The white dragon-scale granite beneath their boots was no longer smooth; it was fractured into millions of microscopic, icy hairline cracks that spider-webbed across the ancient thoroughfare. The majestic two-hundred-foot Golden Dragon Gate—a colossal structure forged from solid molten ore and reinforced with three thousand years of imperial array formations—was gone. In its place remained only a shimmering, luminous haze of pale blue frost-dust that swirled gently in the midnight breeze before dissolving into the starry night sky.
A suffocating, absolute silence hung over the ruins of the outer courtyard. The twenty thousand elite Sun-Shield Knights lay motionless along the sides of the stone path, their volcanic bronze armor coated in milky ice, their breath coming in shallow, shuddering gasps. Not a single warrior dared to raise his eyes. Every time the worn leather sole of Li-Wen's plain traveler's boot struck the stone—TAP, TAP, TAP—a phantom shudder rippled through their cultivated meridians, as if the cold weight of an entire primordial glacier were stepping directly upon their souls.
Beside him, little Xiao-Yue walked with light, rhythmic steps. Her small hand remained snugly tucked inside Li-Wen's broad, warm palm. In her other hand, the pink lotus lantern emitted a soft, ruby-red halo that pushed back the lingering absolute-zero frost around their feet, creating a gentle, warm sanctuary amidst the desolate, frozen expanse. Her big, luminous eyes scanned the towering golden roofs and soaring inner towers that loomed in the distance beyond the shattered gate.
"Brother Li-Wen..." Xiao-Yue whispered softly, her sweet voice breaking the eerie silence of the courtyard. "The big doors at the end turned into snow. Will the people inside try to burn us like the guards on the bridge?"
Li-Wen did not slow his pace. His dark, indifferent eyes remained fixed on the majestic silhouette of the Inner Imperial Palace. His voice was flat, calm, and carried the quiet, terrifying resonance of an eternal glacier. "Those who wished to burn you no longer possess the fire to do so, Xiao-Yue. Those who remain inside will simply bear witness to the end of their era."
At the heart of the inner sanctuary, deep within the grand Audience Hall of the Crimson Dragon Dynasty, the atmosphere was thick with overwhelming dread.
High above the marble floor, seated upon the Nine-Dragon Golden Throne, Emperor Zhao-Tian sat frozen in utter terror. His magnificent, gold-embroidered dragon robes were soaked in cold sweat, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The spiritual projection mirror hovering in the center of the hall had just flickered out, but the final image recorded upon its shimmering surface remained burned into the minds of everyone present: five Stage-5 High-Grade Secret Guardians, the absolute shadow pillars of the empire who had cultivated in death-seclusion for over a century, had been completely obliterated in a single instant. One had been atomized into frost dust; the other four had been crippled and thrown across the heavens—all without the intruder ever unsheathing his heavy blade or using a single formal technique.
Standing to the right of the throne was the true foundation of the imperial bloodline—Prime Ancestor Zhao-Khai. He was a Stage-5 Peak Sovereign, a terrifying old monster who had survived four thousand years of dynastic wars. His face was pale, his long white beard trembling, but his sunken eyes burned with a mixture of desperate rage and ancient malice. Clutched in his withered right hand was the ultimate sacred heirloom of the empire: the Nine-Sun Spear. The divine artifact radiated a violent, solar glare, pulsing with the concentrated thermal energy of a dying star.
Yet, despite the blistering heat radiating from the ancestral weapon, the temperature inside the grand audience hall was steadily dropping. Frost was already beginning to creep up the towering gilded pillars, turning the golden dragons carved into the walls into pale, icy statues.
"Your Imperial Majesty... Prime Ancestor..." a senior scholar whimpered, dropping to his knees and slamming his forehead against the floor. "He... he is stepping over the threshold of the Inner Gate! The thousand-year Imperial Ward array didn't even slow him down! What... what kind of demon is he?!"
"Silence, coward!" Prime Ancestor Zhao-Khai bellowed, slamming the butt of the Nine-Sun Spear against the floor. A shockwave of golden flame rippled outward, temporarily melting the ice on the nearby marble floor. "The Crimson Dragon Dynasty has stood for three millennia! We have suppressed nine rebellions and slayed three rogue Sovereigns! I hold the Nine-Sun Spear, fuelled by the core solar vein of the continent! Even an immortal from the Upper Realm must bow before the true power of the Sun!"
Despite his roaring words, the old ancestor's fingers tightened on the shaft of the spear until his knuckles turned white. He knew the truth. The energy pulsing through the air outside was not standard spiritual Qi. It was an absolute, void-like cold that defied the laws of martial cultivation.
BOOOM—!
Without warning, the hundred-foot-tall double doors of the grand Audience Hall—crafted from thousand-year-old ironwood and reinforced with heavy defensive runes—did not explode outward. Instead, they turned pale blue, lost all structural integrity, and crumbled silently into a fine curtain of glittering frost powder.
Through the mist of blue frost, two figures walked slowly into the hall.
