~~~
“Hear me, Emperor Qing Jin of the Storm Dragon Empire! I am the Red Shadow! Surrender yourself to the authority of the Temple of the Thousand Shadows. Otherwise, every single person in this country will die by my hand!”
Red Shadow’s roar is heard all around the country, and Liu Jin’s throne room is no exception. The young Emperor knows those words are not an empty threat. The mass of energy floating above the palace, the core of the technique that threatens all, is entirely too real for that. In the blink of an eye, every single person in the Empire has become a hostage. It’s unthinkable. It’s outrageous. It is…
“Well, isn’t this interesting?"
Liu Jin’s pupils become slits as he looks at Serene End. His Qi crackles with power, and scales rise over his body. The whispers of the Storm Dragon suddenly seem so reasonable. In fact, Liu Jin is having a hard time remembering why he is allowing so many unneeded things to exist.
Serene End smiles.
“I’m not the only member of the Death Fashioning Scripture close by, Your Majesty,” she says. “There is a group of us waiting just on the other side of the border. It seems to me that the people of this nation could use our strength right now.”
“Say what you truly mean,” Xiao Shuang says coldly. Frost covers the floor as her angry Qi fills the room. “You will only help us if he surrenders himself to you. Is that it?”
“It is only fair,” Serene End says, shrugging. “We’d be entering into a war with the Temple of the Thousand Shadows on Emperor Qing Jin’s behalf and using our resources to protect his country. That’s a great undertaking that would demand us to break several treaties just for him. Surely, he can give us something in exchange for all that work.”
“Leave right now!” Xiao Shuang hisses. Her Qi borders on violence.
“Not until he answers,” Serene End says, her own Qi rising.
Liu Jin does not speak.
Truth be told, he is happy that Xiao Shuang is so angry on his behalf. It makes it easier to think with a clear head. He could summon the power of the Storm Dragon to deal with this situation, but that’s not certain to work. If this were an attack against himself, it'd be easy to block it. However, Red Shadow is attacking everyone else instead. Worse, he was smart enough to fly outside the palace’s sphere of influence before doing so.
If Liu Jin summons the Storm Dragon, he could order it to launch an attack from the castle and destroy Red Shadow’s technique. However, there is no way Red Shadow will miss the sudden buildup of energy. It might even cause him to launch his attack prematurely. Even if Liu Jin succeeds in destroying his technique, Red Shadow will just try again. There are too many points of failure.
“Can they stop him?” Liu Jin asks Serene End. Xiao Shuang turns to him sharply.
“Husband!”
“I wouldn’t have offered it if they couldn’t, would I?” Serene End replies, and Liu Jin knows he can trust those words.
If he has the support of the Death Fashioning Scripture, everything becomes possible. All he needs to do to ensure his country lives another day… is to give himself up.
Can he?
~~~
“Of all the foul things!” Meng Yue shouts as she exchanges blows with Quiet Shadow. Angry Qi radiates from her in waves. “Why would you taint our battle with something so worthless?”
Her number of actions has increased once more. If she could just move outside Quiet Shadow's area of influence, she’d be able to solve this, but the old man knows better than to allow it. Meng Yue raises a wall of ice in front of her, and Quiet Shadow breaks it with his golden club. He follows it up with shallow swings. He is no longer fighting to win. He is fighting to stall her.
“It is as I told you, Lady Meng Yue,” Quiet Shadow says, parrying her blows. “We cannot do all that we want, so we must do what we must.”
“What you must? What part of this is something you must do?” Meng Yue says. “Why do lower lives matter in a battle such as this?”
“They might be lower lives, but they have worth as a group. One country’s worth, to be exact. Because of all those insignificant lives, the Young Dragon has an empire, a title, an army, and alliances. Because of them, he is Emperor Qing Jin. Without them, he is just another talented Heaven Realm cultivator.”
Meng Yue frowns. Her next hit is stronger. Angrier.
Because she cannot deny Quiet Shadow’s words.
Would the Divine Frozen Palace deal with young Liu Jin the same way if he wasn’t the ruler of a country? That is all Meng Yue needs to ask herself to realize Quiet Shadow is right. Without followers and territory, Liu Jin is just a person. A very impressive person, one who has reached the Heaven Realm, but a person still. He has not yet reached the level where he can be said to be a calamity unto himself.
How can he defend his territory as just one person? How can he impose terms without an army to enforce them? Why should anyone treat him as an equal when they can just take what they want from him? Who would respect a man who lost a country? Xiao Shuang’s husband would become a subject of mockery, a cautionary tale of what happens to those who defy the Other Side.
