The massive white jade gates of the Pale Gold Imperial Palace towered like sculpted mountains, casting a cold shadow over the boarding plaza. The air around the Central Crown smelled of lead and hot metal, an atmosphere forged to crush the lungs of any intruder who did not possess the foundation of a star in their womb.
The colossal carriage of dark cedar and steel stopped at the foot of the immense staircase.
The two Night Wyverns snorted, their light-swallowing scales gleaming under the morning sun while their heavy claws scratched the perfect marble. On the driver's bench, old Mò Zhōng kept his back straight, his hands firm on the thick runic chains. The pure vitality of his 1st Transcendent Stage radiated across the courtyard. Flanking the sides of the carriage, Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang remained motionless like obsidian gargoyles, exuding a silence so lethal and suffocating that the soul of anyone who looked at them would begin to scream.
The guards of the Eclipse Guard hesitated. The silver halberds trembled violently in the men's hands. The Captain of the garrison, a cultivator who had already solidified his Inner Astro, swallowed hard. Cold sweat soaked the tunic beneath his armor. He didn't know what those two shadows beside the vehicle were, but his flesh knew he was one millimeter away from total obliteration.
Terrified, but forced by duty, the Captain took a step forward, his eyes fixed on the runic glass hatch of the armored cabin. Whoever commanded those beasts and those monsters must be a divine emperor.
But the Karmic Illusion woven by Zhì Yuǎn operated in absolute silence.
The conceptual distortion concealed only their divine identity. The Captain's mind short-circuited. Through the crack of that carriage, which was worth the ransom of an entire province, the guard did not see untouchable legends. His primitive brain registered only the face of an ordinary, tired, and pathetic man, flanked by dusty and forgettable women.
The sour taste of bile rose in the Captain's throat. Filthy plebeians occupying the interior of a treasure guarded by legendary beasts?
The guard opened his mouth, ready to order the warriors on the driver's bench to shoo that scum out of the cabin.
But the heavy palace doors creaked before the first sound could come out.
Two figures bolted through the inner courtyard, completely ignoring imperial etiquette. Huáng Bìyù and Qīng Yǔ descended the jade staircases almost at a run. The two legends of the empire had short breath, slightly disheveled hair, and a feverish blush staining the pale skin of their necks. They had spent the entire night drowning in the freezing waters of the Luan Spring, but the cold had not been able to extinguish the sickly heat that had settled in their entrails.
The Captain backed away instinctively, relief washing over his soul upon seeing the heiresses.
Bìyù stopped beside the carriage. The golden warrior hunched her shoulders, her trembling fingers gripping the fabric of her white tunic as she caught the scent of sandalwood and ozone leaking through the cracks. Unlike the stagnant guards, the karmic thread tied to them since the auction forced them to see the raw, naked divinity pulsing beyond the glass. Yǔ stopped right behind her, her blue eyes teary, her breath caught.
"Withdraw your spears and throw open the main gates!" Bìyù's contralto voice whipped across the courtyard, cold sweat running down her temple as she glared daggers at the Captain. "Our Guests of Honor have arrived. No man shall cross the path of this carriage."
Silence fell over the plaza. The guards blinked, astonished. The Goddesses of the Nation were receiving a wagon occupied by dirty peasants with the reverence of someone walking around a lit powder keg.
Bìyù did not wait for comprehension. The warrior gestured to Mò Zhōng, swallowed hard, and took the first trembling step. The carriage began to roll again, crossing the massive jade gates, flanked step by step by the two relentless shadows of the underworld.
The monumental vehicle traversed the hanging gardens and the thermal lakes of the empire. Beside the steel wheels, the two Pearls walked on foot, their heads slightly bowed in an indescribable subservience. To the nobles and palace servants observing from afar, the scene was sickening. The pride of the utopia cracked with every meter advanced; curious eyes watched their fairies acting as an escort for what appeared to be the scum of the world, feeling the disgust rise in their throats.
None of them knew that Bìyù and Yǔ were holding the sky with their own bare hands to prevent it from collapsing over the capital.
The carriage stopped before the Autumn Wind Pavilion, a luxurious structure of polished cedar and rice paper, erected in the center of an artificial lake.
The heavy doors of the pavilion's inner garden were closed by Bìyù, isolating the courtyard from the eyes of the servants and palace guards.
Inside the dimness of the armored cabin, before the ebony door opened, Yù Qíng slid her pale fingers across the chest of her husband's charcoal-gray tunic. The priestess tilted her face, her red lips almost brushing against his jaw.
"The floor of this utopia is far too proud, my heaven." Her velvety voice carried a sweet, reverent sadism. "Let them feel just one thousandth of your truth as you step down."
Zhì Yuǎn did not answer, but the mild heat in his dark eyes welcomed his wife's whim.
