So, after I picked up my jaw off the metaphysical floor of my own soul, I got to staring at Celistar. "You think a few hundred years is a short time? That's three normal lifetimes, at least."

She tilted her head to the side like a lost puppy and propped her chin on her pointer finger, looking very much the picture of a fairy.

"Well, here, that's not quite the case, but I suppose you're right," she said after a bit, conceding both the point and an interesting bit of information.

"How old are you, anyway?" I asked, before the curiosity ate me from the inside out.

"You know," she replied, "I don't really know. I kind of just am. I wasn't 'born' or anything. I think the easiest way to explain it is that I'm a function of the Will of the World here."

"So why go and start a sect then?"

"I was bored."

Great, Viktor had a little sister. At least she seemed less… punchy. Although considering the way she'd reacted to the 'friendly' spar I wasn't about to rule it out, yet.

And it wasn't like I could say anything, I was the queen of doing random things, at this point.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"We take care of our little problem."

"We?" I asked.

"I can't really do much in the way of fighting without risking my existence. I'm still feeling it from when I arrived." She outright admitted.

"Ehh, fair enough." I meant it too, I owed Celistar the safety of my whole family, we'd never have operated the mechanism we used to traverse worlds without her there.

Never mind how she'd intervened in the Circle itself, putting us up on a pedestal.

"Time to go teach Péng Fēng a lesson about messing with my Stormwing Circle."

It would be a lot easier to teach the man a lesson if we could actually find him. He'd entirely disappeared. We had some inner disciples scour through the Main Hall, but he wasn't present and his office was a mess, like it'd been gone through in a huge hurry.

The whole thing had my hackles up. While the former Sect Master hadn't been a match for Celistar for their brief exchange and - according to her evaluation of my performance in the spar - likely wasn't a match for me either, he was still one of the most powerful individuals in the whole Stormwing Circle as of right now.

Also one of the dumbest, from what I'd seen. That was a very bad combination with extra emphasis on the 'bad'.

Celistar also seemed a little unnerved about this chain of events, having expected to just be able to walk up to the man and subdue him. Looks like we'd be searching a while, or so I thought.

We were chatting about where he might have gone when a bruised and bleeding Qīwù hobbled up to me.

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"What on earth happened to you, you look like you got backhanded through a wall!" I said, staring at my assistant, who was holding her arm and favoring a leg. She stared at me like Steeve had lit my hair on fire. Again.

After patting down my red locks to make sure they weren't literally flaming, I looked at her. "What?"

"How did you know?" She asked.

"Know what?" I replied, very confused at this point.

"Know that Sect Master attacked me and knocked me through a wall?"

Oh.

Uh oh.

"Where?" Celistar asked, watching as I froze up a bit, the information failing to process for a few moments. I would have internally thanked her if I wasn't in the middle of rebooting my brain.

"I'm so sorry," she said, looking on the verge of tears. "It was in the Azure Sky Hall."

"What." I said, skipping the whole startup process and going straight into fight mode. I kicked off the ground so hard it vaporized from the sheer density of Nebula I ejected from my foot, subconsciously pantomiming the tricks I'd seen the other combatants use during the spar.

The buildings blurred as I ran.

The 'Azure Sky Hall', as you might have guessed, was where my family was at.

I skipped the lower floors, going directly to where I saw the Qìwū-sized hole in the wall, bounding up there without even thinking about the fact that in order to do so I had propelled myself over fifty meters into the air.

I shot into the meeting floor, and Celistar appeared shortly thereafter. Both Viktor and István were spread out on the floor, unconscious. He must have taken them by surprise, because they were both entirely uninjured if you didn't count the fact they weren't moving.

I could still see their auras as I flashed a glance at them, so they weren't dead, good. The lump in the pit of my stomach retreated a little, only to jump right back into my throat in the next instant as I saw that he had Liam kneeling on the floor in front of him, a long, thin blade held to his neck.

"For someone who says 'you court death'," I said, surprised to hear how deep my own voice was, "You don't seem to understand the meaning of it." The words vibrated across the room, which had almost instantly filled to the brim with my Nebula the second I entered. Everyone else I cared about was behind him, Gran sitting by the little hotplate that was in the corner, unhurriedly cooking up something. It smelled amazing, so much so it was almost distracting.

Alessa was wringing her hands, as expected, her face a mess of tears and her sobs loud enough to cover up the the sizzle of Gran's skillet. I still had no idea how she could be so calm.

"You're better than this, Péng Fēng," Celistar said, "At least the you I left in charge of the Circle."

I saw his grip tighten on the sword, but it stayed put. Liam looked like he wanted to cry, but hadn't made a peep, just sitting there with his jaws set so tight it looked like he was going to chew his own teeth.

"Why didn't you teach me the techniques you've taught them!?" He suddenly shouted, making the sword wiggle and everyone cringe.

"I didn't teach them anything!" Celistar said, almost shouting. "They're entirely self-taught!" She said, "Have you seen me teach them anything?"

He faltered a little, "No, but you spend so much time with Venerable, so you must be imparting lessons…" He began, before she abruptly cut him off again.

"Use those Storm Seeing Eyes I taught you," Celistar said, talking in words that had very little meaning to me. "Look at her, look at the Venerable," she pleaded with her former pupil. "Can you even discern her Alignment?"

"Well, It's…" he said, before his eyes turned fully clouded, everything disappearing in what I could tell was something similar to my aura sight, if much more difficult and obvious in use. His jaw dropped.

"What in the Thunderous Heavens…" He said, before trailing off.

He made to lean even farther forward to examine me and his sword moved away from Liam's neck.

Now, I thought, a split second before a very loud CLANG rang out. The after-tones of the sound faded away as everyone stared at the former Sect Master in astonishment. He was crumpled into a heap on the floor.

"That'll learn you not to mess with a Willoughby," Gran said, saying it as how Grandpa would have phrased it. The victorious grin on her face even reminded me of the him.

In her hand was the skillet she'd been cooking with. Gran had just whacked him over the head with it. But that wasn't even the craziest bit.

It still had the food in it.

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