The landing wasn’t as bad as he worried it might be. Spongy brain tissue absorbed much of their momentum as their superhuman bodies bounced around the inside of the skull like a bullet ricocheting about. Hector held tight to Darius and did his best to make sure the venting miasma from detached brain matter assumed a harmless form.

  They came to rest along the base of a massive tooth after nearly knocking it free. Darius groaned before abruptly losing his last meal. Hector didn’t feel any nausea himself. Though they’d bounced around quite a bit, dizziness never impacted him. Perhaps it was having a body at the peak of level nine that made him immune to the effect. Or it could be related to the strength of his mind following his previous advancement.

  He could sense the collective will of the tiger fading. It had come together, creating a virtual soul, but in order to separate again there had to be a conscious decision, he knew. The mechanism established for that decision was the brain they’d thoroughly wrecked. Lacking that, the bits of the whole could only be freed when an external force broke their cohesion – being ripped away from the whole or the death of the shared form.

  “Get ready to open your apertures wide. There’s about to be a feast.”

  Darius cursed and pressed palms to his eyes. “Almost went blind last time.”

  As the death of the tiger reached some metaphysical threshold where reality itself recognized the inevitable, the pseudo soul of the tiger began to degrade. In that moment, Hector struck. He plucked the same threads of his realm he’d been holding tight all this while, driving his full conceptual weight at the monster with savage intent. A corner of his domain moved out of phase with normal reality to strike at the pseudo soul, sparking a chain reaction.

  Light flashed all around them and they fell. Hector hardly noticed. He’d thrown his aura, domain, mind, and body apertures wide open. The energy surge raised his reserves above one third in just a moment. Then the explosion of cosmic energy dissipated.

  He hit the ground and sank deep into mud. When he burst free, Hector patted himself down to figure out if he still wore clothing beneath the layer of sludge. He did! By all metrics, this was a very successful mission.

  “There is mud in my mouth,” Darius said.

  Hector shot some brown snot rockets and then smiled at his friend, who looked remarkably similar to the eponymous character from the old Swamp Thing movie. “Don’t blame me for that. I didn’t tell you to jump after me.”

  The ache in his soul from the last big effort was worse than ever. He cast his mental sense forth, trying to sense how much lingering miasma would need handled. There was none nearby. His realm promised the world was not yet cleansed. It could wait, though.

  “Before we’re surrounded by people again, I want you to know what I think. You’re not the man I met at the tournament. You have family now and I’m convinced you will do anything for us. The fact that you want Riley to be happy even if that hurts you is what proves you’re able to be the man she needs. The alternative is breaking her heart.”

  His friend turned away to look towards the shuttle flying in their direction. “Hector, I assure you that I speak with utmost sincerity when I say that your interference in this matter is not welcome.”

  Hector prepared to argue. There were so many things he could say. So many angles of attack. But if Darius was shutting the door on that conversation with such finality… did he not owe it to his best friend to respect his wishes?

  “Then I will let you handle the issue on your own.”

  “Thank you.”

  If Hector expected that concession to end the day’s drama, he was greatly mistaken. The arrival of his retinue brought a great deal of drama. Everyone disapproved of his unilateral action to take out the tiger monster. They made good points: his retinue existed to protect him, not to stand back and watch him risk his life.

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  There were also more targeted criticisms. Isabel was irate that he made her stay behind when he was creating another flash point of cosmic energy. The way she saw it, he gave an order that denied her significant benefits. Esther accused him of returning to his rogue tendencies and wouldn’t accept any arguments that relied on his intuitions as a Sage. And Conflagration was convinced that Hector stole his kill.

  He even got it back aboard Cruiser Erin when Amy caught sight of him and Darius. They were sent to a sanitation room and hosed down before being allowed a normal shower. The drain clogged and needed to be cleared. Then there was the trail they left from the shuttle to the showers.

  Hector finally stopped the nagging from the unrated crew member by telling Amy he would personally clean the entire mess. With superhuman strength, it wasn’t a challenge to strip off the caked-on grime. It did take some time, but he thought of it as an opportunity to avoid the eyes of his retinue. Somehow having sworn followers involved a lot less uncritical obedience than he’d ever imagined possible.

  Perhaps the democratic nature of his team was the greatest evidence that he had succeeded in not becoming yet another tyrant Lord. If so, there was a definite double edged quality to his victory. He did not enjoy being called to task by his supposed subordinates. Sometimes it seemed like every solution in life led to a different sort of problem. Would he forever be caught in a cycle of over-correcting for previous mistakes?

  For the first time in a while, he considered how his father would handle such a situation. Terry Thoreaux never had a position of authority at work. He drove a box truck to make deliveries for a furniture store. His old man loved that job. He spent time driving around with coworkers and helping out customers.

  Hector couldn’t imagine anyone ever getting upset with his dad. Sure, the stakes weren’t life-and-death in furniture delivery. Yet it would be a disservice to his father’s memory if Hector refused to believe there weren’t lessons to be learned. What was the most important thing his dad did? Beyond the joking, he made those around him feel like they mattered.

  What was Hector doing in that aspect of his interpersonal relationships? He gave members of his retinue ample respect. Yet he couldn’t deny that he also snatched back the decision-making authority the moment he felt any conviction on a specific matter. That wasn’t wrong. He’d been thrust into his role because of who he was and what he could do.

  The problem, it seemed, was insufficient management of expectations. His subordinates felt they were being jerked around, promised things were one way and then being shown they were actually another way. He needed to communicate more effectively and define the bounds of their arrangement.

  A lesson from Volithur’s life arose in his mind. The Lord General played at being casual with his retinue, like he was just one of the guys. That could not be further from the truth. Thrakkar Shaocheth was in charge every moment of every day. The servants of his retinue – and they were servants, no matter how they presented themselves – had to play a convoluted game. They would pretend to be a group of wisecracking friends until the Lord General tired of that, whereupon they were instantly loyal retainers. They walked a tightrope because that was what their Lord wanted. They never complained because they couldn’t.

  He didn’t want to play such games with human lives. Certainly not with his friends. So he would need to create some boundaries they would all need to respect. Not that day, though. His retinue needed some time to decompress. And his realm was killing him. The focused use of his insight let him function far more efficiently, but it still cost a lot in the end.

  Hector returned to his room and prepared to use some of the energy he’d gained. Up to this point he’d prioritized the Shuttle Technique because it spread the benefit between both domain and aura on top of being efficient. Now he analyzed his goals. What aperture would provide him the most benefit going forward?

  His aura provided ample defense, it was true. If he needed to fend off attacks from human enemies, it would be important. On the other hand, his domain was his offense against every type of opponent. He used it against free miasma, against monsters, and against human foes. The choice seemed obvious.

  With his decision made, Hector began to push cosmic energy into his domain in the Sweaty Fire Technique. He’d long since mastered it and could hold it for hours, providing he had the energy to spend. So he sat in place and exercised his domain for three hours straight before the energy consumption rate caused him concern.

  Then he paused to admire his progress. It wasn’t much, maybe two percent improvement. The efficacy of the Sweaty Fire Technique wouldn’t last long, either. His domain would soon stop responding to the stimulus if he kept at it. Taking long breaks from techniques was an unfortunate requirement of cultivation. It helped if one had a large enough collection of disparate techniques to alternate while training. Otherwise one would need to regularly pause their progress. Which might not be a limiting factor for normal Xian, given how much energy cultivation demanded.

  Emerging from his room, he encountered Isabel sitting in a corner of the bunk room where she would be out of sight of anyone passing through the main area.