She remembered blood.
Blood of Su Dájǐ, that innocent concubine, her lifeless body cradled in her tails. Blood of Guìrén and Xǐmèi, her spirit-sisters in crime, punished for doing as they were instructed. Blood of Dì Xīn, that fool of an emperor, damned for being human and having human desires.
Blood of Jiāng Zǐyá, pawn of the gods.
Daji almost pitied him, her would-be executioner. An old man who lived through the turmoil of empires changing. Where most mortals would have died in a matter of days, he endured, all the way to the execution room.
All in the pursuit of harmony.
And for what? For the world to be reduced to skyscrapers and nuclear arms?
The time for gods had long since passed. Mortals had forgotten their fear of the unknown, forgotten the yoke of conformity. A world born from the wars of gods, now replaced with jungles of concrete and steel.
The gambit of Heaven had failed. Mankind wrote its own destiny now, its own future and demise.
Her only wish was that her family did not have to die so pointlessly for it.
Jiǔwěihú. My húlijīng. My most loyal servant.
I need your help to right an insult most hideous.
Go to Shāng Dì Xīn with your sisters. Ensure that his empire burns into ashes.
Only then can Heaven, Hell, and the Earth be united. Such is the will of Heaven.
Such is the command of Nüwa.
No matter the era, money was essential. Money paid for soldiers. Money built homes, bought food.
For a world that did not bow to gods, it bent the knee to something even colder.
Daji took out a purse of coins and handed the exact change to the man at the counter. He gave her a raised eyebrow, but said nothing as he took it. A nod between the two of them, and she left with her burger.
Before, she would have been more than willing to use her illusions to trick the man into giving her all she wanted. In the past, she could have convinced someone to give her their entire life savings.
The modern era was not so kind. Cameras, she learned, did not have souls that fell for her act, and disabling them invited too much attention. The machines of the past had spirit. Magic that she could weave and bend to do as she pleased, to trick into obeying her. The machines of today were somehow too primitive, too… not-alive.
How the mighty Daji had fallen, that a single keypad could defeat her.
She patted her cap, making sure that it hid her ears. Once she saw sure nobody was looking, she ducked into an alley and disappeared.
The next second, she re-emerged in her home, a cave too distant for humans to ever notice. She took off her coat, allowing her tails to uncoil around her body. Like her, they had grown thin and grey with time. She lit a candle, took a deep breath…
and finished the meal in a matter of seconds.
She loved the flavors - whatever Dì Xīn gave her in the past couldn't compare to the modern luxury of processed meat, melted cheese, and fresh vegetables, and ketchup, and spicy mayonnaise.
It made living in this world without gods all the more worth it.
She blinked, and her hands, while oily, were empty. As she went to wipe her hands and take a fresh drink of water, her mood depressed again as she took in her surroundings.
"So this is what I've been reduced to…"
She remembered having real power. Flames that could char venerated immortals, wind that summoned storms that not even Nüwa dared to pass through. Armor would bend and melt to her voice, her very will causing inanimate armaments to betray their owners. And yet…
"It's all because of that damn Zhào Jí!" she spat, smashing her cup against the table.
Emperor Huīzōng of Sòng. Foxbane. Bad enough that Heaven had committed genocide against her fellow fox spirits just for being foxes, the damned fool had torn down many of her shrines while she was dead, exterminating her cults and ensuring she could never find the worship needed to regain her strength.
Her breathing slowed as she struggled to calm down. She closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath.
Anger would never get her sisters back.
Honorable masters, wait! I beg you, reconsider!
Daji has not harmed any civilians. They were only illusions - the people are merely captured.
She has done as you asked. The Shāng have surrendered and the era of the Zhōu has begun. Would it not be auspicious to begin the new dynasty with clemency and magnamity?
Honorable masters?
Once, she read a copy of Fēngshén Yǎnyì (along with all the other books she had borrowed to see what gods she wasn't there to see born), hoping that history would vindicate her. That perhaps, some record of her servitude still existed. That with time, she would be exonerated.
That hope vanished as quickly as it arrived.
To them, the atrocities were real. The Heart of Bǐ Gān, the Execution of Méi Bó, the Orgies of Jiǔchí Ròulín - all these supposed crimes that she and Dì Xīn had committed, that she worked so tirelessly to fabricate. All taken at face value.
