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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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The Hengyuan soldiers, riding the high of absolute victory, were swarming the Harem Palace, cutting down the lightly armed eunuchs and inner guards with merciless efficiency. And as if to seal their doom, a secondary, entirely different sound of violence echoed from the very building they had just exited.
From deep within the corridor where they had erected their frantic barricade, a massive, reverberating THUD shook the stone foundations of the Harem Palace.
THUD. CRACK.
The secret entrance, the narrow tunnel they had used to escape the Great Hall, was being rammed. Hard.
Lie Fan had found the door. And he was not politely knocking.
The sound of shattering wood and groaning bronze echoed down the hallway. The heavy mahogany table, the priceless vases, the massive bronze incense burner, they were being violently shoved aside by sheer, monstrous brute force. The barricade was failing.
The Imperial Guards surrounding Cao Cao's stretcher heard the dual threats. They heard the slaughter approaching from the southern courtyards, and they heard the monstrous impacts destroying the barricade behind them.
The captain of the guard drew his heavy saber, his face pale but set with the grim, fatalistic resolve of a man who knows he is about to die. He looked at Cao Pi, then shouted to his men.
"Form a perimeter! Shields up! Defend the Emperor and the imperial family to the last drop of blood!"
The Imperial Guards formed a tight, desperate circle of steel around the stretcher and the terrified advisors. They raised their shields, their eyes scanning the dark archways, waiting for the monsters to emerge from the shadows.
Cao Pi stood frozen, his trembling sword raised. He looked at his mother, who was weeping silently over the unmoving body of his father. He looked at the brilliant strategists who had run out of stratagems. The sounds of fighting were drawing closer from the front, and the terrifying, booming impacts were shattering the wall behind them.
The sprawling, opulent gardens of the Harem Palace had been designed to be a terrestrial reflection of the heavens, a sanctuary of blooming plum blossoms, tranquil koi ponds, and perfectly manicured willow trees. Tonight, however, it was the staging ground for a nightmare.
The cacophony of the dying capital was no longer a distant, muffled rumble, it was a living, breathing entity crashing through the fragile walls of their reality. The sounds of fighting were getting closer by the second. From the southern archways, the clash of steel, the guttural roars of the Hengyuan vanguard, and the terrifying, wet sounds of slaughter echoed over the manicured hedges.
But it was the sound coming from behind them that truly froze the blood in Cao Pi's veins.
THUD. CRACK.
The massive, frantic barricade they had erected in the hidden corridor connecting the Great Hall to the Harem Palace was buckling. The heavy mahogany tables, the priceless Han and Qin vases, the solid bronze incense burners, they were being pulverized by sheer, monstrous brute force.
The wood shrieked in agonizing protest, a sound that mirrored the wailing of the hundreds of terrified women and children currently swarming the courtyard.
"Move! We must keep moving!" Cao Pi screamed, his voice cracking with a high pitched edge of pure panic. He waved his ceremonial sword wildly, trying to direct the massive, chaotic entourage toward the northern edge of the palace grounds, where the final, deepest secret passage leading out of the city was hidden beneath an ancestral shrine.
The sheer logistics of moving the royal household under extreme duress were a nightmare. Maids tripped over their own trailing silk skirts, dropping pouches of pearls that scattered like useless gravel across the flagstones.
Young princes and princesses, Cao Pi's younger siblings, clung to their mothers, sobbing hysterically as the terrifying booming sounds vibrated through the soles of their shoes.
In the center of this swirling vortex of panic were the eunuchs and Imperial Guards carrying the heavy wooden stretcher. Upon it lay the comatose form of Cao Cao, the architect of their world, swaddled in heavy furs and utterly oblivious to the apocalypse consuming his family.
Grand Concubine Bian ran alongside the stretcher, her face pale and streaked with tears, one hand desperately clutching the edge of the canvas, refusing to let her husband slip from her grasp.
Behind the stretcher stumbled the greatest minds of the era, Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Cheng Yu, Tian Feng, Xi Zhicai, Jia Kui, and Xu You. Their legendary intellects were entirely useless against the physical reality of a collapsing barricade. They were no longer grand strategists; they were just terrified old men running for their lives in the dark.
KRAKOOM!
The sound was like a thunderbolt striking the earth. The frantic barricade finally gave way with an explosive, deafening crash. A massive cloud of pulverized wood, shattered porcelain, and choking dust billowed out from the corridor, rolling across the pristine courtyard.
The Imperial Guards, who had formed a desperate semicircle around the fleeing royal family, raised their shields, their knuckles white, their breath catching in their throats.
As the dust began to settle, the nightmare emerged.
Stepping over the ruined bronze and splintered mahogany was Lie Fan. The Emperor of Hengyuan looked less like a man and more like an avatar of the god of war.
His bespoke black armor was splashed with the fresh, bright crimson of the Wei defenders he had slaughtered in the Great Hall. In his right hand, the legendary heavenly halberd rested easily, its curved blade dripping thick drops of blood onto the pristine white tiles of the harem floor.
He was not alone. Flanking him were his monstrously lethal retinue. The Yellow Ghost Bodyguard, Zhang Mancheng, stepped out of the dust like a shadow, his twin blades already drawn.
Beside him, Chao Bo, Chao Bai, and the hulking giant Huang Chao fanned out, their eyes locking onto the terrified Wei Imperial Guards with cold, emotionless precision. And right behind them, the relentless, heavily armored elite infantry of Hengyuan began to pour into the courtyard, an endless tide of black steel.
