Chapter 69: To Yanling City

[Back to Lu Chen’s POV.]

I stood with my hands tucked neatly into my wide white sleeves, perched at the very edge of the limestone spire, watching the blood-slicked comedy below wrap itself up.

Man, what a show.

To be completely honest, if my darling disciple had ended up in real, mortal danger, I would’ve swatted those two clowns into meat sauce before their weapons could even scratch her tunic.

I’m a reincarnated modern guy who died of corporate overwork, I didn’t spend decades surviving this crazy dog-eat-dog cultivation world just to watch my cute, future wife get maimed for some abstract concept of martial honor.

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. In fact, Qingxue performed leagues better than I’d even anticipated. Watching her swallow two of my top-grade rejuvenation pills, adapt her footwork mid-air, and literally bait that pale whip-user into a flying clothesline was nothing short of poetry.

She was stabilizing her foundation and mastering the flow of liquid qi right in the middle of a chaotic, life-and-death brawl.

It surprised me a bit, but honestly, it made total sense. The cultivation world was full of freaks who treated combat like their primary meditation cushion. Some people sat in damp, musty caves for three centuries staring at moss, others needed to trade bloody punches in the mud to kick their meridians into gear.

Everyone’s Dao was different, even if the realm markers were the same. As long as she wasn’t getting killed, letting her grind her combat EXP against these third-rate court guards was a top-tier training routine.

Once the dust settled, I floated down, played the mysterious, detached grandmaster card, and poked at Bai Ling to see what made her tick.

I deliberately kept my hands in my pockets while those fifteen rebel fighters met their maker. Call me cold-blooded, call me selfish, but this was the fundamental reality of the immortal path. If these two girls wanted to climb to the apex of the heavens with me, they needed to scrub away the fairy-tale nonsense that immortals were benevolent superheroes flying around saving every kitten from a tree.

Cultivators were, by their very design, inherently self-serving creatures. You hoard resources, you seize heavenly opportunities, and you protect your own circle. Even the bald Buddhist monks preaching universal compassion in the western lands only helped people so they could harvest incense faith to fuel their golden relics.

There were no free lunches under heaven. There was another crucial lesson about walking the immortal path that they desperately needed to learn, but I kept my mouth shut for now. One existential crisis at a time.

I noticed the turbulent storm brewing in Qingxue’s dark obsidian eyes, but I didn’t coddle her.

As much as I loved the idea of pampering her silly with sweet pastries, expensive silk robes, and lazy afternoon naps back on Lonely Cloud Peak, it was my sacred duty as her Master, and her future husband, to steer her head straight. A naive girl in the cultivation world was an early corpse.

Of course, I wasn’t going to pretend I was doing this entirely out of the goodness of my saintly heart. My opportunistic soul had its own very transparent, very greedy calculations, the stronger, wiser, and more emotionally mature she grew, the deeper her devotion to me became, and the juicier my 10x System returns would be whenever I showered her with divine loot. Win-win economics. Pure profit.

Across the gravel, the wild, throat-tearing cheers of the surviving rebels slowly petered out.

The euphoric adrenaline faded, replaced by the grim, heavy weight of reality as they gathered around the bodies of their fifteen fallen comrades. Yet, to my pleasant surprise, these rough border men didn’t break down into weeping wrecks. They stood in the cold morning wind, battered and bandaged, slamming their fists over their bruised chests in a crisp, solemn military salute, swearing aloud to etch the martyrs’ sacrifices into their bones.

Bai Ling walked over, her jaw set like tempered steel.

"We do not leave our brothers in this ditch," she declared, her voice firm, cutting through the sniffles. "We will carry them back, place them in ice, and when this war is won, they will receive a proper, honorable burial in the soil of their free homes."

She turned, her knuckles whitening as she clenched her calloused fists. A blazing, unyielding fire burned within her amber eyes, those dormant Eyes of Providence flashing with pure, untamed ambition.

"Governor Yan’s primary vanguard is broken!" Bai Ling looked at her surviving troops, her voice ringing off the canyon walls. "His commanders are slaughtered, his shock troops are crushed, and his iron garrison has never been weaker! It is time to cut the head off the snake!"

She moved fast, demonstrating the exact sharp, decisive leadership that made me want to recruit her in the first place. She handpicked a dozen of her least-wounded veteran scouts, ordering Tie Shan and the rest to drag the imperial prisoners into the cavern, secure the martyrs’ remains, tend to the wounded, and lock the outer gates so no harm could reach the elderly and the children.

Once the orders were barking across the yard, she jogged over to where Qingxue and I were standing, dropping into a deep, respectful bow.

"Senior Lu," Bai Ling said, her chest heaving slightly under her leather armor. "I know I have already imposed upon your benevolence far beyond what a mortal should ever dare... but may I trouble Senior to grant us passage to the provincial capital? If we march on foot, Yan will hear of his vanguard’s defeat and flee behind his cousin’s royal skirt before we cross the river."

I let out an easy, amused chuckle, waving my wide sleeve.

"Save the groveling, Leader Bai. Even if you ran all the way there, Governor Yan isn’t an idiot, a corrupt despot of his caliber is guaranteed to have powerful, private rogue cultivators guarding his bedchambers. You’d need my little disciple here to kick the door down anyway." I flashed an easy grin. "Since I’ve already stepped into the mud, I might as well see the curtain fall."

With a flick of my wrist, I unclasped the green flying sword at my waist and tossed it into the morning air.