All the blame was put on her.
The wars were bloody, she recalled, but they weren't her doing. She did not lead the Jie Immortals to set their traps and commit atrocities on the battlefield, it was that fool Gōngbào who let his personal grudges with Zǐyá allow the war burn for as long as it did.
Zǐyá was a merciful man, and offered mercy to the losing side. He gave them their roles - Dì Xīn himself, too, had ascended to the God of Marriages.
But where was her reward for the role she played? What would Daji, she who enabled the conflict, who fanned the flames, with no blood shed but her own - what did she deserve?
Death.
Her mouth twitched as she read of Jiāng Zǐyá's ascension to the leader of the gods. She remembered all too well - the old man prostrating himself before the masked Twelve Chan Titans and asking for her freedom, the admonishment of the almighty Yuánshǐ Tīanzūn, Léizhènzǐ's quiet approach and then…
A crack of his rod, and Zǐyá exploded into a mist. The Thunderbolt stood quietly, bathed in the man's blood, and turned to her.
Behind that bird mask of his, Daji saw it in his eyes - tears. A man conflicted by honor and duty - a god, even. What noble soldier wished to kill their general, what loyal servant wanted to kill their beloved master?
He raised his head, enough for her to see his lips, and she read three simple words.
"dzˤam. ŋˤaŋ t.ɢəmʔ dzˤam."1
Daji wondered what Heaven did that could break the spirit of such an imposing warrior. Did they too promise him celestial promotion? Shaving off millennia of cultivation? Blackmail?
She didn't even have time to imagine a fourth scenario before the mighty weapon of Léizhènzǐ rendered her unto dust.
During her imprisonment, as it became increasingly clear that she was to be made an example of, Daji imagined that it would be time for her to accept her true death. The Chan sect had completely subdued any Jie allies she might have had - the Buddhists, too, had thrown their lot in with the new dynasty. They too, it seemed, were swayed by the silver tongue of the Twelve.
She had stared at the Thunderbolt as he neared her - he gave her the mercy of seeing her murderer. The man/god who she would never be able to forget for the rest of her life.
And yet. Daji lived.
"Entity has stolen my weapon and has disappeared from plain view," said the Man-in-Blue. "How are the cameras looking?"
"Most of our equipment is unable to locate the entity, but it is still visible on our third-party commercial-grade cameras. It is currently moving north."
Daji cursed under her breath as she heard this, spinning on her heel and dashing to the left. "Damn humans and their soulless machines."
Jailors. She had heard the name whispered by the few spirits who dared to remain in her presence. Those who sealed the non-humans away. Who kept the mortal world free of the influence of the gods.
Every era had its demon-hunters, and this was no different. She fought them long before the Xia unification, she fought them during the golden age of the Shang, and she fought for her life when the Zhou rebelled.
Only this time, the humans had guns and she had almost no magic.
She tried to teleport, but as before, she felt herself hitting a wall she couldn't see. Whoever these Jailors were, they knew what she could do. And more importantly, what she couldn't.
"Ender of Empires," she heard below her. Daji looked down - a spirit, too nondescript for her to tell the age of. "Enter."
A force dragged her down a hole, and sealed the entrance, well before any of the Jailors' infernal machines could follow her.
She fell, further and further down. Uncertain of when and where she would land, she yanked up her shirt, allowing her tails to spill out behind her.
Lack of nutrition and robbed her fur of its famed luster and size, but it would have to do.
In a matter of seconds, she finally reached the ground. Or at least, smashed into it.
The tails helped cushion the fall, but not even a fox spirit like her could outwit gravity without true magic. She pushed herself up, wincing from the pain, and touched her ribs. Nothing too broken that a couple nights rest wouldn't patch up.
"Ender of Empires. I am Zhōng Kuí." She looked forward. The nondescript spirit ball was back, and this time she had the focus needed to identify that name. Her heart sank.
"Shit," she muttered. "It's you."
In a flash of light the spirit ball was replaced by a muscular man with a hideous face. He carried a back full of scrolls, a short sword with his right hand, and a rope tied around his left. He nodded.
"It is well that you recognize me, Su Dájǐ. Shall we get down to business?"
From one Jailor to another. From humans that sought to keep her behind bars, to the hunter of wicked spirits. The hunter who had his title stripped from him due to his face.
