The path ended at a cliff face. A door of black stone, seamless, carved with a script so old it predated the seven sects. His hand rose toward it.
A voice spoke from the empty air beside him.
"I see. Isn't it something you need not worry about?"
He spun. His sword was out and swinging before his mind finished flinching, a horizontal arc of midnight qi, fast enough to cut the sound of its own drawing.
It passed through Tianlong's neck like a hand through smoke.
"Wha..."
Void butterflies.
They bloomed between one heartbeat and the next, a swarm of them, white wings dusted with qi, swarming off of nothing and onto him, and every wing that touched his skin unmade a fraction of his spiritual energy. His sword arm went numb. His legs folded. He dropped to one knee in the rusted dirt, gasping, qi-drained, butterflies settling gently on his shoulders like snow.
