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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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"He is trying to break your spirit!" the lieutenant yelled, stepping forward to put himself directly between the Emperor of Hengyuan and the Second Prince of Wei. He raised his heavy shield, bracing his stance. "You are the blood of Wei! The future of the dynasty rests entirely upon your shoulders! We are already dead men, Your Highness. Let our deaths mean something! Go! Follow the Emperor! Run!"
The remaining half dozen guards echoed the sentiment, letting out a ragged, desperate battle cry. "For the Prince! Run! We hold the line!"
Cao Pi looked at the men who were about to willingly throw themselves into a meat grinder just to buy him seconds. A profound, sickening wave of cowardice and relief washed over him. The choice between a glorious, suicidal last stand and a desperate flight into the dark was made in a fraction of a second.
"Forgive me," Cao Pi whispered, tears of shame and terror welling in his eyes.
He turned his back on the enemy. He sprinted the final few yards to the secret entrance, where the last of the concubines was just disappearing into the gloom. Cao Pi threw himself into the dark, damp tunnel. With a frantic, desperate heave, he grabbed the heavy iron handle on the inside of the secret stone door and pulled with all his might.
The heavy masonry swung shut with a resounding, echoing BOOM, sealing perfectly into the wall, plunging the tunnel into absolute pitch blackness and cutting off the sight of the courtyard.
Outside, in the manicured gardens, Lie Fan's cold smile vanished, replaced by a look of sheer, predatory annoyance.
"Slay them," Lie Fan ordered quietly. "Tear the door down."
The final stand of the Wei Imperial Guards lasted exactly ten seconds.
Zhang Mancheng and the Chao twins blurred into motion. It wasn't a fight; it was an execution. Blades flashed in the lantern light, severing limbs and piercing armor with surgical, terrifying precision.
The lieutenant who had urged Cao Pi to flee managed to raise his shield just in time to block a downward strike from Chao Bo, only to have Huang Chao step up from his blind spot, wrap two massive hands around the man's helmet, and violently twist, snapping his neck with a sickening crunch.
As the last guard fell, bleeding out among the crushed plum blossoms, Lie Fan stepped up to the wall where the secret door had seamlessly merged back into the stone. He didn't search for the hidden latch mechanism. He didn't have the patience.
Lie Fan raised his heavenly halberd, gripping the haft with both hands, his muscles bulging as he channeled his immense, unnatural strength. He swung the massive weapon in a devastating horizontal arc, striking the heavy stone facing of the secret door.
The impact sounded like a cannon shot. The sheer kinetic force shattered the ancient masonry, sending a massive spiderweb of deep cracks echoing across the wall. Lie Fan struck again, and then a third time, the heavy blade obliterating the stone and the hidden iron hinges holding the door in place. With a final, brutal kick, the shattered remnants of the secret door collapsed inward, revealing the dark, descending tunnel.
"After them," Lie Fan commanded, stepping over the rubble. "Do not let the Cao bloodline escape the city."
Meanwhile, deep within the claustrophobic darkness of the subterranean passage, Cao Pi was running for his life.
The tunnel was a nightmare of chaotic, stumbling bodies. The air was thick with the smell of panic, damp earth, and expensive perfume. He could hear the ragged, terrified weeping of his sisters ahead of him, the frantic, hushed voices of the eunuchs trying to navigate the heavy stretcher holding his comatose father, and the wet, agonizing coughing of Guo Jia.
Cao Pi kept his left hand trailing along the cold, rough hewn stone wall to keep his balance, his right hand still gripping his sword in a white knuckled death grip. He was gasping for air, the heavy ceremonial armor feeling like it was suffocating him.
Every time his boots scraped against the uneven stairs, he imagined the monstrous sound of Lie Fan's halberd shattering the door behind them.
But as they descended deeper, the sounds of the massacre in the Harem Palace began to fade, muffled by thousands of tons of earth and stone. The immediate, paralyzing terror began to recede, slowly replaced by a desperate, frantic blossoming of hope.
