"You’re talking like a raving lunatic cannibal again, Jian," Zelari snapped. Her hand rested on the hilt of her commander’s blade. "We have a strategy. The Sun-Crest Aegis has been reinforced with Void-Anchors. We have three legions in position and a Drake in the harbor. We don't need you to taste the enemy."

  Jian didn't look up from the slab of meat he carved with a dull kitchen knife. "A strategy," he rasped, voice a low rhythmic hum. "Oh, Zelari... you always were fond of the Heroic Defense script. You think the flags and the chanting can stop a man who has decided he owns the horizon? Please. Try your little show. I’m curious to see if the props hold up better than the last time."

  He sat cross-legged on the mosaic floor of the pavilion, his Ember-Steel Plate dull and unpretentious in the morning light. Kiri appeared from a pocket of shadow behind him, silently placing a bowl of dark pungent herbs at his side. She fed him strips of meat smoking with faint violet fire, her movements as rhythmic and mechanical as a clock.

  Look at the little ones, Jian, Kyuzumi purred in his mind. They’re so full of themselves. They have the Dragon’s fire and the Bird’s wind... but they lack my grace. Shall I show them how to truly dance?

  "Stay back, Fox," Jian muttered.

  His children—Caelum, Lyzara, and the twins—approached the picnic with awe and the inherited insanity of their father. They sat in a circle around him. Jian passed them chunks of meat smelling of ancient caves and starlight.

  "This is the Void-Bear heart," Jian said, locking eyes with Caelum. "It’s heavy with Earth-Yang. It will anchor your fire. Lyzara, the Sky-Ray liver. It will turn your wind into a razor."

  As they ate, the heirs of the Void felt their internal energies spiral out of control. The power in the meat was too raw, too primal. Before they could erupt, Jian reached out. He didn't touch them; his Edge Aura simply expanded—a cold surgical pressure entering their bodies and gripping their meridians.

  He didn't cultivate them. He sculpted them. He smoothed out the jagged flares of their energy, guiding the chaotic power into their lower dantians with the effortless precision of a man who had been a thousand different races.

  "The Golden Core," Jian whispered, eyes turning swirling copper-gold. "I’ve seen billions of them. My own puppets used to break through this rank just to show me how easy it was. I’ve watched worlds where every peasant was a Golden Core master, and I’ve watched worlds where only a god could achieve it."

  Caelum gasped as his energy crystallized into a perfect shimmering orb of gold and fire. "Father... I can’t feel anything from you. No rank. No Qi. You’re like... a hole in the world. How did you survive the scripts if you aren't even at our level?"

  Jian smiled, a jagged terrifyingly empty expression. "I’m just a man who forgot how to die, Caelum. I don't understand it either. Why did I survive the Great Purge while the Chosen Ones turned to ash? Maybe the Old Man just liked my screaming better."

  The family picnic was interrupted by a sound that made the air in the courtyard turn to glass.

  "FOOLISH JUNIORS!"

  The roar shook the palace foundations, a sonic shockwave shattering the windows of the High Alchemist’s lab. In the northern sky, a figure stood atop a cloud of white roiling vapor. He was dressed in robes of pristine white, his long white beard flowing in the wind, eyes glowing with terrifying absolute divinity. Lord Haxar, the High Immortal of the Old Empire.

  "You sit upon my family's abode!" Haxar bellowed, voice vibrating with the weight of a new stage of cultivation. "Take down this pathetic formation lest I destroy it and everything within! I have broken through the shackles of this world! I do not know the limits of my own power!"

  Zelari’s face went hard. "Guards! Deploy the God-Slayer arrays! Now!"

  The palace courtyard erupted in light. Twelve massive flags inscribed with high-level suppression runes flared to life. Chains of golden energy shot into the sky, weaving a web designed to drag an Immortal to the earth and strip him of his Qi. A masterpiece of military alchemy.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Haxar laughed.

  He didn't raise his hand. He stepped forward. The golden chains didn't break; they dissolved into sparks of light. The flags exploded into splinters of wood and silk, runes turning black and rotting in a heartbeat. The Sun-Crest Aegis flickered once, like a candle in a gale, and vanished.

  The High Immortal descended into the courtyard, feet never touching the ground. He looked at Zelari, Saphra, and the merchant sisters with a gaze as cold and predatory as a winter storm.

