"What's going on over there?"
Inside a mid-sized teahouse along the street, a place where cultivators and ordinary folk alike often came to relax and trade news, several patrons had gathered in a cluster, discussing the current state of the city and the world beyond.
"Sounds like a fight's breaking out..."
A young man leaned out through the window to look. He saw a large group in robes bearing the Virtue Sword Sect's emblem, blocking off the street.
"So they can just cause trouble like this now?"
"...Not surprising. The court's got most of its troops tied up on guard duty these days — that's how the big sects get away with stunts like this."
"Better not to get involved. The way things are, the authorities won't care if one or two commoners turn up dead or missing."
"True enough..."
BOOM!
Right as they spoke, some mysterious object came crashing through the wall with tremendous force, punching a hole straight through the wooden partition. Patrons sipping their tea sprayed it out in a fine mist. Once the chaos settled, they realized the thing that had smashed the shop to pieces was none other than the Virtue Sword Sect head's own precious young princess!
"Damn it! Get out of the shop, now. We're all going to get dragged into this mess."
What he said was true enough. For ordinary folk like them, the very last thing they should do was get tangled up in a fight between major powers like this.
If the Virtue Sword Sect's people arrived to find this, nothing could guarantee they would not fly into a rage and take it out on whoever happened to be nearby.
"Young miss!"
And in under ten seconds, just as predicted, Virtue Sword Sect disciples came rushing into the shop in a panic. They pulled Yaoyao free of the wall she had been lodged in, blood pooling around her mouth, and carried her back outside. Their eyes fixed on Mu Xia, who was still staring at her own fist in horror.
No one had expected she would dare punch the Virtue Sword Sect's one and only young princess square in the face like that!
"..."
Chen Jingyi swallowed audibly. He looked back and forth between the girl he had once loved and his own disfigured wife with a strange expression. On the day he had chosen to marry into the great sect, he had never once imagined a scene like this would come to pass.
Had the situation just... reversed itself?
"You dared hurt the young miss — the sect head won't let you live!"
A young disciple jabbed a finger at Mu Xia and shouted the words. But the moment her icy stare turned on him, he flinched and scrambled to hide behind his senior, trembling with fear.
Didn't this woman fear death at all!
Given the Goddess Alchemy Palace's current state, even the Battlefield Heroine herself would not find this an easy problem to solve.
Because the whole scheme had been staged so that Mu Xia would be the one to "strike" first, even if the matter reached the royal court, they would have no choice but to rule in the Virtue Sword Sect's favor!
And the Battlefield Heroine surely would not lower herself to get involved and risk her own honor!
"Senior sister. Please take our junior sisters and go. This time, I'm the one who struck her. None of you are involved."
Mu Xia understood the situation perfectly well. She spoke to Su Lin calmly, her expression resolute. She was trying, above all, not to drag the entire Palace into this.
"I, Mu Xia, hereby withdraw as a disciple of—"
"No!"
But before she could finish, Xinjia and Xinhong cut her off, their voices firm. Both girls stepped up beside their senior sister and each took one of her hands.
"No matter what, we're not letting you take the blame for this alone — we kicked that man too!"
They pointed to the male disciple who had lunged at them earlier.
"..."
Crack!
And in an instant, that same disciple was struck by a massive surge of qi and sent flying, this time coughing up an honest stream of blood.
It was Su Lin, silent until now, who had struck him!
She smiled as her eyes met Mu Xia's.
"There. Now I'm involved too. Whatever you say won't change that anymore."
"...All of you!"
"No more talking."
Su Lin cut her off. She walked up to stand beside her three junior sisters, her own long-dormant qi beginning to churn and spread outward in a wide circle.
...Late-stage Grandmaster.
Mu Xia was not the only one who had come this far from a single week of training. Su Lin had too, and she looked even stronger than her junior sister!
"What in the world was that medicine the elder had us drinking..."
Su Lin knew perfectly well that this rate of progress was not normal, and she had already worked out that the cause had to be the blue water they had been drinking.
"...Let's talk this over again."
Chen Jingyi sensed things were not going well and tried to find a way to de-escalate. Even he himself had not yet reached Late-stage Grandmaster, and now there were two of them at that level — even if his people swarmed the pair, there would be no winning. But no one could have guessed that Yaoyao, being helped back by a junior disciple, would bark out in fury.
"Chen Jingyi! You're still thinking of negotiating with them!?"
"Yaoyao..."