Li-Wen's dark traveler's coat fluttered gently in the cold draft. His expression was completely blank, his dark eyes void of anger, passion, or malice. He looked upon the grandest court in the southern continent as if it were nothing more than an empty alleyway filled with dry leaves. Beside him, Xiao-Yue held her lantern high, its ruby light casting a serene, warm illumination over the terrified faces of the imperial ministers.
Along both sides of the hall, one hundred elite Imperial Executioner Knights stood in full array. These were warriors who had crossed mountains of corpses to reach their rank, yet now, not a single one of them could keep his blade steady. The heavy broadswords in their hands vibrated wildly, clattering against their iron gauntlets. Cold sweat froze into tiny beads upon their cheeks before it could even drip onto the floor.
Li-Wen stopped thirty yards from the base of the golden throne. He did not look at the Emperor, nor did he look at the hundred armed knights lining the hall. His gaze settled calmly upon the old man holding the glowing solar spear.
"You have walked a long way, nameless wanderer," Prime Ancestor Zhao-Khai spat, his voice echoing through the vaulted ceiling of the hall. He took three deliberate steps forward, coming to a halt at the top of the throne stairs. "You destroyed the Heaven-Shatter Towers, disarmed twenty thousand Sun-Shield Knights, and shattered the Five Secret Guardians. But do you truly believe you can extinguish the Crimson Dragon Dynasty?"
Li-Wen remained silent. He simply stood there, his left hand holding Xiao-Yue's, his right arm resting casually at his side.
"Look at the child beside you!" the Prime Ancestor sneered, pointing a long, withered finger at Xiao-Yue. "You think you are protecting her? She carries the ancient 'Primordial Sacred Lotus' bloodline! Her very existence is a key to unlocking the heavenly gates! For three hundred years, our dynasty has fed her bloodline's excess Qi into our imperial dragon vein to maintain peace across seven provinces! We did not torture her; we utilized her for the greater good of millions! Who are you to judge the actions of an empire?!"
Xiao-Yue shrank back slightly, clutching Li-Wen's fingers a bit tighter. The lotus mark on her neck throbbed with a faint, painful light as she heard the old man's voice.
Li-Wen finally spoke. His voice was low, flat, and echoed with the absolute finality of a funeral bell. "You stole the life force of a child to sustain your rotting throne. You built your peace upon her pain, and called it glory."
He took a single step forward.
THUD.
A visible, circular wave of pale blue light rippled out from his boot, spreading across the marble floor of the hall.
The moment the ripple touched the hundred Executioner Knights, their heavy broadswords snapped in half simultaneously, turning into brittle iron shards that rained onto the floor! The knights gasped as the thermal Qi inside their dantians froze solid, forcing all one hundred elite warriors to instantly collapse onto their knees, paralyzed and gasping for air as frost covered their visors.
"Insolent fool!" Prime Ancestor Zhao-Khai roared, his patience snapping! "Then die alongside her under the fury of the Sun!"
The ancient monster threw his arms wide. The four-thousand-year cultivation base of a Stage-5 Peak Sovereign exploded forth without reservation! The crimson dragon tattoo on his chest lit up like a blinding star, and the Nine-Sun Spear in his hands unleashed nine massive, roaring dragons of pure solar fire!
ROAAAR—!
The nine fire dragons swirled around the ceiling, their searing heat instantly vaporizing the heavy stone pillars and melting the golden roof above! The ambient temperature inside the hall skyrocketed to thousands of degrees, turning the air itself into a boiling vortex of incandescent plasma! The sheer thermal pressure was enough to melt steel instantly and reduce ordinary Stage-4 cultivators to ash from a hundred yards away!
"Nine-Sun Domain: Absolute Solar Extinction!" Zhao-Khai screamed, his eyes bloodshot as he thrust the spear straight toward Li-Wen's chest with every ounce of his soul energy!
The nine fiery dragons converged into a single, blinding beam of solar destruction, shooting across the thirty-yard distance in less than a microsecond!
Facing the ultimate strike of a four-thousand-year-old Peak Sovereign, Li-Wen did not draw the heavy blade resting on his back. He did not even shift his stance or let go of Xiao-Yue's small hand.
He simply raised two fingers of his right hand and held them out into the air.
CLANK—!
An earth-shattering metallic sound echoed through the hall, but there was no explosion. There was no fiery shockwave, no destruction of the surrounding floor.
The blinding, hundred-foot beam of celestial solar fire stopped dead in mid-air. The sharp, glowing tip of the ancient Nine-Sun Spear was caught precisely between Li-Wen's forefinger and middle finger!
Prime Ancestor Zhao-Khai's eyes widened to the size of saucers. His arms trembled violently as he poured every drop of his remaining spiritual energy into the shaft of the spear, trying to force it forward even a millimeter.
The spear did not move. It was as if it had been thrust into the core of an absolute, immovable mountain of solid primordial ice.
"No... No! This is the Nine-Sun Spear!" Zhao-Khai shrieked, his voice cracking with pure, hysterical horror. "It contains the solar core of the continent! Nothing in this world can stop its fire! How can your bare fingers—"
"Your sun is cold," Li-Wen said softly.
