The Sword Draws

"My uncle is already here?" The firelight flickered, stretching the shapely, voluptuous shadow beside the young man. He halted his steps, looking back at her in astonishment. "When did he arrive?" Her slender waist swaying gently, Lou Ji walked with distinct feminine grace, speaking in a casual tone. "I don't know the exact time either. In any case, by the time I noticed him, he was already there." After pausing in place for a couple of breaths, Xu Yuan hurried to catch up with Lou Ji, letting out a slightly sheepish chuckle. "If he arrived early, couldn't someone have given me a heads-up? It's not as if it had to be kept a secret." Lou Ji rolled her eyes helplessly, brimming with charm. "As if you didn't know. If that uncle of yours doesn't want to do something, even your father can't order him around. How would an outsider like me know his whereabouts?" Saying so, Lou Ji turned her face toward him, her long eyelashes lowering as her eyes half-lidded, a fiendish little smirk playing at the corners of her lips. "Looking at your expression back then, I thought you weren't tempted by that blonde girl in the slightest. Why are you suddenly getting cold feet now?" "..." Xu Yuan quickened his pace slightly, avoiding the topic, and asked in a low voice instead, "Sis, are we really okay moving this slowly?" Neither of them was walking particularly slowly; in less than half a quarter of an hour, they had likely covered several li along the corridor. But Xu Yuan had seen firsthand just how vast the collateral damage from a Saint's battle could be. Whether in the Cangyuan game of his past life or the reality of this one, he had witnessed it. The mere rush of the Barbarian King, who had just stepped into the Saint realm, possessed an overwhelming, heaven-shaking might. Although he had never seen his maternal uncle fight seriously, a glimpse could be gathered from the final boss fight against his father in Cangyuan. That battle had directly reduced the entirety of Di'an City to rubble. In Cangyuan, Di'an City hadn't been large, consisting of only a few maps. In reality, however, Di'an City was a colossal metropolis, sprawling so wide that even from high in the sky, one could not see its edge with a single glance. And from what Lou Ji occasionally let slip in conversation, that uncle's strength seemed to surpass even his father's. After all, when someone dedicated their entire life to marching toward an ideal, they inevitably had to sacrifice certain things along the way. Lou Ji's captivating, alluring eyes curved into crescent moons. "Are you afraid the battle will catch you in its wake?" Xu Yuan nodded honestly. "The aftershocks of a Saint—I certainly can't take that." "Changtian, have you forgotten?" Lou Ji raised her fair, lotus-root arm, ruffled Xu Yuan's long hair, and narrowed her eyes, speaking very softly. "You are inside the Prime Minister's Manor right now, and today is the final day of the grand banquet." "..." After a moment of silence, Xu Yuan let out a dumbfounded chuckle. In Cangyuan's storyline, many high-ranking figures of the Prime Minister's Manor died out in the field, perishing in one-on-one duels against the protagonist. If all those top-tier bosses gathered together inside the Chancellor's Manor, even a player in the Saint stage would be beaten to death by the mob unless they used cheats. "True enough. I was overthinking it." His hanging heart settled back down, and Xu Yuan's mind began to wander as he asked quietly, "Sis, do you think the person teleported over really will be the Emperor of Sien?" Instead of answering directly, Lou Ji countered, "Do you think that girl was lying to you?" Xu Yuan shrugged without answering, but the look on his face made his disbelief clear. He wouldn't believe a single word coming out of Orenli's mouth. Orenli was serving as an envoy to Great Yan, something the Emperor of Sien undoubtedly knew. Under such circumstances, to actually respond to a teleportation and venture alone into the heartland of an unfamiliar, massive empire—just how immense a boldness, or rather, how supreme a self-confidence would it take to do such a thing? "I, on the other hand, think it might be true," Lou Ji chuckled leisurely. "Even if it isn't the Emperor of Sien in person, it will at least be a Saint." Xu Yuan glanced back at the pitch-black corridor behind them and asked in a low voice, "Why do you think so?" "A woman's intuition, of course." Lou Ji smiled brilliantly. "I feel that since that blonde girl dared to do this, she must have been