Chen Jingyi knew perfectly well that his wife had lost her composure. Having been born the sole daughter of a great sect head, she had always gotten whatever she wanted. After being rejected and then humiliated so thoroughly on top of it, it was no wonder she could no longer keep her emotions in check.
"That's right... There's no need to negotiate this at all!"
A booming roar echoed down from the sky. A man in white robes appeared, trailing a procession of dozens more cultivators behind him. Every last one of them was at least Late-stage Grandmaster, and the man leading them was a full Sage!
The razor-sharp sword auras surrounding them left no doubt — they were from the Virtue Sword Sect.
"Father!"
Yaoyao cried out with relief. The man in white, upon seeing his precious daughter's battered state, was consumed by rage almost instantly. He himself had approved part of this plan, yes — but nowhere in it had it said his daughter's face would end up beaten out of shape like that, had it?
"Who did this to her!"
His single word landed like a royal decree. Sage-level pressure spread out across the entire sky. The veins bulging across his whole body were proof enough of just how furious he was.
"Sect head, sir, it was that girl there who hurt the young miss..."
A Virtue Sword Sect disciple bowed his head and reported in a trembling voice. He knew well enough this man's reputation — a father who had doted on his daughter since the day she was born.
"Is that so?"
"Then why..."
Crack!
"...did all of you let her get hurt in the first place!"
With a single flick of his wrist, he sent the disciple flying dozens of meters. The rest of the disciples stood frozen, trembling, not daring to move for fear of becoming the next sacrifice to this Sage's wrath.
"...A waste of good rice, the lot of you."
"Huang Zhailong... please, calm yourself."
One of the elders traveling with him spoke up in warning. He glanced around them. They were out in public now, with countless eyes watching their every move. If this were allowed to continue, rumors of behavior unbecoming of the name "Virtue Sword" would be certain to follow.
"...Hmph."
Huang Zhailong, head of the Virtue Sword Sect, let out a sound of displeasure. But he understood what the elder meant. The middle-aged man shifted his gaze to fix instead on the four Goddess Alchemy Palace disciples.
"Whoever struck her — step forward."
"...Head of the Virtue Sword Sect. It was I who struck your daughter."
Mu Xia glanced at her sisters, then stepped forward without hesitation. This had spiraled out of control because she had lost control of her own temper, and so she pressed her palms together and bowed her head in a plain, direct plea.
"They had nothing to do with this. Please judge fairly, and let them go."
"..."
Crack!
The sound of impact thundered out once more.
But this time, it was Mu Xia who went flying, slamming into the building behind her hard enough to bring it down!
"Senior sister!"
Xinjia and Xinhong went pale. The two girls rushed to help their senior sister, who had been caught completely off guard by a single blow from a Sage-level Huang Zhailong. They channeled qi to clear the fallen debris out of the way, and found Mu Xia's battered body lying underneath, teetering on the edge of death.
"Why would you do this!?"
Su Lin rounded on the middle-aged man, snarling in disbelief. Her junior sister had already surrendered, yet he had still struck her down without a shred of concern for the watching crowd.
"What did I do wrong? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That girl hurt my daughter. I simply did the same to her, that's all."
Huang Zhailong answered flatly. He swept his gaze over the crowd and asked a single question.
"Anyone who has a problem with that can step right up."
"..."
Of course, not a single soul dared speak up. The pressure radiating from the surrounding Virtue Sword Sect elders and disciples made the warning plain enough.
"Senior sister!"
Her breath alone, faint and shallow, along with limbs bent at wrong angles, was enough to show just how badly Mu Xia was hurt. Fresh blood poured from every part of her body, soaking her robes through and staining them a deep red.
She looked like a beautiful flower that had been picked, then trampled underfoot until nothing of its original shape remained.
"...Please hold on. Please don't let anything happen to you!"
Xinhong wept, helpless. Her sister dug a pill out of her own pouch and pushed it into Mu Xia's mouth, but an unconscious girl could not possibly swallow it. She choked it back up in a wretched, undignified mess.
"..."
Chen Jingyi watched the scene with an expression of pain. He thought of the girl he had loved as a boy, the one who had once nursed him back to health, and compared her to his current wife, who wore her spiteful satisfaction openly, without a shred of shame.
Yes... I made the right choice.
In this world, strength is all that matters. So what's wrong with choosing the path that makes me the strongest?
You're the one who's wrong here, Mu Xia. If you had just accepted my offer, no one would have had to get hurt...
"Take them away!"