"Hold them! For the glory of Wei!" the captain of the Imperial Guards screamed, his voice breaking as he launched himself forward, leading his fifty elite men into a desperate, suicidal charge against the invaders.
It was a slaughter.
Lie Fan didn't even break his stride. As the Wei captain lunged forward with a heavy saber, Lie Fan executed a casual, blindingly fast upward sweep of his halberd. The heavenly blade sheared effortlessly through the captain's iron breastplate, his ribs, and his spine. The man was dead before his bisected body hit the floor.
Zhang Mancheng moved like liquid smoke, ducking under a spear thrust and opening the throats of two Wei guards in a single, fluid cross slash. Huang Chao didn't even use the blade of his weapon, he merely lowered his shoulder and charged, using his immense bulk to physically crush three screaming guards against a stone pillar.
The Hengyuan elites flooded over the remaining defenders like a tidal wave crashing over a sandcastle. The elite protectors of the harem, men who had trained their entire lives for this moment, were butchered in less than thirty seconds, their bodies discarded like broken toys among the blooming plum blossoms.
Watching the effortless, terrifying annihilation of his finest guards from a few dozen yards away, Cao Pi felt his stomach plummet into an abyss of absolute terror. His entire body began to violently tremble.
"Open the gate! Open the northern entrance!" Cao Pi shrieked, spinning around to face the eunuchs who were frantically tearing at the heavy tapestry covering the wall of the ancestral shrine.
With a grinding rumble of heavy stone counterweights, a narrow, dark passageway was finally revealed in the masonry. It was a steep, claustrophobic tunnel leading downward and out toward the northern city walls.
"Go! Go!" Cao Pi ordered, his voice echoing with absolute desperation. He pointed his trembling sword toward the dark opening, organizing the frantic bottleneck. "Mother! The stretcher! Take Imperial Father through first!"
The eunuchs, weeping with fear, awkwardly maneuvered the heavy stretcher carrying the comatose Cao Cao into the narrow opening. Grand Concubine Bian followed immediately behind, her silk robes catching on the rough stone, her eyes wide with terror as she looked back at her son.
"Pi! Come with us!" she screamed.
"I am right behind you! Go!" Cao Pi yelled back. He turned to the huddled, trembling mass of his advisors. "Master Xun! Master Guo! All of you, through the passage! Now!"
The brilliant architects of Wei abandoned the last of their dignity, shoving their way into the dark, damp tunnel, their heavy robes tangling together.
"My brothers and sisters next!" Cao Pi commanded, grabbing the arm of a terrified younger prince and physically shoving him toward the doorway. "The princesses! Hurry!"
The bottleneck at the secret entrance was agonizing. The delicate concubines, the terrified children, the panicked maids, they pressed together in a frantic, suffocating mass, weeping and screaming as they tried to squeeze into the narrow salvation of the tunnel.
Cao Pi took several steps backward, positioning himself between the escaping harem and the approaching monsters. He raised his ceremonial sword, holding it in a two handed grip.
His arms were shaking so violently the blade rattled in the air. He was surrounded by a small, final handful of surviving Imperial Guards, their shields raised, their faces pale as death.
Lie Fan, having casually flicked the blood from his halberd, stopped his advance. He stood perhaps twenty paces away from the young prince, flanked by his terrifying bodyguards. He looked at the frantic bottleneck at the secret door, then looked back at Cao Pi holding his trembling sword.
A cold, mocking smile spread slowly across Lie Fan's face. It was a smile completely devoid of warmth, designed to paralyze the soul.
He didn't order his men to charge. He didn't need to. He recognized the profound psychological vulnerability of the boy standing before him, and he decided to twist the knife before he ended the dynasty.
"Is this the great succession of the Cao clan?" Lie Fan's voice boomed across the courtyard, rich, resonant, and dripping with venomous amusement. "The mighty Cao Mengde lies rotting in a coma, and he leaves his legacy to a trembling prince holding a sword he barely has the arm strength to lift?"
Cao Pi swallowed hard, his throat dry as dust. He tried to speak, tried to issue a defiant retort, but the words died in his mouth. The sheer, overwhelming aura of absolute conquest radiating from Lie Fan pinned him in place like a biological imperative to freeze before a predator.
"Look at you, Cao Pi," Lie Fan taunted, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. The remaining Wei guards instantly tensed, raising their shields higher. "You are shaking like a leaf in a winter storm. Where is the arrogance of the central plains? Where is the pride of the Chancellor's bloodline? Your elder brother, Cao Ang, at least had the spine to stay behind and fight my vanguard at Tong Pass. He crossed blades with my generals. He bled for his father's escape. But you? You hide behind the skirts of your father's concubines and throw the frail bodies of scholars between yourself and my halberd."
Lie Fan took another slow step. "Put down that toy, boy. You are going to cut yourself. Surrender now, get on your knees, and perhaps I will let you live long enough to watch me sit upon your father's throne. Refuse, and I will mount your head on a pike beside the shattered gates of your city."
The psychological weight of the taunt crushed Cao Pi. His pride warred violently with his overpowering, primal instinct to survive. He looked at the blood dripping from Lie Fan's armor. He looked at the mountain of corpses that used to be his elite guard.
"Do not listen to him, Your Highness!"
The shout came from the last surviving lieutenant of the Imperial Guard, standing just to Cao Pi's right. The man's helmet was dented, blood pouring down the side of his face, but his eyes burned with a fanatical, absolute loyalty.
"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!"
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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