The only thing he would be left with would be the Storm Dragon Palace. The shadow of a Divinity is not a small thing. Even Meng Yue is impressed by the power she feels simmering inside the palace, but that power is limited to the palace. Even if Liu Jin can move the palace, that fundamental truth remains unchanged.
“The Storm Dragon Palace will become nothing more than a prison,” Quiet Shadow says. “All that will be left for Qing Jin is to decide on his jailor.”
~~~
Huang Shing does not know whether his eyes are open or closed.
There are millions of shadow swords in the sky, and one of them is aimed right at him. Maybe he can block it. Maybe he can't. That's not what his attention is focused on.
As his cultivation has grown, so has his awareness of the world around him. It is not just because he has become better at sensing Qi or because his senses have grown sharper. It goes deeper than that. It is a sense of knowing. Intuition, but better. It nicely complements his natural senses and makes him a more efficient fighter.
Right now, that sense of knowing has overwhelmed everything else. Huang Shing does not see. He does not hear. He does not feel. He does not smell. He does not taste.
He knows.
He knows there are two Emperors fighting. He knows it is the lady of the Divine Frozen Palace and probably some cultivator from the Temple of the Thousand Shadows. He knows they are wielding their Dao against each other, and their souls are screaming so loudly he can barely hear his own.
It humbles him.
Days ago, he tried to cheer up Bei Hong, and he fully believed the words he said back then. Now, he feels like a liar. He truly is nothing compared to these two. His Dao screams in rebellion, but Huang Shing tells it to be realistic. It’s too much. It’s too soon.
“If I had ten years…No, just five years,” Huang Shing says without even realizing he is speaking. “If I just had five more years!”
His soul roars.
His cultivation advances one stage.
Huang Shing doesn’t even notice.
~~~
Liu Jin pushes his mind to its limits to find a solution.
It would be easier if not for one very annoying interruption.
“What is there to think about?” Serene End asks with deliberate loudness. She knows he needs time to think and is doing her best to keep him off-balance.
“Accept our offer,” she continues, raising her hands. “Save your country and be welcomed into our fold! You will be returning what is rightfully ours and mending a feud that is thousands of years old. The Death Fashioning Scripture will welcome you as a hero! You will keep your country. You will keep your lovers and companions. You might even be given this whole side of the Dead Plains to rule over as a reward.”
“That’s enough of you!” Xiao Shuang says. The ice around her grows spikes that are aimed at Serene End. “Your useless chatter is unwanted here.”
“If he wants me to be quiet, then-”
Serene End cannot fish her sentence. A wave of Liu Jin's hand silences the area around her. Even if she tries to use Qi to carry her words, it will not work. Her attempts to confuse and distract him have come to an end.
That does not mean Liu Jin knows what to do.
Try as he might, he can only think of the many ways this can go wrong. If he loses his country, he will lose nearly all support. Emperor Xiang will never risk the Crimson Cloud Empire suffering this fate. Even the Four Great Sects will start fearing for their disciples. That’s not even taking into account the loss of standing Liu Jin will suffer.
No, before all that, his people are going to die in the next few seconds if he doesn’t do something. If he takes Serene End’s offer, he avoids all of that… but what’s the point of everything he has done so far if he’s just going to give the Death Fashioning Scripture what they want?
That’s the one outcome he can’t have. There will be no stopping them from bringing down the barrier, and his people will die all the same. It will just be a little later and at the hands of demons rather than humans.
Should he lie? Pretend to agree to Serene End’s deal, then go back on his word? It might hurt his cultivation, but that doesn’t matter. However, Liu Jin refuses to believe Serene End will be easily fooled. More importantly, she must have some way to enforce the deal.
He needs to summon the Storm Dragon. There is no other way, but it will not be fast enough.
If he only had one more…piece…
Liu Jin thinks of it, but there is no need for him to give the order.
He had the same thought.
~~~
General Nie Dan rises into the skies, flying through the hole left in Lady Meng Yue’s barrier. His blazing Qi is brighter than the sun itself, and at that moment, he is the only sun the people in the Storm Dragon Empire have. All the lethal intent he can muster is aimed right at the arrogant Emperor who has dared to threaten every life in this nation.
Red Shadow has already transformed into an ogre. He is a tall beast with leathery skin the color of his name. Unlike Quiet Shadow, who is clad in golden armor, Red Shadow wears nothing more than a simple loincloth. He has a wild mane of black hair that covers his shoulders and much of his back. His body is a mass of hulking muscles with six powerful arms, and a single horn grows from his forehead.
He looks amused.
