Some things,
once seen,
cannot be unfiled.
Simon Xu was learning this
at eleven PM
in a mansion courtyard
staring at a floating demon.
Simon saw it by accident.
Late night kitchen run. Decided to cut through the courtyard. Pushed the door open.
Stopped.
Nuel was in the center of the courtyard approximately four feet off the ground.
Not on anything. Not attached to anything. Simply — there. Cross legged in the air. Eyes closed. The demon markings on his neck producing a steady dim light that was the only illumination in the dark.
Simon stood in the doorway.
He looked at this for three seconds.
He looked at his phone.
He looked back at Nuel.
His hand moved.
Forty-five seconds of footage.
He backed into the mansion. Closed the door with the specific quietness of someone who had made a decision about not drawing attention to themselves. Went to his room. Sat on his bed.
Watched the forty-five seconds.
Nuel. Floating. Glowing. Real.
He opened his contacts. Found: Luo Bin — school friend, media.
Sent the video.
Tell me what you think this is.
He put the phone down.
He stared at the ceiling and thought about everything he had been filing since the museum steps.
Thirty ancient gold coins from a ring too small to hold them. A bracelet old enough to make experts go quiet. A woman who lit her finger on fire and called it a lighter. A man who pressed his feet against the ground like he was reading it. An archaic Mandarin accent that belonged to no living dialect.
And now: a demon cultivator floating in a courtyard at eleven PM.
His phone lit up.
Luo Bin: what is this
Simon: that's what I'm asking
Luo Bin: is this edited
Simon: no
Luo Bin: …simon
Simon: I know
Luo Bin: this is REAL?
Simon looked at the ceiling.
Yes, he typed. I think it's real.
Three minutes of silence from Luo Bin.
Then: I'm not posting it.
Simon: good.
Luo Bin: but who ARE these people
Simon thought about this.
He thought about Shen Yao pressing his foot against the courtyard stones every evening in the same spot, eyes closed, a faint something moving through the air around him that Simon had been telling himself was a trick of the light.
He thought about Feng Li's gold eyes in firelight.
He thought about Nuel eating two bowls of food like someone who had been surviving rather than living, and then going upstairs and apparently floating in the dark.
He typed: working on it.
He put the phone down.
Three realms away, on Planet Sazake, Zen Mao read his agent's report.
Tianhai City. Spiritual energy far above predicted levels. Sacred water detected — trace signature, dormant, sealed. Source: unknown cultivator, suppression technique suggesting extreme age and experience. Demon cultivation also present. Both operating from residential property, eastern district.
He set the jade slip down.
"The suppression," he said. "The agent's assessment of the technique."
"Complete, Elder," the messenger said. "Not a mid-level cultivator hiding. Someone for whom suppression has become — automatic. Like breathing."
Zen Mao was quiet.
He looked out at Sazake's three-moon sky.
The sacred water had been silent for six thousand years. Every cultivator on Sazake had felt the day it disappeared — the specific absence of something that had been a constant in the spiritual fabric of the universe, gone between one breath and the next.
He had been searching since.
And now — trace signature. Dormant. On a primitive planet with no cultivation civilization. In a city. With an old one running suppression like it was habit.
He thought about the Great Immortal War.
About the eleven Immortal Kings who had fought.
About the one who had survived.
"Send a stronger team," he said quietly. "Observe only. Do not engage."
The messenger bowed.
"And tell them," Zen Mao said, "to be careful."
He did not say this often.
The messenger understood what it meant.
Back in the mansion Simon finally closed his eyes at 2 AM.
Down the hall Feng Li sat at her window watching the city. She had not slept. She did not need much sleep — even human, even without cultivation, the phoenix fire kept her warm and awake in a way that made night hours different for her than for mortals.
She thought about six thousand years in a ring.
About waking up human.
About forty years alone in a world that had no context for what she was.
She heard footsteps — Simon, restless, going to the kitchen for water. Coming back. His door closing.
She thought about the way he had looked at her at dinner and then looked away so fast he nearly knocked over his glass.
She thought about the last time someone had looked at her like that.
She genuinely could not remember.
She looked at her hand. Produced a small flame on her fingertip. Watched it.
Careful, she told herself.
He's mortal.
They don't last.
She extinguished the flame.
She looked at the city.
She thought about Simon asking her, two days ago, completely out of nowhere: what's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?
Nobody had asked her that in forty years.
She had answered without thinking: a sky with no ceiling. The kind you only find above the clouds, above everything, where the stars are so close they feel like company.
He had gone quiet for a moment.
Then: I've never seen that.
I know, she had said.
And then: I'll show you someday.
She had said it before she could stop herself.
He had smiled — not the charming smile he deployed for most things. The real one. Small and slightly wondering.
Okay, he had said. Simply. Okay.
Feng Li sat at her window in the Tianhai night.
She was ten thousand years old in a human body with phoenix fire in her hands and a storage ring's worth of history in her memory.
She was also, apparently, someone who had just promised a mortal boy a sky with no ceiling.
Careful, she told herself again.
The city lights blurred slightly.
She was not as careful as she used to be.
— End of Chapter Five —
Zen Mao is moving. Luo Bin has the video. Simon promised nothing and is already gone. Feng Li told herself to be careful.
She is not going to be careful.
Chapter Six — Shen Yao breaks through to Stage 3. The earth shakes for three seconds. Nuel opens his eyes and does the math. He doesn't like what the math says. 🔥
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© The New Immortals | Book One — The Sky Conquering Pavilion