  "So," Haxar sneered, voice a low grinding rumble. "These are the so-called Queens of the new empire. The ones who took advantage of my seclusion to kill my kin." He looked at Valeriana and spat on the mosaic floor. "And the Sacrifice of the Garuda... I can no longer sense the bird’s heat on you, Princess. Did you let it go, or did you simply fail your duty?"

  His gaze shifted to the children, eyes narrowing. "A Golden Core? From a child of thirty? How... interesting. I can sense the Garuda’s wind in you, girl. And the Dragon’s fire in the boy. What have you been eating to achieve such a perverted evolution?"

  Mira stepped forward, voice trembling but defiant. "You have no right here, Lord Haxar! We are the rightful rulers! You should leave before—"

  Haxar laughed, a dry wheezing sound. "Rights? You speak of rights to an Immortal who has ascended? I have the power to justify my claim. You are but ants in the grass, and I find I am in need of some recreation after a century of silence." He looked at the women again, eyes roving over them with slow greasy assessment. "You are beautiful, I will admit. Perhaps I will keep you as playthings while I rebuild my lineage."

  Caelum stepped in front of his mother, skin hissing with steam. "You won't touch her, you old rot-gut!"

  Haxar’s smile was a jagged line of yellowed teeth. "A Golden Core junior thinks he can stop me? Do you even know what an Immortal is, boy? It is—"

  A laugh interrupted him.

  Not a roar or a shout. A low, rhythmic, profoundly crazy cackle from a dark corner of the pavilion. Jian still sat there, a half-eaten rib in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. He looked ragged, his tattered robes and scarred armor a stark contrast to Haxar’s pristine white silk.

  Haxar’s brow furrowed in a deep murderous frown. "Why do you laugh, beggar? I have no use for men in my new court. You have just signed your death certificate."

  Jian stood up slowly, wiping grease from his cracked lips with the back of his hand. He looked at Haxar not with fear, but with the clinical intensity of a butcher at a livestock auction.

  "I’m laughing because I’ve just balanced the Third Step of the Old Man’s influence," Jian rasped, voice smooth and terrifyingly sane. "And I find I’m ready to reach the Fourth Step. I just needed... an appetizer."

  Jian licked his lips, eyes turning a cold swirling cocktail of copper, gold, and void. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring.

  "You smell like the ground, Haxar," Jian said, voice dropping to a whisper echoing in every corner of the courtyard. "Old earth. Stagnant water. And a very distinct tint of... natal spirit. You’ve been harvesting the innate Yin of the young to fuel your ascension, haven't you? A century of closed-door cultivation... and you’re still just a parasite."

  Haxar’s face went purple with rage. "You dare speak to me thus? You common filth! I will erase your very existence!"

  Haxar raised his hand. The ground beneath Jian’s feet erupted into a geyser of Earth-Yang energy—a pillar of crushing brown light designed to pulverize everything it touched. "I cannot believe my family's halls would be tainted by such a lunatic!"

  He turned back to the women, aura flaring until the air itself began to hum. "Does anyone volunteer to be the first concubine? Perhaps I will go easy on the rest of your children if you cooperate."

  The women didn't answer. They weren't looking at Haxar. They were looking behind him.

  Haxar felt a sudden soul-chilling cold. He turned, eyes widening as he saw a man standing three inches from his face.

  Jian was no longer in the geyser. He stood right there, the Eclipse Fang resting casually on Haxar’s shoulder. The blade didn't draw blood; it drew the light out of the air.

  "You think a trick of the earth is enough for even a mortal?" Jian whispered, face inches from the Immortal’s. "Fool. The Old Man must be getting lazy. This script... the Arrogant Immortal Returning to Claim His Prize... I’ve seen it a thousand times. It’s a classic for a reason, but the dialogue is always so... predictable."

  Haxar tried to move, but he couldn't. Jian’s Edge Aura was no longer a probe; it was a physical weight pinning Haxar’s soul to his own skin.

  "Say the line, Haxar," Jian prompted, a faint twisted smile spreading across his face. "Say the line that every puppet says before the hero cuts the strings."

  Haxar’s jaw worked, eyes filled with terror he hadn't felt in a century. "You... YOU DARE?!?"

  Jian’s smile widened, copper eyes glowing with predatory joy.

  "Right on cue," Jian whispered.

  He didn't swing the sword. He simply leaned in and bit Haxar’s ear off.

  "Needs salt," Jian muttered as the High Immortal let out a scream that shook the world. "But the Natal Spirit aftertaste? Oh, Haxar... that’s going to be absolutely delicious."