A change is announced. His opponent has been decided.

No. No. He was- he was going to get to pick. That's how it works. That's how it always works. He needed to get to pick. Nothing works if he can't pick.

It's going to be a member of the Wei clan. Wei Jin Amon. The Wei clan's rising star. The Patriarch's grandson. He's looking at Lindon like Lindon personally spat in his food.

If Lindon loses, he's going to be lucky to leave the arena with a single unbroken limb.

Thank goodness, if it had been anyone else his plan wouldn't have worked.

As the two stand across from each other Amon whispers to Lindon, the motion disguised by a quirk of his madra. He says this is Lindon's last chance to give up. 

Lindon acts like he didn't hear anything.

His feared last intervention by the Patriarch fails to materialize. He was right. He can't be seen preventing the match, especially not with his grandson involved.

Lindon makes eye contact with Amon.

He swirls his madra around his core, gathering it from around his body, concentrating it, concentrating it, concentrating it more, his will battling against his madra's natural desire to disperse, to do anything but gather so tightly.

The announcer begins to speak. 

And then, everything changes.

The Elder looks up, confusion on his face, the sentence announcing the commencement of the match sputtering out early.

There are clouds gathering.

The Elder looks to the Patriarch, confusion and fear on his face. The Patriarch shakes his head. He isn't responsible for this. Those clouds are not an illusion. They are real.

They are darkening rapidly, farther and farther by the moment. They look nearly black, like the greatest storm of any of their lives has gathered overhead and is hovering above them all.

Waiting.

Lindon looks upwards as the Patriarch and the Elder do, as Amon does, as the stadium does. For a moment he thinks that the darkening skies are a trick played on his mind by the Patriarch, but no, everybody else is reacting. The Patriarch could not perfectly imitate the look on his father's face as he looks up at the suddenly gathered clouds, a brusque mask failing to hide his fear. He would not know to fake the look of concern on his sister's as she looks at him. 

His mother has been working on something, the last few weeks. Working with the other scriptors and soulsmiths of the Wei clan. Investigating something the Li clan has been doing. She's discussed it with him a few times. The Li clan has been purchasing strange remnants and sacred beasts. A rabbit which can blink a foot to the side. A snake which can emerge from soil different from that which it burrowed into. A remnant which strikes simply failed to connect to, always turned aside at the last moment. She'd theorized that they were trying to investigate spatial madra. Something which would allow them to invent a new path capable of some rather impressive things. She and the scriptors and soulsmiths of the clan decided they were searching for the eggs of an imaginary goose. There was no such thing as spatial madra.

As Lindon watches an ancient immortal dressed in the colours of the Li clan fly down from the gathered clouds on giant bat wings, he begins to suspect they were attempting something else entirely.

Lindon knows that it's an ancient immortal descending. How? Well, Lindon can't feel Madra. It's not until Jade that you can feel Madra.

He can feel this.

The ancient immortal lands in the center of the arena.

The badge in the centre of his chest is gold. The highest stage this primitive little valley remembers. But he's nostalgic for it. It's where he grew up.

So this is where it will start.

His new kingdom. 

It wouldn't be allowed, of course, if he'd left the world properly. But he didn't. He's been wandering the branches of the Way without ever properly ascending. As far as this world is concerned he's not even a Sage. Not that it matters, with the power of half a dozen worlds behind him. He's studied others who've left and returned to their worlds through similar methods to his. They weren't punished. So he shouldn't be either. And if he is, simply because this world is ever so important. Well, the Abidan might bend their rules to stop him, but not so far as to execute him. They like to pretend to be something more than the petty tyrants they are. What's a few centuries imprisoned to an immortal?

He pauses for a long moment to let his presence sink in. To let everyone in the crowd see the badge on his chest.

And then he makes his announcement. He, Li Markuth, Grand Patriarch of the Li clan, has returned to Sacred Valley to rule. He knows his family has enemies. But he will be a merciful emperor. The Kazan and Wei clans are welcome to kneel before him and receive protection in exchange for fealty, if they can put aside their pride. The schools are welcome to do likewise, if they aren't foolish enough to believe they are still above the Li clan with him here.

And if they disagree? Then they can die. No, no, all together. Any Jade who disagrees with his claim on the valley. All of them. At the same time. No need to quibble over the honour of all fighting him at once. It will be like Coppers fighting a Jade. They're all just going to die.

Lindon, unlike everyone else in the stadium, looks at Li Markuth's badge in the aftermath of his announcement and feels hope. He remembers how Yerin talked about Gold. A Gold. But just a Gold. Someone as far beyond Jade as Jade is beyond Iron, not the master of heaven and earth the legends describe Golds as. No lone Jade would have a chance, of course, but there are half a dozen Jades from the schools present, and dozens from the clans.

No, it's the colours that are more worrying. If this Gold has the alliance of the Li clan, that would be enough force to outmatch everyone else present. 

Just a Gold. It's such an absurd thought, but he finds himself having it anyway. He's just a gold, and he's here to be king. Not to destroy the valley with a wave of his hand. In fact, that sensation of pressure even Lindon can feel- doesn't that mean it's probably an illusion, rather than that he's simply so powerful Lindon can feel it despite not having a spiritual sense? If he feels the need to use an illusion that suggests some things. And he's wearing a gold badge. Would a real ancient immortal be so insecure they'd wear the trappings of a much weaker sacred artist? No, they'd idly knock the top off a nearby mountain and order everyone to bow.