Huang Zhailong barked the order. The procession of elders behind him flared their pressure outward to keep anyone from interfering, then closed in to surround the four Goddess Alchemy Palace disciples with cold, hard stares.
"...Hasn't this been enough already?"
Su Lin put her own body between the elders and her three junior sisters, asking, her voice sharp with protest. Every elder present was a core elder of the Virtue Sword Sect — any one of them alone would be more than enough to defeat her.
"Just come along quietly, girl. It's you lot who wronged us first, so you can hardly blame us for wanting to take you in for a little questioning."
One of the elders wore a sly smile. As long as they got the girls out of the public eye, whatever happened to them afterward would be no one else's business.
"I'll go with you myself. My junior sister is gravely injured — please, let her go and get treatment..."
Su Lin pleaded, looking at Mu Xia's half-dead body with a stab of pain.
Slash!
But right then, a white blade of sword aura grazed across her left arm, blood gushing out. She clutched the arm, her face bloodless, staring at Huang Zhailong, who had struck the blow.
"This was only a warning... Next time, it might not be your arm."
The middle-aged man released a wave of terrifying pressure, his gaze shifting to the girls standing behind Su Lin.
"...It might be your junior sisters' 'necks' instead."
This was the very thing that had made Huang Zhailong's name — the Intent that had awoken in him the moment he broke through into the realm of Sage.
Heavenly Sword Intent!
This man could control his sword auras at will. A single thought from him was more than enough to snuff out an enemy dozens of meters away!
"..."
"...I understand."
Su Lin swept her eyes around in despair. The gap between Late-stage Grandmaster and Sage was simply too vast. And even though this was happening in the middle of the city, faced with a power this immense, not a single soul dared step forward to help them.
"Good... After this, I still have plenty to discuss with that empress of yours who's already got one foot in the grave."
A smile touched the corner of Huang Zhailong's mouth. Everything was falling into place exactly as he had planned.
"So what will you do with them, sir? Late-stage Grandmasters this young don't come along every day."
One of the elders, so fat his flesh jiggled with every movement, asked with a look of open lechery.
"That's true... Handing them off to someone in the sect wouldn't be a bad idea either."
"I'll take her!"
"Can it be me, sir!"
"Out of the way, all of you — it should be an elder like me!"
Just watching those disciples and elders squabble over who would get to claim them was enough to raise gooseflesh on Su Lin's skin. She could not bring herself to meet their eyes, sick to her stomach at the sight of them.
"Go on, pray... Pray that your worthless empress comes to save you!?"
Huang Yaoyao, her face mostly healed now with the help of one of the elders, marched straight over to where Mu Xia lay broken. She flung the two sisters shielding their senior sister out of her way, raising her foot to stomp down on the body that might already be dead, savoring the moment.
But then—
BOOM!
A massive explosion thundered from somewhere far off. Above a mountain not far from the city, a colossal pillar of light tore upward through the sky, scattering the clouds apart. Pressure spread outward in a wave so vast it forced even a Sage to submit — even Huang Zhailong broke into an uncontrollable sweat.
Could an ancient demon have invaded again!?
But that could not be it. And besides, the direction that pressure was coming from was...
Rumble…
"...I really must be the useless empress they say I am."
Before anyone noticed, a warm, gentle voice rang out above their heads, one that put the listener instantly at ease. It felt as though a soft breeze carrying the scent of herbs, the kind that relaxed everyone nearby, drifted along whenever this person appeared.
"...That voice..."
Su Lin, struck by an unmistakable sense of familiarity, tilted her head up. And in that instant, tears spilled from her eyes before she even realized it.
Because up there, the figure of a familiar woman stood suspended in midair.
But she had changed. The face that had once been careworn and beginning to wrinkle was now smooth and radiant, like a woman in the first bloom of youth. The body that had grown thin and stooped from years of hard work now carried a healthy glow, standing tall and proud.
To anyone who did not know her, she would have looked like nothing more than a woman in her twenties!
But to disciples who had grown up in the Goddess Alchemy Palace for over a decade, how could they possibly fail to recognize her...
She was the one who had raised and taught them with love, who had passed down her knowledge and power without ever holding back. She was the single pillar that had kept the Palace standing all this time. Her face and form had changed, but the tenderness she had etched into their hearts was something they would never forget.
The current Alchemy Empress.
Luo Qingyan!
"Went and got help, meow!"
And more importantly, perched on her shoulder was a small black-furred creature that had vanished without anyone noticing. It stood up and waved proudly down at them!
"...Kuro!?"