confident that the other end of the teleportation array would answer her." Xu Yuan chuckled and shook his head. "Sis, you run an intelligence network. Relying on intuition isn't a good habit. Besides, risking the life of a Saint to save an Origin Realm princess? The Kingdom of Sien must have lost their minds." Lou Ji glanced at Xu Yuan, a tease in her eyes. "Changtian, Hua Hong is also in the Origin Realm, while Jiang He and Xu Xinyao are merely in the Soul Condensation realm. Do you think their importance is less than that of a Saint?" "..." "Cultivation can indeed determine many things, but it cannot determine everything. That blonde girl probably carries something of extraordinary value to the Kingdom of Sien." Lou Ji spoke in an unhurried voice, raising her eyes toward the ceiling of the cramped corridor. Her gaze seemed to pierce through the vast formation blanketing the subterranean depths, through the thick layers of soil, looking upon the magnificent banquet inside the Prime Minister's Manor where cups clinked in revelry. After staring upward for a few breaths, Lou Ji withdrew her gaze and resumed walking forward. "Besides, if they don't come, wouldn't this scheme fall flat? Your father is still waiting to use the opportunity you created to root out a batch of two-faced schemers." Xu Yuan kept pace with her, smiling. "If they truly came, does Father have another plan?" "Of course he does." Lou Ji waved her fair hand lightly. "If they really came, your uncle will probably pass along a message from your father to that Saint from Sien. "After all, given the current situation, if we can reach a deal with the upper echelons of the Kingdom of Sien, the benefits gained from the Boundary Void Stones alone far outweigh slaying a Saint." *** Inside the dark, cramped cell stood two men who seemed as though they had descended from the heavens into the mortal dust. The moment their gazes clashed in midair, the atmosphere between heaven and earth seemed to split clean down the middle. In the dead silence of the room, Orenli, half-kneeling on the floor, unconsciously pressed her lips together. With just the Emperor and the white-robed man standing there, she already felt her breathing turn faintly labored. It made her deeply uncomfortable. She preferred looking down on others rather than looking up. Yet at this moment, because the auras radiating from the two men were overwhelmingly blinding, she had no choice but to lower her head. *Tap.* A soft footstep sounded through the silent, empty dungeon cell as the man concealed in the shadows of the corner took a step forward. Yet even after stepping forward, his figure remained shrouded in darkness. The flawless, holy radiance radiating around the Emperor seemed to be corroded; as the man moved, darkness spread once more through the cell... No, that wasn't right. The cell was merely returning to its original state—its dim, rotting, and damp original state. Each of the man's steps fell very softly, yet felt as though it stepped directly onto the heart. The Emperor looked at the sword-bearing man. The instant his opponent took another step, the crystalline golden hair spilling from beneath the Emperor's violet-black robes stirred without any wind, seeming like a greeting, yet also like a provocation. Feng Jiuxuan came to a halt. The darkness beneath his feet was dispelled by holiness, light illuminating the white robes upon him, making them three shades purer than snow. Rather than this gloomy dungeon cell, the two figures belonged atop the peak of some renowned mountain, or above the surging currents of the Hailuo River, framed by wind and rain or swirling snow. That would have been a magnificent scene. Yet sadly, this cell held only dead, eerie silence. Feng Jiuxuan slowly drew his sword from its sheath. A sword hum pierced the silence, seeming to sever the light itself, cleaving the illumination and shadow within the cell into two distinct halves. The specially constructed inner walls of the cell vibrated faintly. The tremor then turned into cracking, web-like fissures crawling across all six surfaces of the room. Without a single word, Feng Jiuxuan simply drew his sword in silence. And the Emperor watched him draw the sword, equally quiet. A biting gale whipped up rolling waves in the enclosed chamber. Orenli's face grew slightly pale as fine streaks of blood surfaced on her delicate skin, only to heal an instant later under the illumination of the surrounding radiance. The sword was not yet fully drawn, yet its strike had already arrived.