Chapter 1 #3
Alex silently howled when Hao Chan folded, her crippled leg giving out utterly as her foe charged in, eager for the kill. “You’re stronger than this, Hao! Have you forgotten all that I taught you? Use your abilities to the fullest!”
Of course, it didn’t matter what he said, for he understood that he was watching an ancient reel play out the final scenes to a play he wished he could halt forever.
Before his eyes widened with awe when his beloved suddenly moved in the one direction her opponent didn’t expect.
Straight up with a single powerful heave of her uninjured leg before twisting around to glare down at Dongfang Hong, who stumbled in the sands after unleashing a titanic strike Alex knew would have utterly obliterated anyone below Deep Gold as a massive blast of tainted blood and rot boiled away half the arena, the air shrieking with the howls of the damned.
The Red Prince’s face was beet red with fury, hate, and the weight of divine malice. He panted for breath as he wildly searched for his target.
“Impossible! I saw how you limped. Nearly crippled! Your foundation is tainted. Cracked! You cannot escape me! You cannot defy me!”
“Divine-tier Eternal Fox trumps the shit out of your curse, you goddamned bastard!” Hao Chan screamed so fast and fierce that it was a single surge of feeling and fury that nonetheless conveyed itself to the entire court as the miniature snow globe–like arena filled with lightning.
A bolt as wide as Dongfang Hong himself struck the Red Prince as he howled in monstrous fury before disappearing before their eyes.
Hao Chan’s ultimate attack, that which she had once used to send a greater demon spiraling into hell. Yet what seemed most shocking to all present was the sudden disappearance of Dongfang Hong himself.
“How did he escape a Jade-tier dueling ring?”
“Impossible!”
“Very possible. The fool was using a Divine-tier portal ring.”
“He dares to rule as a pawn of the gods? Such things are forbidden!”
“I know.”
Then, a heartbeat later, it registered to all of them what it meant, the brilliant light causing so many of them to squint in awed disbelief.
“She summoned lightning in a pocket realm. How?”
“Imperial blood. There is no other explanation! She truly is a crown princess!”
The entire court was in a low uproar when a panting Hao Chan manifested before them once more, stumbling to one knee, grimacing for the obvious pain she felt as Cheng Lei raced to her side.
“Hao Chan!”
“It’s okay, Lei. I just…” Hao Chan squeezed her eyes shut. “Just let me push the rest of the taint out, okay?”
And before the entire awestruck court, her ugly wound, so badly stinking of necrotic filth and infernal taint that a pair of Gold-tier healers quickly rushed to her side… began to heal.
The pair of women froze, staring at each other in wonder.
“We don’t even have to remove the limb. She can heal an infernal taint!” one cried, falling to her hands and knees, kowtowing before a dazed Hao Chan.
“We beseech you, honored princess. Teach us your art so that we may better serve the court.”
Hao Chan froze, daring to glance not toward her father but toward the positively beaming spokesman in gold. “If it would please His Imperial Majesty…”
Before she could even finish, all three speakers for the emperor spoke as one.
“Blue has been vindicated! His words are declared true!”
Then, they turned to glare at Dongfang Hong’s wujen, half of them frozen with speechless dismay, the other half disappearing in the blink of an eye.
And how interesting it was, a cynical Alex noted, that the ones he had sensed tampering with his beloved’s ring were unable to leave, no matter how furiously they twisted the rings on their own hands.
Undeterred, the three speakers pointed their fingers at the three remaining wujen who collapsed to their knees. “You have all been found GUILTY in the crucible of combat! For your crimes, there can be only one sentence!”
The entire court yelped when triple brilliant bolts of lightning tore through the massive hall, obliterating all three wujen before they could utter a single word of protest. When the blinding flash ended, there was no trace of anything, save for three smoking puddles of darkened ooze that a pair of Silver-tier servants rushed to scrub away with remarkable haste.
“The Red Prince has been found guilty of trucking with the divine! The Red Prince has been found guilty of trucking with the infernal! Save for chance encounters along the Disciple’s Path, no member of the ruling class is permitted to truck with the divine!
In no circumstances are those of royal blood permitted to truck with the infernal! ”
All three then raised their hands in a splayed formation as the very image shown by the corrupt wujen so recently banished and slaughtered manifested once more, presenting in stark relief the smoking crater where a magnificent city and countless acres of woodland had once stood.
