~~~

By now, Yi Jiao should have reached Rumbling Thunder City and presented the evidence of Duke Lai’s treachery. Soon enough, General Dan will summon Duke Lai. If Duke Lai answers the summons, he will face a trial, his treachery will be exposed, and he will be punished. If Duke Lai tries to ignore them, he will face punishment anyway. Either way, the supplies will be freed, and they can all start focusing on more important matters. All Liu Jin needs to do is wait.

That had been the plan.

“Lady Bai!” Liu Jin shouts, doing his best to hold on to Bai Wen’s hooded cloak as she flies through the clouds. “Are you sure this is a wise idea?”

“Naturally!” she replies.

Bai Wen’s Qi brims with unshakeable confidence as she transmits her words through Qi. At the speed she is flying, it would be impossible for them to communicate otherwise. Liu Jin can almost imagine the bright smile on her face under her veil and cloak.

“Duke Lai is an evil man, is he not?”

“That is… fairly possible,” Liu Jin replies, willing himself not to look down. A fall from this height wouldn’t kill him, but that doesn’t mean he wants to think about it. “At the very least, we know he’s working with those Beyond the Dead Plains.”

“Exactly!” Bai Wen says. “He’s allowed their taint inside him and might even be working their vile arts on his citizens. Should we really let a man like that do as he wishes while we wait for General Dan to act? That sort of roundabout scheme is for lesser people.”

That sort of roundabout scheme is what Liu Jin is counting on.

“Nay! That is not wise at all!” Bai Wen continues. “Action must be taken!”

The clouds part and reveal Stone River City. It is but a small dot in the distance.

“It must be swift!”

The dot grows bigger. Already Liu Jin can make out the individual tiles on Duke Lai’s castle.

“It must be decisive!”

Bai Wen does not stop.

~~~

Song Daiyu has had a difficult time lately.

Ever since Jin brought her a host of unfortunate news, her objective in Stone River City has changed. All her plans have gone up in smoke, but she cannot let Duke Lai know that. She has to act as though things are proceeding as planned.

While there is a certain element of challenge to it she quite enjoys, Song Daiyu still finds herself lamenting the loss of such a potentially lucrative deal. She cannot even sign too many agreements with Duke Lai because being associated with him will soon be a minus in the Storm Dragon Empire. The best she can get out of him now is permits.

Such a pity.

Today is another one of the days she has been summoned before Duke Lai. The man does it quite often, likely so he can feel important by association. These visits become rather trying on her.

The ceiling caving in is almost a welcome reprieve.

Almost.

The entire castle is rocked as though it has been seized by an earthquake. Wood and stone break without end as something crashes into the castle and breaks through several floors all the way into Duke Lai’s main hall. The servants scream as they head for the exit. Song Daiyu’s faithful bodyguard, Shitou, puts his large body in front of her to protect her.

Alas, there is no need for it. Despite the chaos, no rubble lands on her or any of the servants.

The one who broke into the castle saw to that.

“And it must be just.”

Song Daiyu pales as the dust clears up to reveal someone who can only be Lady Bai Wen standing mere feet away from Duke Lai. Though she is covered from head to toe in a cloak, there is no way she could ever mistake that Qi. Right beside her, Song can see Jin struggling to regain his bearings after such an entrance.

“Duke Lai,” Bai Wen says with power in her voice. “You have been consorting with those beyond the Dead Plains, and in doing so, you have betrayed your lord, your countrymen, and your subjects. Surrender now, and I shall take you to General Dan so that you might receive fair judgment.”

