Shi Long hung in the high air and looked at the cracked sky over his city.
For a moment he thought about wiping the Ju Empire off the map. He had the qi for it. He had the anger for it. He did not have the right. The people in his house, the ones who had given him this power, were not his to spend. If Ju Han came looking for them, then yes. The monarchy could go. Until then, Shi Long would not start a war just to feel tall.
He came down.
…
Infinite Realm.
The screen was still up. Athena and Anastasia sat on the jade bed with the popcorn between them, watching the courtyard empty itself of corpses and excuses.
"So that's an Immortal," Anastasia said. She sounded almost fond. "It doesn't mean anything to us. Still. For a mortal to get there without sitting in our laps the whole way, I suppose it counts."
Athena chewed, swallowed, drifted off the bed until her feet did not touch anything.
"Sister. After we are done with this adventure, we should reward them. Let the glory of being near us be the prize. That broken little planet could use a patch."
Anastasia watched her float and smiled.
"Big sister is right. Fix it. Then let them feel us for a while."
They both looked at Patrick.
Patrick was asleep.
The fight had bored him the second it stopped being a fight. He had already moved on, in his head, to whatever wonder came next. Athena rolled her eyes, landed, and the floor under her goddess feet grew shining tiles like it had been waiting for permission. She finished the popcorn, let energy wash her clean, and put her clothes back on. Anastasia did the same. Gold hair. Silver hair. Two queens who could have been twins if you did not know better.
…
Shi courtyard.
Shi Long's qi spun, then settled. The guards looked at him like they had never seen their lord before. Some of them shook.
He had them gather the whole family.
His plan was simple enough to say out loud. The Shi would grow. The Shi would stay out of the world's business. They were already stronger than anything this cracked planet liked to call a powerhouse. Mixing in mortal affairs now would just be bullying.
Days later the story was everywhere.
The Shi family had met the people who came for their treasure, and those people were not coming home. Folks who had been rude to the Shi started wondering about revenge. Other families started sending gifts. Treasure. Polite letters. The usual.
The rumor ate itself and got fatter. Some said the treasure talk had been a trap from the start, the old game, accuse a house of something sweet and pile on until they are gone. If the strong ones who went to do the piling were dead, then the Shi really did have what the rumor promised.
…
Imperial Capital.
The Ju Empire's capital was the richest city on the eastern continent, which was another way of saying the loudest. Superpowers lived there. Influential families occupied the good streets. In the center stood a tower grown into a mansion, a hundred feet high, twenty feet wide, scales wrapped around it, pearls hanging off the top like it wanted to be a dragon and a vault at the same time. Two hundred formations. A thousand talismans. The Imperial Tower.
Inside, a throne room. Fifty men in grey robes with white at the neck, twenty-five to a side, heads down. The weakest of them was Divine King, eighth. That was the Ju Empire. That was why it called itself the strongest thing in the east. Emperor realm all over the floor, and they were still bowing.
The throne was gold, two feet across, a dragon carved into it. The man on it filled it. Long black hair. Thick muscle. One hand under his chin. His qi sat on their cores until breathing felt like a privilege.
He cultivated the Lesser God Body. Physical advantage. Faster cultivation. The previous two Ju emperors had found the technique a thousand years ago and the family had been smug about it ever since.
He was not afraid of the Shi treasure.
He was furious about the face.
An emperor who loses an envoy and does nothing looks weak. Other empires. Sects. They would smell it. He also was not stupid. If the Shi could kill a Divine Spirit and a crowd of the same, then Emperor realm and above was the only language left.
"Worthless fool," Ju Han said. "Cannot even handle a weak Shi family. That is how incompetent my envoy was."
He let that hang.
"This meeting is over."
He vanished. The oppressive qi went with him. The hall exhaled. Some of the men blinked out. Some melted into the floor. They all left like people who had been given their lives back for the afternoon.
…
Deep under the Imperial Tower there was a room so dark that light going in did not come back out. Cultivators did not need eyes. Spiritual sense did the work. The thing you noticed was not the dark. It was the aura. Two of them. Guardians. The kind empires hide for the day the world actually tries to kill them. Centuries of practice. Realms the current generation only named in stories.
They sat across from each other, cultivating, and did not look up when space folded and the Emperor arrived. He was not worth looking at.
Ju Han cupped his hands. It was the most respectful tone he had used in years.
"Greetings, Sage Ancestor."
The one who answered still had his eyes closed. Body of a man in his prime, beard that looked a hundred, face that looked forty. Qi turning around him in a slow lotus.
"Little Chan's talent still shines," he said. "Almost Sage. A few more decades. You will get there."
He opened nothing. He only turned his face toward the other old man.
"Big Brother. What do you think?"
The second ancestor was quiet for a full minute.
Then one word.
"Retreat."
Ju Han's head came up a fraction. Unwillingness. This one was the real weight in the cracked world. Sects favored the Ju because he had been Emperor for two generations and then refused to die on schedule. He barely spoke. When he did, it mattered. He had not praised Little Chan's talent. He had said retreat. Both things sat in Ju Han's chest and burned.
"Big Brother. What do you mean?"
"I mean the Shi family is out of our reach. I used Time Revelation to see what made them this strong so fast. They have two Immortal realm cultivators."
The room seemed to rumble on its own.
Ju Han looked at the Sage, hoping for a denial. The older one was not finished.
"I know because I am early Half-Immortal. When I tried to sense the whole of this broken world, I felt two Immortal signatures sitting on the Shi residence. I wanted to look closer. Something looked back and interrupted me. If we attack, we are gone in seconds, and we lose our place in the Immortal Realm Competition. Face is cheaper than that."
Even Ju Han could do that math. Lose face. Enter the competition. Come out with treasures that made a Shi rumor look like a village story.
The two old men went back to their breathing as if the Emperor had already left.
Ju Han vanished with his jaw tight. All the cruel things he had done to the Shi family started lining up behind his eyes. Even if the Ju did not attack, the Shi could. And the Ju would still lose.
So he did what emperors do when they are afraid and cannot say so. He threw himself into the Sect Entrance. Geniuses. Disciples. The whole imperial capital filling up with powerhouses who wanted a child that might live longer than a grudge.
Rumors still got out. The Ju Emperor could not handle the Shi. The Shi were the strongest family now.
Then the Shi family announced they were done with worldly affairs. Seclusion. No more mortal business.
That one made Ju Han close his eyes and almost laugh.
His fear, at least the loud one, had not come true.
Not yet.