"How did you find me?"
Zhōng Kuí laughed. "Your return sent shockwaves through Dìyù, you know. Though your execution was long before my time, it is difficult to mistake the presence of a fox spirit, and none compare to how dread inducing yours is."
Daji bared her teeth. "Little ghost hunters who weren't even born when the gods executed me should know when to respect their elders."
"By Huīzōng's command, none of you fox spirits are to be venerated," said Zhōng Kuí. He spat at the ground. "Apologies, lǎoguǐ, you're coming with me whether you want to or not."
The rope around his arm uncoiled and shot towards her. She dodged to the side, racing towards the hunter.
She slashed at him, her nails lengthening to claws that once killed sacred beasts, but Zhōng Kuí was unfazed. He parried her easily with his sword, and laughed.
"Come, then! Show me the power of the Ender of Empires!"
Daji snarled but didn't reply to the boast. Not having her powers against a man who was used to fighting those who did was a terrible position to be in.
She conjured up a mass wall of flames and sent it towards Zhōng Kuí. He took a step back and grinned.
"Yes! That's more like-"
-just for it to pass harmlessly through him. He blinked and sneered at Daji.
"So. This is all remains of the mighty jiǔwěi. I pity you. Had Huīzōng and the rest of Heaven successfully destroyed your cults and fellow spirits, you wouldn't even have the power to reform into the embarrassing state you are in now."
"Insolent brat," Daji said. She coughed up a little blood. "What was the point of saving me from the Jailors if you were going to kill me now?"
"Everyone wants you gone." For the first time that he spoke, Zhōng Kuí's voice lacked his usual boom. "Bad enough that the woman responsible for a dynastic contention be allowed to live, but to live this poorly? It reflects poorly on the gods who once, and still do, dread hearing your name. Better to give you a proper send-off or hide you away within our prisons than let mortals inflict the final insult of keeping you jailed away in their cells."
"You don't get to decide that for me!" She readied her hands again, ready to cast another spell.
"Your power has waned, jiǔwěi, and soon the others will learn. Allow me to send you to the underworld while they still fear and respect your name. Your illusions will not harm me."
Something cold pressed against the back of his head. Before he could react, the gun fired, felling the demon hunter.
The Daji in front of him dissipated into smoke. The real one was behind him, panting as she held the gun she had stolen from the Jailor with both hands.
"Try my bullet," she hissed. She fired once, twice, again and again into the corpse of Zhōng Kuí until there was nothing more to fire.
She dropped the weapon, hissing at the pain of the weapon's recoil. That pain was soon numbed by a different sensation.
Hunger.
She looked down at the corpse, and the blood that spilled from his body. Fresh blood. Eating the body of an immortal was sacriligeous at best and likely would ensure she be punished for the rest of eternity if she were to ever die.
But Daji had no plans of dying just yet.
She slowly knelt down and licked some blood. Her hunger exploded, yearning the crave of freshly spilled blood. A taste she had not experienced since long before Nüwa had taken her in as an apprentice.
Licks turn to slurps turned to bites. In a matter of minutes, what had been hesitant reverence for the blood of an immortal turned to a greedy frenzy of tears and rips. Power surged through her from the magical flesh, demanding more and more.
It would not be until much later that Daji regained her sanity, finding herself licking the cold floor long after she had emptied the marrow of Zhōng Kuí.
She punched a wall. Whereas before her fist would bounce harmlessly off, it now cracked the rocky walls surrounding her. Emboldened, she shot a ball of fire. Though weaker than any magic she used to wield, the fire exploded against the ground, and soil and dust sprayed from the impact.
No longer was she limited to her illusions.
She turned to the discarded bag of scrolls that Zhōng Kuí possessed. They were all inscribed with names of the spirits that he was tasked with subduing. Some were crossed out, indicating those jobs were already completed.
Daji took satisfaction in that she was not one of them.
There were no names she recognized. She was not surprised. Entire millennia had passed since the end of the Shāng. She expected entire generations of spirits to be born and destroyed well before she woke up.
Daji opened up the final scroll, and her eyes widened. A fox spirit lived. One that, should she consume, would bring her closer to her original strength than any immortal she could possibly kill.
She smiled. It was time to hunt the gumiho of the Jailors.