He's bluffing. He has to be.

(Lindon really is lucky Li Markuth can't read minds.)

While the Jades foolish enough to contest him gather, another is making an even more foolish choice. His left hand moves, too fast for anyone in the crowd to see it move. Suddenly, he's holding the Wei clan patriarch by the head, holding him above the ground. He really thought an illusion would be enough to hide him from the eyes of a sacred artist this much more advanced than him?

Fool.

He squeezes. The Wei clan patriarch's head pops like a grape.

The gathering Jades flinch. But they do not stop.They do not quail, they do not flee and disperse. They gather together, the mighty of the Wei Clan, the Kazan clan, of Heaven's Glory, of the Golden Sword, the Fallen Leaf, the Holy Winds, the strongest army gathered in the valley in living memory. They do not stop. Ancient enemies put aside grudges older than the mountains.

Kneel? To someone who comes in and demands it at the point of a sword, someone who arrives in the middle of a celebration to tell them to kneel or die? No, this is Sacred Valley. Where they are better than the uncivilized beasts who roam the wastes and pretend to virtue. Where Jades do not strike those at Iron, for such a thing would be wrong. They have a way they do things, here in Sacred Valley. Rules of war. So what if the new Li patriarch is Gold? This is not how things are done.

He's just one man. They can win. And if they don't, they will die on their feet. A man who comes to them speaking in such a way, who descends from the sky at a tournament, with the stadium full of children, and threatens them all with death if they do not kneel to him- that is not a man whose yoke would rest lightly on their shoulders. Better to die.

Better to die.

Three more Jades step forward to join the assembling army. These three are not in the colours of the Li clan, but everyone there knows who they are. They are young, all of three them, the youngest just barely old enough to be reckoned an adult rather than still a child. They are the children of the patriarch of the Li clan. The old patriarch of the Li clan. They look terrified. The gathered Jades, the might of the valley, look to them with skepticism.

They explain.

Their father is rotting in a ditch. Killed in dishonourable treachery. They are here to strike back at the one who orchestrated their father's death, to do to Li Markuth as Li Markuth ordered done to their father, or to join their father in death. This they swear on every scrap of honour their family has gathered over a dozen generations.

This they swear.

The force of Jades, the most powerful army gathered in Sacred Valley in written history, has three more members.

Something cracks through the fragile hope Lindon had been constructing. Shatters his web of rationalization.

Li Markuth is exactly what he looks like. All Lindon needs to do is look up. 

A storm covers the entirety of Sacred Valley.

Lindon looks out at the gathering army. The dozens and dozens of Jades gathered together. Nearly a hundred of them. He looks at the old men and the prodigies, the friends of his clan and the enemies, gathered together to fight and die.

He's not a hero.

Li Markuth said it already. You can live if you kneel.

It's not like Lindon could do anything anyway.

His back is to Lindon. 

Not that that means anything. He's not, after all, just a Gold.

The battle begins. Half a dozen Jades leap at Markuth from just as many directions. He waves his hand and arcs of slicing green fire burst out from him, each striking a Jade in the center. Bisecting them.

The arcs of green fire continue through their targets. They slice into the crowd. Dozens of spectators are dead in an instant.

Ah, the natural aura of this world would amplify that technique, wouldn't it? Well, it's not like they mattered.

Oh. Oh, Lindon's realized what's happening. He's dreaming.

It's a relief.

He can't believe he didn't realize it earlier. Things like this don't happen in real life.

Ancient immortals don't descend from the sky. The ancient enemies of the valley don't put aside a thousand years of hatred to fight side by side against him. It's like something out of a child's story. And not even one of the ones that seems possible, one of the ones he grew out of young. 

It's just a bad dream.

He can't look away from his father and sister's bodies.

His mother is nothing but mist.

It's just a bad dream.

Markuth waves his hand and kills another dozen Jades with arcs of green fire. This time his technique fizzles out not that far past their bodies, as it should. The technique only kills two people in the audience this time.

Good.

It will need a bit more refining, but for now that's an acceptable level of collateral damage.

The army of Jades, the most powerful army gathered in Sacred Valley in the entire course of written history, has been decimated in the literal sense of the term. In a few seconds.

The remainder know what this means. There is no victory for them today. Not without a miracle.

Those who have more faith in the Heavens than most take a moment to pray. They know it won't do anything.

They know, all of them, that they are going to die here.

They step forward regardless. 

It isn't a dream. It's real.

It's all real.

He tears his gaze from his dead family.

He sees the mighty of Sacred Valley marching to their deaths. 

He decides to die with them.

Li Markuth kills six more in the time Lindon is making his resolution.

He feels like making a show of it, so he's going slow. If he wanted they'd all already be dead. If he wanted, they would all have been dead before they knew he was there.

He wants everyone to see. Wants to see the fear in their eyes as they realize he's utterly beyond them. Watch as the light of hope leaves their eyes. Look out at the spectators gathered for the tournament after he's shown them how powerful he is. He will enjoy making them kneel.