Oh, dear.

~~~

All is silent. Of the people who remain in Duke Lai’s grand hall, not a single one of them can believe their eyes and ears. Things are so utterly quiet that Bai Wen’s strepitous entry merely a second ago feels like a lie.

And yet, no one can deny she is there, standing at the center of it all. Covered in a dirty cloak, yet somehow utterly immaculate and dignified.

“You dare!”

Duke Lai shouts as he rises from his throne. His Qi roars around him with such fury the remaining servants are forced to flee.

“You enter my city without permission, break into my castle, and demand my surrender?! Leave!” He points to the door. “Leave this place immediately, or I’ll have my soldiers execute you!”

“Threats you cannot realize are not threats at all, Duke Lai,” Bai Wen tells him calmly. “You could have a hundred times as many soldiers and be twice the cultivator you are now, and it still wouldn’t be enough. I will not move until you have acquiesced to my demands.”

Her reply is so matter-of-fact, so utterly confident, that Duke Lai almost staggers back. His face is red and angry. The blood vessels on his forehead look like they are about to burst.

“And what if I refuse your demands?” He asks through gritted teeth.

“If you do, I shall beat you and drag your senseless body to Rumbling Thunder City,” Bai Wen replies without meeting a beat. The hood that covers her head rustles a bit, a sure sign she is tilting her head. “I thought that was obvious?”

Duke Lai fires a torrent of water at her.

All the power Duke Lai had been gathering around himself is unleashed in a furious attack. The walls crack and crumble, and his throne is blown to pieces. If any servants were still in the room, they’d have died instantly. Duke Lai is a cultivator in the Heaven Realm, someone who has reached lofty heights most can only dream of. It is why Liu Jin never once considered directly confronting him.

However, Bai Wen is different.

Duke Lai’s attack freezes, shatters, and disappears before it ever gets close to Bai Wen. A giant fist made of ice materializes above the duke and smashes him through the floor all the way down into the river that runs below the castle. It all happens so quickly that Liu Jin does not see it happen. To him, it is as if Duke Lai and his attack disappeared in the blink of an eye and were replaced by a hole in the center of the room.

Throughout it all, Bai Wen does not move an inch.

“Justice falls from the Heavens,” she whispers. Her following words are louder and carried by her Qi.

“Duke Lai,” she says, looking down at the hole she made. “I hope our exchange has impressed on you the difference between our respective strengths. It would be foolish of you to give me a reason to continue the fight.”

Compared to the angry way in which Duke Lai’s Qi exploded, Bai Wen’s Qi is almost soft in the way it expands across the whole of the castle. However, there is no denying its strength. It is as certain as the coming of winter.

Bai Wen is at the peak of the Heaven Realm, and none here is a match for her.

Being in the presence of someone so strong should be hard to bear, yet Liu Jin never once feels oppressed by her Qi. He is sure the same can be said of Song Daiyu. She has not given off a single sign of discomfort throughout it all. In fact, even while Duke Lai was attacking and Bei Wen put him down, no harm ever came to anyone else.

Liu Jin looks at Bai Wen with renewed respect.

“Should you wish to continue this fight,” Bai Wen says. “I will remind you that, despite your deficiencies, you are a cultivator in the Heaven Realm. Your body can withstand much punishment. I would very much like the opportunity to mete out that punishment.”

Duke Lai does not answer with words.

He answers with his Qi.

The shattering of a crystal echoes across the entirety of Stone River City, and the scent of death spreads throughout the streets. It is on a completely different magnitude compared to the three traitorous disciples of the Eternal Flame Clan. In their case, the taint had been exactly that, a taint. A small one at that. Someone who is not paying attention or does not know what to look for could be excused for missing it.

Free of whatever it was that disguised it, Duke Lai’s Qi makes Liu Jin feel like he has stepped into a cemetery.

“Arrogance! Nothing more than arrogance!”

Duke Lai rises. His clothes are torn, revealing his emaciated body. It is like he is a skeleton wrapped tightly in a thin veneer of flesh rather than a man. His eyes glow with an eerie light.

“You outsiders are all the same. You look down on us and judge us as though you were our superiors and dictate how we should handle our affairs,” Duke Lai says, leveling a finger at her. “You believe yourself to be above all, yet there are those even above you. You dare call me a villain for allying myself with them? Foolishness.”

“Foolishness?” Bai Wen echoes. “Look at yourself! Though you are in the Heaven Realm, you have become nothing more than a corpse! It’s unnatural!”

“Nature does not dictate what becomes of us,” Duke Lai counters. As he speaks, the city begins rumbling. “It is because I became a corpse that I reached the Heaven Realm!”

“What?”

Duke Lai laughs, happy to have finally shocked Bai Wen.

“Surprised? It is only natural. Those of us who live on this side of the Dead Plains are so limited in what we consider possible. However, I have been granted their knowledge and become something more.”

Corpses rise around the city. They pile on top of each other and meld into towers of flesh that rise high into the sky before twisting and converting into a single spot.

All the corpses converge on top of Duke Lai.

He laughs as the towers of corpses bury him completely and break his castle. Liu Jin blinks as a sphere of ice suddenly materializes around him and floats him to safety. It is not just him. Bai Wen creates spheres of ice around every person in the castle and uses them to evacuate them before the castle crushes them.

From the rubble, a mass of dead flesh rises. It twists into a facsimile of a man. A faceless giant with bubbling and rotten flesh. It is so big it looms over the city. The abomination brims with the power of a cultivator in Heaven Realm, yet Liu Jin also senses it is somehow less than the Fleshcrafter’s creations.

“Do you see now?” A twisted maw opens on the giant’s face. However, it is Duke Lai’s Qi that spreads his words for all the city to hear. “This is power beyond you. With their arts, my being has fully transcended its flesh, leaving me free to focus on reaching higher mysteries.”

“I see.” Bai Wen says. She does not bother using her Qi to speak this time. It is only because Liu Jin is close that he can hear her. It’s almost like she is talking only to herself. “In other words, you were nearing your natural death, and their arts allowed you to live long enough to enter the Heaven Realm. I understand how that might have appealed to you.”

As she speaks, the giant Duke Lai brings down a massive fist on top of Bai Wen. As it draws closer, Liu Jin can see the hundreds of corpses wiggling in that single fist.

“Pitiful.”

The fist stops and freezes before shattering into a million tiny pieces.

“You pathetic fool,” Bai Wen says to the stunned Duke Lai. “You gained time but focused on the wrong things. That dead body of yours could never nourish your soul properly. You gained the raw power of a Heaven Realm cultivator, but your soul is weak and frail.”

Bai Wen raises a single finger.

“Still, I’ll thank you for acting as I thought a man like you would. You called upon all the dead flesh you had gathered to show your superiority. That saves me the trouble of having to search the city for your taint.”

“Arrogant wench!”

Duke Lai throws himself at Bai Wen.

Bai Wen points at him.

Liu Jin blinks and, in doing so, opens his eyes to a city covered in softly falling snow. All is silent, and there is not a single roof in the city that has not been painted white.

The giant Duke Lai is completely frozen over, turned into nothing more than a giant ice statue. It stays like that for a few seconds before shattering into nothingness. Only the small form of Duke Lai is left unconscious on the ground.

“That is one problem solved,” Bai Wen says. A sphere of ice materializes around Duke Lai to keep him prisoner. She turns towards Liu Jin. “Shall we go to Rumbling Thunder City now?”

Liu Jin stares.

Not even half an hour.

That is how long it had taken for everything to happen. A problem that had stumped Liu Jin for weeks had been solved just like that. Bai Wen defeated Duke Lai and made it look easy.

Power.

This is power.

~~~