Though people all over the Empire are filled with hope as General Nie Dan brings light into the darkness, those who are strong know better. Nie Dan is not at his best. Even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.
Emperor Realm, Level Six.
Emperor Realm, Level Nine.
One level of difference in the Emperor Realm can already feel like an insurmountable abyss. Three means they might as well be in different worlds. General Nie Dan cannot possibly do anything against Red Shadow. He knows this.
[Advance]
He goes forth regardless.
[Raging God Flames]
Fire erupts in the sky. Nie Dan’s technique is not aimed at Red Shadow but at the core of the massive technique dominating the sky. Alas, his fire never gets close. Red Shadow quickly moves in the path of his flames and raises his hand. Tendrils of shadows emerge from it and wrap around Nie Dan’s fire, smothering it in an instant.
[Attack]
“Why waste my time?” Red Shadow asks as he catches Nie Dan’s fist and breaks it. The general refuses to cry out in pain. “You cannot defeat me, and you cannot stop this. Will you feel better if you show me an unsightly struggle?”
“What a foolish question!” Nie Dan yells as his Qi rises and his soul burns. “I will struggle until the day I die!”
The fire surrounding Nie Dan burns brighter. Red Shadows grunts as he feels the heat. A punch from him breaks Nie Dan’s ribs and forces him back.
“Do you mean to offer your own life to stop me? You overestimate your worth!” Red Shadow yells, sensing the intent in Nie Dan's Qi. “But if you want to die, I shall oblige you!”
At that moment, Red Shadow raises a hand to strike down Nie Dan.
At that moment, Red Shadow’s assessment of Nie Dan changes from useless distraction to elimination target.
For that brief instant, all of his senses are focused on him.
~~~
“Storm Dragon! I call on you!”
~~~
The Shadow of the Divinity wakes up, and a huge bolt of purple lightning is shot out from the palace. Red Shadow’s hand is a mere instant away from piercing Nie Dans’s chest when his every instinct screams at him to move. The lightning of a Divinity is not something he can ignore. Red Shadow immediately throws himself to the side.
The blast of purple lightning just barely passes over Nie Dan’s shoulder. It also fails to strike Red Shadow.
It smashes right into the core of the technique that dominates the sky. The purple lightning spreads throughout the shadow and disintegrates it, bringing back the blue sky to the people of the Storm Dragon Empire.
“You!” Red Shadow yells angrily at Nie Dan. “You planned that!”
Nie Dan allows himself a smile. He attacked to force Red Shadow to put himself and his technique on a straight path from Storm Dragon Palace. Either Red Shadow would be hit by the Storm Dragon, or his technique would be.
“I can only be grateful that you played into that so perfectly,” he says, further incensing Red Shadow.
“You accomplished nothing,” Red Shadow says, raising his hand. Shadows pour out and cover the skies once more. “I can do this at any moment. Since you tried to stop me, there is no point in delaying this anymore. Blame your Emperor’s selfish choice!”
[Judgment Blades]
Nie Dan expects the Storm Dragon Palace to fire another blast of lightning. However, panic grows inside him as that fails to happen. The blades are launched, and Nie Dan prepares to destroy as many as he can, but then…
One blade becomes ten.
Ten becomes a ten hundred.
Ten hundred becomes ten thousand.
Each time they separate, the blades grow smaller and weaker. Eventually, they are so small they cannot be seen anymore. The fearsome attack ends up accomplishing nothing other than lifting some dust from the ground.
In the Storm Dragon Palace, Liu Jin smiles. The Storm Dragon sensed him approaching the moment he awoke and showed it to Liu Jin. That is why there was no need for him to do anything else.
Not when that man is there.
“I believe you just tried to kill my son and daughter," says Feng Shang of the Eternal Flame Clan. “I do not take kindly to that. For your sake, I hope you have your affairs in order.”
~~~
Mini-Character List
Liu Jin: Our protagonist. Needs a long sleep after this.
Xiao Shuang: Meng Yue’s disciple. Will stab you. Repeatedly.
Serene End: Disciple of the Death Fashioning Scripture. Tactical annoyance.
Quiet Shadow: Member of the Temple of the Thousand Shadows. Resigned cruelty.
Meng Yue: One of the Five Fairies of the Divine Frozen Palace. Kind of really pissed off.
Huang Shing: Disciple of the Eternal Flame Clan. Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp.
Nie Dan: Heavenly General. Unlike the Spurs, he does not choke in critical moments.
Red Shadow: Member of the Temple of the Thousand Shadows. Armor is for people without glorious red muscles.
Feng Shang: Father of Lu Mei and Feng Zhuo. Indubitably nettled.