The carriage door opened. He stepped down the first rung.
When his dark leather boot touched the wooden bridge connecting the garden to the pavilion, the god suspended the restriction of his own universe by a mere millimeter. The pure, anchored weight of his existence collided with matter.
Crack.
The solid boards of millennial cedar shattered with a dry crash. Fissures spread across the varnished wooden floor beneath his feet. The atmospheric density of the courtyard multiplied a thousandfold in a fraction of a second, and the thick scent of sandalwood and ozone invaded the environment like an invisible sledgehammer.
Bìyù's and Yǔ's knees gave out at the same time. The two legends of the nation collapsed against the cracked boards, the impact muffled only by the force of gravity crushing the air from their lungs. The repressed fever in both their wombs exploded into an uncontrollable fire, terrifying them.
Zhì Yuǎn looked at the destroyed boards beneath his own boots. The lethargy in his gaze dissipated, giving way to an ironic and perfectly relaxed gleam. He let out a low chuckle.
"Oops, my fault." His deep voice vibrated through the garden, brimming with an incredibly relaxed naturalness. He observed the sunken wood. "The carpenter's work is beautiful, but I think I'll have to start wearing thin straw sandals instead of leather boots to stroll around here."
He turned his face toward the carriage stairs, meeting Yù Méi's almond eyes.
"Careful where you step, flower, or we'll have to pay for the renovations before the tea gets cold."
Yù Méi let out a hoarse, delighted laugh, jumping from the cabin.
"You got it, husband. If I step too hard, this old wood will turn to sawdust," she grumbled, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth as her almond eyes swept over the two legends of the nation trembling on the ground with impatient boredom. "And I doubt those little fairies down there have the strength to hold up the ceiling if it falls. What a hellish bore."
The Brute Blade descended bathed in her golden silk, her bare feet floating one millimeter above the destroyed wood. Bái Wǎn descended right behind her. The young woman covered her docile smile with two small hands, her shoulders trembling slightly. Mò Yán followed them, her aristocratic posture unwavering.
Yù Qíng did not touch the bridge. The goddess in blue glided through the air toward the interior of the pavilion's master bedroom, her abyssal eyes sweeping over the soft silks. The priestess settled into the vast chair carved from black jade in the center of the room. She crossed her pale legs, resting her elbow on the backrest and leaning her chin on her own hand.
Zhì Yuǎn entered shortly after, leaning back against the red cushions of the divan beside her, his chest rising and falling with the calm of someone who had just returned to his own home. At the courtyard entrance, just outside the pavilion, the two deadly shadows of Lóu Jiàn and Jiàn Wúshuang merged into the darkness of the veranda, standing guard next to Mò Zhōng.
Still prostrated at the bedroom entrance, Bìyù and Yǔ trembled. The orthodox heroines tried to force their own resonance to flow, but their biological flesh begged to crawl to that man's boots.
Yù Qíng's smile distilled the perfect poison.
"The journey was long, and the wind of this capital smells of old incense and fresh lies." The velvet voice caressed the dense air of the room. Yù Qíng lightly pointed a pale finger at the steaming porcelain teapot on the coffee table. "My heaven is thirsty. Serve the tea."
The command carried no Qi. There was no suppression magic. It was simply the natural order of someone who ruled the apex of existence.
Bìyù's knees gave out before she could even think of resisting. The warrior sat back on her own heels, her breath hitching in a loud gasp, and cold sweat soaked her white tunic. Beside her, Qīng Yǔ squeezed her thighs together, a feverish heat flooding her lower abdomen as the brutal weight of belonging to that environment crushed the healer's resistance.
Swallowing hard, Bìyù crawled across the wooden floor. The golden warrior lifted the porcelain teapot. Her athletic arms trembled so violently that the ceramic lid clinked loudly, spilling a few drops of boiling water onto the table.
Qīng Yǔ, her face painted in a scandalous red, took the filled teacup. The Celestial Plume dragged herself to the edge of the divan, keeping her teary eyes fixed on the floor, and raised the porcelain toward Zhì Yuǎn with both hands.
Zhì Yuǎn accepted the cup. The heat of his fingers accidentally brushed Yǔ's skin, and the healer let out a small strangled sob, pulling her neck back as if she had been branded by fire.
The god drank the tea. He looked down at the tops of the heads of the two heroines crawling on the carpet, and then returned the dry smile to Yù Qíng.
"At least their tea doesn't taste like trampled grass, Qíng."
The mild, ironic humor gleamed in his dark irises. Bìyù's shoulders slumped, the warrior's forehead touching her own trembling hands on the floor, while a low, surrendered sob escaped Qīng Yǔ's lips.
The Jade Palace had locked its own doors, but the empire had just been surrendered.