“Dongfang Hong’s sentence has been commuted.
For he has communed with the divine, and imperial law holds no weight with the divine.
By ancient treaty between emperor and immortal, no immortal will interfere with secular rule.
Dongfang Hong and all his progeny are thus forbidden the mantle of rulership.
When Fox and General make cities and principalities their battlegrounds, civilization itself pays the price. ”
The announcers’ voices shifted on a dime from the cold pronouncement of death to the rapture of life reclaimed once more. They positively beamed with joy as they gazed upon Hao Chan’s stunned countenance.
“Rejoice, one and all! Imperial blood has proven itself in the crucible of combat! A lost princess has been found! Forty days and nights of feasting shall commence at once!”
Alex wanted to shout for joy, his heart filled with relief and triumph for the sake of a girl he loved so dearly, now separated by a gulf he feared he’d never be able to bridge.
If only the look of dread in her eyes wasn’t so great as she was quickly whisked away by a grandmotherly woman who looked remarkably like Hao Chan, hurriedly lecturing the newly recognized imperial princess on the hundred and one things she’d have to know and master.
When she gave Cheng Lei a whimper, all that rapscallion did was chuckle and say, “Welcome to the family, Aunty.”
Alex jolted awake with a gasp, aching with such a profound bittersweet melancholy that he had no words to describe it.
So he closed his eyes and prayed fiercely and fervently to his patron, hoping that the crown of an imperial princess hadn’t stopped Hao Chan from taking charge of her life and living it to the fullest.
Only then did he pull himself back from memory’s painful reverie, heavy with the weight in his heart, for he knew that their worlds were now forever apart.
That was when he noted the collapsed heap of shattered sandalwood that had been his bed, grateful that at least he hadn’t put too many holes in his mattress as he once more took in his top-tier quarters within Silver Sand’s most luxurious accommodations, with the undeniably beautiful Ruidian woman sharing his quarters giving him a mock glare from the adjoining bed as the cool light played upon her dusky features.
“So this is why you insist upon separate beds, even though my freedom depends on us being married?”
Alex flashed a pained smile. “Depends on everyone thinking that we’re married, you mean. But considering that Hanz and Lieberman are now most definitely in our camp, as well as the entire city, I don’t think that will be a problem anymore.”
“You’re right, of course. Still, I’d love it if we could be more than…” Linnea’s emerald-green eyes widened. “What happened, Alex? You look like you saw a ghost! I mean, more than usual, since you’ve always been a bit pale, but still!”
Alex sighed. “Maybe I’m feeling a bit haunted by dreams that might be memory, or the past…
or might have never happened at all.” He turned to look out the window, smiling with heartfelt relief.
“I can only hope that what I dreamed was true. That someone I care about triumphed when it mattered, and that a much-hated villain finally got his comeuppance.” He snorted.
“Now that I think about it, it probably was a dream, since life rarely works out that way. And I think I affected my dream at least once, so… history’s right out. ”
He rubbed eyes still blurry with the sting of longing. “At least the sun’s almost up. No need to deal with any more darkness or dreams. Best of all, I might actually get to class on time, today.”
“Because you’re still determined to live out your dream of a happy, peaceful cultivator’s life,” Linnea teased with a gentle smile.
Alex shrugged. “Maybe. But after foiling what would have been the destruction of Liushi and the purging of countless innocents, I think we’ve earned a chance to just relax and chase our passions… however silly they might be.”
“I quite agree,” Linnea said, giving him a squeeze from behind before sighing. “I’ll join you for class, because what else am I going to do between delves?”
“You don’t have to, Linnea.”
“I want to,” she said, taking his hand. “It doesn’t have to be about beast cores and leveling up, you know.” She blushed. “I mean, not all the time. I’m happy just to enjoy your company. And even if they swear that the southern rift is safe now…”
Alex shivered and nodded. “Yeah. I know. If there’s any chance that any of our instructors will get the crazy impulse to pull their students into a delve, chasing after the glory of Ice and Water cores themselves, we’ll be able to protect them far better as a team.”
Linnea’s eyes twinkled. “And it’s way more fun than Sulia’s class, where all she does is laugh at your absolute and utter lack of a wujen’s potential.”
Alex winced. “I’m not that bad.”
This earned a snort. “Come on, hero. Let’s go surprise Elder Win by showing him that even you are capable of getting to class on time.”