HUM—

A generous pulse of my Late-Stage Golden Core spiritual qi flooded the jade steel. Under the wide, awe-struck stares of the rebel squad, the slender blade expanded thirty paces outward, flattening into a massive, levitating jade raft hovering three feet above the shale.

"All aboard," I said casually, hopping onto the hilt.

Bai Ling and her dozen scouts scrambled onto the platform, gripping the smooth edges with white knuckles. Qingxue stepped up beside me, her movements quiet and subdued. She held her frost blade against her ribs, her porcelain face locked in deep, silent contemplation, her mind still turning over the heavy words we’d exchanged earlier.

I gently nudged her shoulder with mine, offering a small, reassuring smile that earned me a faint, grateful flutter of her eyelashes.

"Point the way, Leader Bai," I called out over my shoulder.

"Due south! The provincial seat of Yanling City!" Bai Ling shouted.

"Hold on to your socks."

BOOM!

I throttled the spiritual engine, and the expanded sword blasted through the sound barrier, rocketing into the high clouds with a concussive boom that sent a hurricane of dust scattering across the canyon.

Covering a distance that would have taken mortal horses three grueling days took us barely twenty minutes. The rugged crags and roaring rivers of the Iron Valley Principality blurred into a tapestry of greens and greys beneath our feet before giving way to sprawling, fortified mortal sprawl.

Yanling City.

A colossal, grey-stone metropolis enclosed by fifty-foot granite walls, bristling with ballistas and watchtowers, with the opulent, golden-roofed Governor’s Palace sprawling across the northern hill like an arrogant, bloated toad.

I didn’t bother using a stealth talisman, nor did I fly low.

I brought the massive jade sword cruising directly over the city’s main thoroughfares, coasting three hundred feet in the air like a walking divine omen.

Down below, the mortal populace completely lost their minds. Peddlers dropped their vegetable carts, tea patrons spilled boiling water into their laps, and thousands of commoners fell to their knees in the muddy streets, frantically kowtowing toward the heavens at the sight of an untouchable, flying immortal.

The city garrison went into a blind panic, bells clanging frantically across every watchtower as mortal guards scrambled like ants.

As we crossed the perimeter of the Governor’s Palace, the defensive wards finally snapped into gear.

Twang! Twang! Thwack!

From the palace parapets, several dozen heavy iron siege ballistas and hundreds of archers fired in unison, sending a black cloud of armor-piercing bolts and fire-oil arrows shrieking upward straight toward our flying platform.

"Careful!" Bai Ling instinctively reached for her twin short swords, her scouts tensing.

"Relax," I chuckled, not even bothering to uncross my arms.

With a lazy breath, I let a thread of my Golden Core protective qi flare outward.

Puff. Puff. Clatter.

An invisible, golden ripple expanded around the sword. The moment the hundred-pound iron ballista bolts touched that translucent energetic wall, their force was completely neutralized, the heavy metal snapping in half like brittle twigs and falling harmlessly into the courtyard below.

The flaming arrows turned to grey ash before they even reached my boots.

I banked the sword downward, diving through the smoke with terrifying speed, coming to a smooth, feather-light halt directly in front of the colossal main gates of the Governor’s Inner Palace.

The courtyard was deserted, save for dozens of terrified guards cowering behind stone pillars. The massive double gates before us were forged from three-foot-thick reinforced spirit-iron, banded with heavy brass rivets and locked from the inside.

I stepped off the blade, letting it shrink and snap neatly back into its scabbard at my hip.

Straightening my spotless white robes, I strolled up to the towering iron doors with an affable, polite smile, knocking twice on the metal with the back of my knuckles.

Clang. Clang.

"Hello inside?" I called out, my voice smooth, friendly, and carrying the calm, ringing projection of an immortal master. "Pardon the intrusion, but is anybody home? We’d appreciate it if someone could open up; standing in the breeze is terrible for my disciple’s complexion."

Three seconds passed in dead, paralyzed silence. Nobody touched the latch.

"Tsk. No manners at all," I sighed, shaking my head with exaggerated disappointment. "Mortal bureaucracy really is the worst."

Without dropping my smile, I pulled my right fist back and casually threw a punch straight into the center of the three-foot-thick iron barrier.

I didn’t even draw on my Late-Stage Golden Core spiritual reservoir, I simply let a fraction of the raw, monstrous physical strength of my pristine heavenly vessel do the talking.

BAAAANG!

A deafening, ear-shattering explosion ripped through the courtyard.

The three-ton iron gates didn’t just break, the hinges sheared off like butter, the brass locks vaporized, and both colossal doors tore completely out of the granite masonry, flying fifty yards backward into the palatial hall like two massive iron cannonballs.

CRASH! CRUNCH!

Pillars fractured, silk tapestries shredded, and the two iron slabs flattened a row of decorative jade screens, kicking up a colossal cloud of pulverized stone and plaster. Through the gaping, ruined threshold, the opulent interior of the palace was laid completely bare.

Shivering concubines screamed, courtiers dropped their wine cups, and dozens of heavily armored personal retainers fell over themselves in sheer, pants-wetting terror.

I dusted a non-existent speck of plaster from my pristine white sleeve, stepped over the shattered granite rubble, and offered a wide, radiant, thoroughly shameless smile into the cavernous hall.

"Good morning, everyone," I announced cheerfully, gesturing toward Bai Ling and the blood-spattered Shen Qingxue standing behind me. "A few guests have come to have a little chat with the Governor."

We really came for a chat but it depended if the governor understood normal language or the language of fists.