'We made it,' Cao Pi thought to himself, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs. 'We actually made it. The passage leads to the northern servant quarters, right against the outer wall. There is a hidden sally port there. If we can just get out of the city limits, if we can just reach the foothills of the northern mountains... we can survive. We can find horses. We can regroup. We can go to the northern warlords, or rally the remaining loyalists in Bing province. The dynasty isn't dead yet. I saved us.'
The thought fueled his exhausted legs. He pushed forward, navigating the treacherous darkness.
Up ahead, he saw a faint, grey light filtering down through a narrow opening. It was the exit. The air suddenly felt cooler, carrying the faint, crisp scent of the open night, untainted by the smoke of the burning inner fortress.
"We are here!" Cao Pi heard Xun Yu's voice echo faintly from the front of the procession. "The door is open! Quickly, into the courtyard!"
Cao Pi felt a surge of euphoric relief. He scrambled up the final incline, his boots slipping on the damp stone. He burst through the hidden doorway, expecting to see his family and the advisors hurrying across the abandoned Northern Courtyard toward the city's outer perimeter wall.
Instead, as he stumbled out into the cool night air, he collided violently with the back of Cheng Yu.
Cao Pi staggered back, disoriented. "Cheng Yu? Why have we stopped? Keep moving! The gate is right there!"
He looked up, trying to peer over the heads of the massive, huddled entourage. The entire harem, the weeping concubines, the terrified children, the exhausted eunuchs carrying the stretcher, the frail advisors, had frozen completely solid in the center of the expansive, paved courtyard. They were a paralyzed mass of silk and terror, clustered tightly together like sheep sensing a predator.
"Mother?" Cao Pi called out, pushing his way aggressively through the crowd of trembling maids. "Master Xun? Why are we not moving? We have to—"
Cao Pi reached the front of the procession. He stepped past the heavy wooden stretcher where his father lay, oblivious to the world. He looked past Grand Concubine Bian, who was standing frozen, her hands covering her mouth in absolute, silent horror.
Cao Pi looked out across the Northern Courtyard.
The euphoric hope that had blossomed in his chest was instantly, violently extinguished, replaced by an abyss of despair so deep and absolute that his knees physically buckled.
The courtyard was not abandoned. It was illuminated by the harsh, flickering glare of hundreds of oil soaked torches.
The rhythmic, terrifying sound of heavy warhorses snorting and stamping their hooves filled the night air. The exit to the northern outer wall, their only path to salvation, was completely, perfectly blocked.
Arrayed in a massive, impenetrable semicircle that entirely encompassed the hidden exit, sat a terrifying unit of heavy Hengyuan cavalry. The horses were massive, armored in black boiled leather, their riders sitting tall and silent, long lances resting easily in their grips, bows already strung and arrows nocked, pointed directly at the huddled mass of the Wei royal family.
They had not been chased into the courtyard; they had walked blindly into a meticulously laid trap.
Sitting atop two magnificent, heavily armored warhorses at the absolute center of the cavalry formation were two veteran commanders of the Hengyuan army. Their armor gleamed in the torchlight, their expressions masks of cold, professional military efficiency.
It was Xu Rong and Fan Chou.
Lie Fan, in his absolute strategic brilliance, had anticipated the escape route. While he and the vanguard had brutally assaulted the gates and scaled the walls, he had dispatched his most reliable, ruthless cavalry commanders to sweep the northern perimeter of the city, securing every possible sally port, servant gate, and hidden exit.
Xu Rong and Fan Chou had been leading their elite unit on a systematic lockdown of the northern quadrant, and they had arrived to secure this specific courtyard at the exact, perfect moment the secret door had swung open.
Xu Rong looked down from his saddle, his eyes sweeping over the pathetic, terrified procession. He saw the weeping women in torn silks, the frail scholars, and finally, the heavy stretcher bearing the unconscious form of the legendary Cao Cao.
