Tate Vance’s face cycled through disbelief, rage, and a sickly green envy that tasted sweeter than any spirit elixir I’d ever tasted in my past life. Doyle, the Zenith patriarch, looked like someone had just informed him his prized vintage car had spontaneously combusted. The other executives stared, slack-faced, while Hana Lim, my so-called fiancée, stood before them like an unyielding granite pillar. “Co-sign?” Tate finally spluttered, his voice cracking like a dried branch underfoot. He took a half-step towards Hana, then seemed to remember himself, settling for an indignant flail of a hand. “Hana, this is lunacy! You know his background – no, you *don’t* know his background, because he *has none*! He’s a blank slate, a… a *placeholder* in a name-brand suit!” “A placeholder with a compelling design,” Hana countered, her voice devoid of inflection, yet carrying a cool authority that silenced Tate. She didn't even look at him. Her gaze was fixed on Doyle, a silent challenge in her dark eyes. “And Zenith has a history of taking risks on compelling designs, does it not, Mr. Doyle? Or has that particular tradition faded with the Anima Mundi?” Doyle’s shoulders stiffened at the mention of the Anima Mundi, a term rarely spoken aloud in corporate settings. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible flinch, but I caught it. He knew. He knew about the decay, about the world’s dying breath. Interesting. My former self would have dismissed him as a mere mortal, but this new reality demanded a different calculus. He cleared his throat, adjusting his tie. “Hana, while your faith in… unconventional talent is admirable, this project carries significant risk. Public perception, regulatory hurdles, the sheer audacity of constructing something based on… on *this*.” He gestured vaguely at the napkin, still radiating its faint, soothing energy. “The risk is mitigated by my involvement,” Hana stated, her tone flat. “My reputation. My resources. My firm’s established network.” She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “And, of course, the undeniable, if inexplicable, appeal of the design itself. We can market it as radical, visionary. The public craves novelty, Mr. Doyle. And a touch of the mystic, provided it’s packaged correctly, can be incredibly lucrative.” Lucrative. Always the bottom line. It was a crude metric for power, but a metric nonetheless. I allowed myself a small, internal smirk. Hana was a keen strategist, even if her methods were as mundane as calculating profit margins. She was a different kind of master, one whose arrays were built of contracts and capital rather than qi and cosmic intent. Still, she was effective. She had just, inadvertently, laid the first stone in my return path. “Very well, Hana,” Doyle conceded, pressing a flat palm against his blotter. He clearly didn’t like it, but he respected her influence. “But he answers to you. Every step. No surprises. And if this goes south, your firm takes the primary hit.” “Understood,” Hana replied, picking up her portfolio. She didn't spare me a glance as she swept out of the boardroom, leaving a trail of muted murmurs and Tate Vance’s simmering resentment. My victory, it seemed, was entirely her burden. Later that evening, the victory still felt… incomplete. Hana had dropped me curb-side at Master Kwan’s tea house, leaving a terse instruction to ‘discuss the project’ hanging in the exhaust before she sped off. Apparently, ‘discussing the project’ meant I was to report to her ‘grand-uncle’, another layer of her intricate, infuriating web. Master Kwan’s tea house, ‘The Verdant Haven’, was a sanctuary of hushed tones and aged wood nestled between gleaming high-rises. It smelled of roasted grains and damp earth, a scent that momentarily calmed the buzzing discontent within me. The space was simple, adorned with calligraphy scrolls and artfully placed bonsai trees. A single, low table dominated the main room, surrounded by cushions. Master Kwan, a man whose deep facial lines resembled cracked porcelain, greeted me with an easy nod. “Nephew Jiang. I trust your day was… illuminating?” I grunted, settling onto a cushion. “Illuminating, perhaps. Humiliating, certainly. And far too reliant on the machinations of others.” Kwan chuckled, his eyes crinkling. He poured me a cup of jade-green tea from a delicate clay pot. “The path to understanding often begins with a stumble, young master. And as for reliance… even the mightiest river requires tributaries to swell its banks.” My gaze, however, was not on Kwan’s philosophical pronouncements, but on the tea set itself. The clay pot, the matching cups – they pulsed with a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer. Not the raw, vibrant energy of the Azure Empyrean, but a gentle, ancient hum. This was not basic clay and glaze. This was Earth-crafted spiritual conduit, steeped in years of Anima Mundi exposure, slowly absorbing and refining the dying energy of the world. A true treasure, easily worth more than the entire Zenith Creative Agency if one knew how to appraise such things. “This tea set,” I said, picking up my cup, its warmth seeping into my palm, “it holds something. A memory of the world’s prime.” Kwan’s smile widened, a hint of something deeper in his eyes. “Indeed. These vessels have witnessed many seasons. They understand the nature of… balance. Of roots.” He poured himself a cup, his movements slow and deliberate. “A tree with shallow roots will be uprooted by the first strong wind, no matter how grand its branches.” “A tree with roots too deep might find itself starved of light,” I countered, a touch of my old arrogance surfacing. “Sometimes, a swift ascendance, a burst of growth, is necessary to claim the sun before the canopy closes.” I was thinking of my own cultivation, my rapid rise to Infinite Array Master, not the slow, plodding growth of Earth’s mundane plants. Kwan set down his cup, an amused glint in his eye. “Perhaps. But a forest also requires its undergrowth, its unseen networks, to thrive. The grandest tree cannot stand alone if the soil beneath it turns to dust.” I opened my mouth to argue, to pontificate on the superiority of direct power over systemic weakness, but my words caught in my throat. A prickle, cold and sharp, crawled over my skin. It wasn't the usual dull ache of the fading Anima Mundi, but something else. A drain. A focused, insidious consumption. My head snapped towards the open garden beyond the sliding shoji screens. The serene miniature landscape, moments ago an orderly spread of moss and stone, was changing. A patch of the carefully raked gravel was no longer grey, but a sickly, ash-white. And the bonsai, a meticulously sculpted pine that had stood proud against the evening light, was withering under the twilight. Its needles, once a deep emerald, were shriveling into brittle, desiccated husks, the wood itself twisting into a gnarled, sickly charcoal. “What… what is that?” I whispered, a genuine tremor in my voice. This wasn't natural decay. This was active, malevolent consumption. Master Kwan’s easy smile vanished, replaced by rigid tension around his mouth. His gaze, usually so gentle, hardened into flint. He stood, moving with surprising agility for his age, and walked to the edge of the screen, staring out at the blighted patch. “That,” he said, his voice low and guttural, “is the decay. The creeping corruption of a world losing its breath. We call it… the Blight.” He pointed a shaking finger at the spreading grey, the lifeless bonsai. “It is what happens when the Anima Mundi dies. It consumes everything, spiritual and physical, until only a husk remains.” His eyes, usually filled with an old man’s quiet wisdom, now burned with a fierce, ancient anger. He turned, slowly, to face me, his finger still trembling, but now aimed directly at my chest. The accusation in his gaze was stark, undeniable. “You.”

First Blight