The twenty thousand men of the Imperial Third Legion didn't die in a battle. They died as scenery.

  Jian never drew his sword. He didn't even use his hands. He just stood there, and the world around him began to come apart. The Fire energy he’d torn out of the Primal Flood Dragon was too much for a human body to hold; it was leaking out of his pores in invisible, screaming waves of heat.

  As he walked into the heart of the Imperial ranks, the air turned thick and sour. The soldiers in the front didn't have time to lift their shields before their lungs cooked inside their chests. Their steel breastplates—the pride of the Emperor’s best smiths—started to glow, then sag, then melt directly into their skin. They stood there like a forest of charred statues, frozen in the middle of a scream that never finished.

  "Look at them," Jian whispered. The sound carried perfectly over the roar of the fire. He started to laugh—a dry, wheezing sound that reminded everyone of the Old Man. "Look how neat the rows are. They died in perfect formation. It’s beautiful, really. Bravo! Encore!"

  He flicked a hand. A whip of orange flame lashed out, taking the heads off a dozen cavalrymen fifty yards away. The heads didn't even hit the ground; they turned to mist before they fell.

  "Wasn't it fun?" Jian screamed at the sky. His eyes were spinning with a copper light that made the rebel archers on the walls drop their bows and shrink back. "Did you see that officer? He thought he was real! He thought his 'Empire' was anything more than ink on a page! Oh, that’s a good one. That’s a classic!"

  By the time the last officer was a pile of white ash, the silence in the canyon was worse than the fighting. The golden dome of the Imperial mages had vanished—not because they’d lowered it, but because there was no one left to hold it up.

  Caelum, the rebel leader, picked his way through the ruins of the gate. His sword was shaking. He’d been at war for twenty years, but he’d never seen anything like this. He walked toward Jian, who was standing in a circle of blackened earth, his skin literally smoking.

  "Are you... Jian?" Caelum’s voice cracked. "The one from the reports? The Calamity of Oakhaven?"

  Jian turned his head. The movement was slow and jerky, like a puppet being moved by someone who didn't know how the strings worked. He looked at Caelum, but his eyes were focused on the air just above the man’s head.

  "Jian?" Jian laughed, and the sound was hollow. "Maybe. Or maybe I’m Chen. Or Jiang Chen. Names are just costumes, don't you think? I think I was a king once. Or maybe I was the stable boy who poisoned the king? It’s hard to keep track when the writer is a hack."

  He stumbled, his knees hitting the dirt as another surge of fire hit his chest. His veins turned into glowing gold wires under his skin. "Alchemist!" he roared. "The balance! The stage is going to break!"

  Saphra and Zelari ran forward. They didn't look at the thousands of bodies; they were too busy looking at the human bomb in front of them.

  "Caelum, get your men back!" Saphra yelled. "The heat alone will kill you!"

  She knelt by Jian, her face hard. "Jian, sit. Now. Zelari, the meat!"

  Zelari scrambled to the grill. She grabbed the mountain goat she’d been cooking earlier, her hands trembling as she smeared it with a thick, freezing paste of Water Roots and ginger. The smell was sharp and medicinal, cutting right through the sulfur in the air.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "Eat," Zelari said, shoving the slab of meat at him. "Don't think about it. Just chew."

  Jian tore into the meat like an animal. As the water-aligned herbs hit his throat, a massive cloud of white steam hissed out of his mouth and skin, sounding like a hot iron being dropped into a bucket of ice.

  He groaned, and for a second, the copper light in his eyes flickered.

  "More," he rasped. "It’s settling. But the core is still too big. I need something to hold it down."

  An hour later, the rebel camp was a mess. It didn't feel like they’d won; it felt like they were running for their lives.

  "We can't stay," Caelum said, pacing the war room. "He killed twenty thousand men. The Empire will send a High Immortal for this, or the God-Slayers. Everyone with a drop of spiritual sense in this province knows we're here now."

  "We're going to the Capital," Zelari said. She was watching Jian from the doorway. He was slumped against some grain sacks, and Kiri, the goblin, was silently fanning him with a piece of scrap metal.

  Saphra looked up. "The Capital? Zelari, that’s a death sentence. The Imperial arrays are ten layers deep there."

  "We won't get him there by asking him to fight," Zelari whispered. "He doesn't care about the rebellion. He barely knows who we are. But look at him. He’s obsessed with 'Great Powers' because they keep him from exploding. And he cares about flavor because it’s the only thing that feels real to him anymore."

  She turned back to the rebel leaders. "We bait him. We talk about the seafood from Azure Bay. The Silver-Fin Sea Bass. The Abyssal Crab."

  One of the older rebels nodded slowly. "The Abyssal Crab is famous. They say the meat is rich enough to heal a fractured dantian."

  "Exactly," Zelari said. "And Saphra... tell him about the Sun-Winged Garuda. The one on the spires of the Sun-Temple."

  Saphra’s eyes went wide. She looked at the map. "The Garuda? It’s been the protector of the Central Province for a thousand years. It’s where the Empire gets its solar power."

  "And it’s made of pure Yang," Saphra added, her voice dropping. "If he eats the Flood Dragon core and then the Garuda... he might actually have the weight to stop his body from tearing itself apart."

  "He'll eat their god," Caelum whispered.

  "He'll eat a prop that’s stayed on stage too long," Zelari corrected.

  They found Jian as the sun was going down. The sky was still black with smoke from the dead army.

  "We’re moving, Jian," Zelari said. She didn't flinch when his copper eyes snapped open. "The food here is garbage. But the Capital... they say the seafood there is the best in the world. They have spices you can't find out here. Heaven-Salt. Void-Pepper."

  Jian grunted. His body was still twitching with sparks. "Seafood? Too much Yin. I need Yang to balance the Dragon. If I eat too much sea-trash, I'll turn into a cloud of steam."

  He looked at her, his gaze narrowing. "I’m not an idiot, Zelari. I know you want your war. I don't care about your war."

  Saphra stepped up, keeping her voice steady. "It’s not just the food. There’s a creature at the Capital. The Sun-Winged Garuda. It’s a Primal Spirit. Its heart is a nugget of Solar Yang. If you had that, you wouldn't need me to balance you every three hours. You’d be self-sustaining."

  The camp went silent. Even the fan stopped moving.

  Jian leaned forward, his nostrils flaring. He looked south, as if he could already see the golden spires of the city through the mountains.

  "A Sun-Winged Garuda," Jian whispered. That oily, black gleam was back in his eyes, fighting with the dragon-light. "A 'Guardian Spirit.' Another thing for the puppets to worship."

  He stood up, and the ground under his boots turned to charcoal instantly. He looked at his hands, then at the terrified rebels watching him from the shadows.

  "I wonder," Jian said, a slow, ugly smile spreading across his face. "I wonder what a god tastes like after it’s been marinated in a thousand years of prayer."

  He looked at Zelari. "Pack the spices, girl. And you, Alchemist... get the Water Roots ready. I’m going to need a very large side dish."

  He started walking south, laughing that low, rhythmic laugh again.

  "Wasn't it fun?" he muttered to the wind. "The bird thinks it can fly. Let's see how it tastes on a spit."