Khan Daichi hadn’t had Miasma of his own in centuries. Not since cowards had conspired to trap him in that spirit apparatus as Hungry Ghost. He’d suffered through lifetimes gathering power for other Death cultivators, never able to touch it himself.

  But his newly acquired organitech body broke those chains.

  In all the ways that mattered, this form functioned like a living being. Its artificial Spirit sea had incredible capacity. Best of all, it had no consciousness of its own. The “personality bank” he’d found installed when he took over the body, he had deleted immediately. He was in command now, of the body’s actions, and most satisfactorily, of the Miasma he had gathered over the centuries.

  Daichi followed the thin trail of Miasma along the edge of Pearl City’s dome, toward the underwater temple the Death cultivator had seen when he and his friends had arrived on Selk.

  In the glossy barrier, the reflection of the organitech body caught Daichi’s eye. A lean young warlord stared back at him. Dark hair and eyes, sun-darkened skin, fine silken robes. He smiled and admired the young man’s deadly grin.

  Not only could he use Miasma again, but he wore his own face again. He was like a man returned from the dead. Or a Hungry Ghost.

  Once, the great khan had conquered all of his known world. These days, no one conquered just one known world. Not when there was a known universe for the taking.

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  With the Death cultivator sealed away in another dimension, the near-infinite store of Spirit Daichi had stored up throughout his imprisonment in the skull stone, and this new body that answered to no one but him, the task would be a simple one.

  His first order of business would be to bring into submission the rulers and warriors of this planet. He didn’t need an army to lay waste to a land, but soldiers and servants had their uses. And what was a khan without subjects? The more knees that bent to him, the more visible his omnipotence would be.

  There was the Crucible Casket to acquire as well, an apparatus that had been ancient even during his life. It was a relic of the Age of Death, when a dark goddess ruled all. In addition to the paltry cultivation and condensation the Death cultivator had used the necklace for, the Casket gave its accepted master access to the Miasma from every temple across the known universe. Complacent fool that he was, the boy had only begun to unlock that power before being sealed away by those Reapers.

  For the moment, the Death cultivator’s friends had possession of the Casket, but that would be solved along with the gathering of the army.

  At the edge of the dome closest to the underwater temple, Daichi used a surge of Miasma to call upon Undying Oath.

  Pearl City kept their enclosing bubble opalescent, a cloudy grayish sheen touched with hints of pink and yellow to mimick the sunrise on the surface of Selk was projected onto its rounded glass. He could not see out, even with these organitech eyes.

  But he felt the dead begin to rise from the layers of silt and sand.

  Hundreds. Thousands. Those eternal servants bound to the temple emerged, their flesh eaten away, but their oaths as strong as ever, writ in gem and script on their very bones.

  As they approached the dome, Daichi sent his skeletal servants his first command.