as his weapon. The majordomo carried a wicked knife, its blade curved in, reflecting the light.

  The Emperor sat watching, seemingly immovable. Chang-li felt his will stretching out, gathering in the lux from all over the room. Every soldier they killed was increasing the lux in this place, Chang-li realized. Though he was seizing as much as he could, the Emperor's will was vaster and stronger.

  The next round of soldiers was upon them already. Hiroko had her fan in one hand, snapping it with a flick of her left wrist and sending little fire dragon techniques darting about the room, while with her other hand she spun out more blue lux techniques. When they landed, a guard would turn against his fellows.

  Min was focusing on shooting guards as they entered. She danced back out of reach behind Chang-li as two advanced on her, their spears thrusting. He raced in and took them down, all while looking for the way to win this fight.

  The hair on the back of Chang-li's neck prickled. He felt a fizzing like air just before a thunderstorm and threw his lux sense wide, just in time to realize. "Shield!" he bellowed, throwing up a red lux shield over himself and Min.

  Joshi crossed the space between him and Hiroko in the blink of an eye, his emerald slippers taking him fifty feet across the room in a single step, and tossed up his own shield over their heads as bolts of lightning cracked down from the blue ceiling.

  A bolt sizzled off of Chang-li's shield. Another struck the jade tiles at his feet, cracking them. lux raised all around as the throne room broke around them.

  He felt that same sizzling again, reinforced his shield. A crimson wall of lightning fell from the ceiling, smashing everyone and everything.

  The pillars at the edges of the room exploded, sending shards of dark jade everywhere.