"Well," Xu Rong said, his voice echoing loudly in the silent, torch lit courtyard, carrying a dry, grim satisfaction. "It seems the hunt is finally over."
Fan Chou drew his heavy saber, pointing it casually toward the center of the crowd, specifically at the young man holding a trembling sword.
"Drop the weapon, Cao Pi," Fan Chou commanded, his voice devoid of anger, echoing only the absolute certainty of a conqueror. "There is nowhere left to run. The city is ours. The north is ours. Your dynasty ends here, in this courtyard."
Cao Pi stood paralyzed. He looked at the hundreds of heavy lances pointed at his family. He looked at the high, impenetrable stone walls surrounding them. He heard the distant, muffled sound of Lie Fan and his bodyguards destroying the secret door behind them, closing in from the tunnel.
The trap had snapped shut with terrifying, flawless precision. There were no more stratagems. There were no more heroic last stands. There was only the cold, hard reality of total defeat.
Slowly, his fingers numb and entirely devoid of strength, Cao Pi opened his hand. The ceremonial sword of the Wei Dynasty clattered loudly against the cobblestones, the sound ringing out like the final, dying heartbeat of an empire.
Cao Pi fell to his knees on the cold stone, bowing his head as the Hengyuan cavalry slowly closed the circle. The long, bloody era of Cao Mengde was finally over, captured entirely by the Black Dragon beneath the smoke filled skies of Chang'An.
High atop his armored warhorse, Xu Rong raised a gauntleted hand, his face a mask of detached, professional military efficiency. With a sharp, downward chopping motion, he gave the order that would formally end the freedom of the Cao clan.
"Dismount. Secure the prisoners," Xu Rong commanded, his voice cutting through the terrified weeping of the Wei harem. "Bind every man. Separate the women and children, but keep them contained. No one slips through."
The heavy Hengyuan cavalrymen swung down from their saddles with the synchronized, terrifying discipline of men who had spent their lives perfecting the art of war. They did not draw their swords, they did not need to. They uncoiled thick, rough hewn hemp ropes from their saddles and marched silently toward the huddled, shivering mass of the Wei royal family and their entourage.
It was a scene of profound, agonizing humiliation. The untouchable nobility of the north, women clad in the finest silks spun in the empire, and men who possessed the intellect to move entire armies, were suddenly reduced to common captives. The Hengyuan soldiers moved with swift, emotionless precision.
They grabbed the wrists of the brilliant advisors, Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, Cheng Yu, and the others, twisting their arms behind their backs and binding them tightly. The rough rope bit deeply into skin that had only ever known the soft touch of brush and parchment.
When a soldier approached Cao Pi, the young prince did not resist. He remained on his knees, his head bowed, the embers of his ambition entirely extinguished by the cold, vast ocean of their defeat. He allowed his hands to be yanked behind his back and bound so tightly his fingers immediately began to tingle.
Fan Chou, however, rode his horse forward, stopping just short of the heavy wooden stretcher where the comatose form of Cao Cao lay. Three imperial physicians were huddled around the warlord, shaking like leaves in a hurricane, desperately trying to shield their patient with their own frail bodies.
"Wait," Fan Chou ordered the soldiers moving in with ropes. He looked down at the pale, translucent face of the man who had terrorized the central plains for decades. Even in a coma, on the brink of death, Cao Mengde possessed an aura that commanded a reluctant, profound respect from the veteran cavalry commander.
"Leave the Emperor of Wei unbound," Fan Chou declared, his voice carrying a strange, solemn reverence for the fallen titan. He pointed his riding crop at the terrified physicians. "You three. You are granted a temporary exception. You will not be bound, so long as your hands remain exclusively on your medical tools. Your only duty is to ensure Cao Mengde does not cross into the Yellow Springs before our Emperor has the chance to look him in the eye. Keep him stable. If his condition turns critical because of your negligence, your heads will roll before the sun rises."
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0