A single, faint blue snowflake pattern flared on the back of Li-Wen's right hand.
SNAP—!
The roaring, thousand-degree solar flames coating the Nine-Sun Spear froze instantly, turning into a thick sheath of deep blue, translucent ice. The fiery dragons above dissolved into harmless, sparkling frost particles that drifted downward like winter snow.
Then, with a gentle flick of Li-Wen's two fingers—
CRACK—! CRACKLE—!
The sacred, three-thousand-year-old heirloom of the Crimson Dragon Dynasty—the Nine-Sun Spear—shattered into millions of tiny, useless metallic splinters!
"MY SPEAR—!" Zhao-Khai screamed in agony as the violent backlash of absolute zero energy rushed back along the weapon's path, entering his body through his palms!
The passive release of Li-Wen's Abyssal Northern Aura surged through the old ancestor's arms like liquid nitrogen. In a fraction of a second, Zhao-Khai's meridians, his blood vessels, his golden core, and his four-thousand-year cultivation base were snap-froze into solid ice!
"AARRGH!"
Zhao-Khai spewed a plume of frozen golden blood and was hurled backward like a broken doll, tumbling down the high stairs of the throne and crashing heavily at the base of the golden dais. His body twitched once before stiffening completely, his eyes wide open in an expression of eternal, frozen horror. His four-thousand-year cultivation was completely destroyed, leaving him an old, crippled man dying in the frost.
The grand Audience Hall fell into a dead, horrifying silence.
Emperor Zhao-Tian sat frozen on his throne, his mind completely blank. The ancestral weapon was broken. The Prime Ancestor was defeated in a single breath without the opponent ever taking out a weapon. The imperial guards were paralyzed.
The three-thousand-year-old Crimson Dragon Dynasty had run out of cards to play.
Li-Wen took another calm step forward, ascending the golden stairs toward the throne.
"Don't... Don't come any closer!" Emperor Zhao-Tian shrieked, scrambling off his golden throne and falling onto his knees on the cold marble floor. He crawled backward like a terrified insect, his crown falling off his head and rolling down the steps. "Mercy! Lord Sovereign, mercy! I offer you everything! Take the imperial treasury! Take the seven provinces! I will make you the Supreme Regent of the Empire! Just spare my life! Spare the royal bloodline!"
Li-Wen stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down at the groveling Emperor. His dark eyes held no hatred, no anger, no satisfaction—only an empty, chilling indifference that scared the Emperor far more than any violent rage could have.
"You speak of mercy," Li-Wen said, his low voice cutting through the Emperor's frantic crying. "Did you show mercy when you dragged a six-year-old child from her ancestral home? Did you show mercy when you branded her soul with dark array seals to harvest her life force?"
"It... It was not me! It was the Ancestors! It was the imperial array!" Emperor Zhao-Tian wept hysterically, slamming his head against the frozen floor until blood smeared across the marble. "I can undo it! I will break every seal myself! Look, I am doing it right now!"
The Emperor frantically formed hand seals with his trembling fingers, attempting to manually deactivate the ancient leeching array embedded within his own imperial core.
Beside Li-Wen, little Xiao-Yue stepped forward. She looked at the crying Emperor on the floor with her big, clear eyes. She did not express anger or joy. She simply held up her small pink lotus lantern.
The ruby-red flame inside the lantern flared with a bright, pure light. The warm illumination washed over the groveling Emperor, touching his chest where the dark, parasitic array rune was carved.
ZZZZT—!
With a sound like burning silk, the dark, parasitic rune on the Emperor's chest turned to black smoke and evaporated into thin air. The ancient, invisible threads that had been draining Xiao-Yue's bloodline for years snapped completely!
The moment the final connection was severed, the lotus mark on the back of Xiao-Yue's neck flared with a blinding, celestial brilliance! A serene, fragrant pulse of pure life force radiated from her small body, sweeping across the grand hall. Where the warm light touched the frozen, shattered marble floor, delicate, golden lotus blossoms began to sprout and bloom amidst the ice and ruin, filling the deathly hall with a sweet, peaceful fragrance.
Xiao-Yue took a deep, clear breath, her little chest rising and falling. For the first time in her life, she felt a sense of complete lightness, as if an invisible, mountain-like chain had finally been lifted from her soul.
She looked up at Li-Wen, her small fingers wrapping securely around his wrist. "Brother Li-Wen... the dark threads are gone. I don't feel heavy anymore."
Li-Wen looked down at her, his dark eyes softening slightly as he placed a broad, gentle hand on her head. "Good."
He turned his gaze back to Emperor Zhao-Tian, who was slumping on the floor, his spiritual energy rapidly draining as the stolen lotus power left his body, leaving him a powerless, aged mortal.
"I have no interest in your gold, your land, or your rotting throne," Li-Wen said, his voice echoing through the vast, ruined hall for the final time. "But a dynasty that feeds on the innocent to prolong its own life has no right to exist under the heavens."
Li-Wen turned away, taking Xiao-Yue's hand once more. Together, they walked calmly toward the ruined entrance of the hall, leaving behind the groveling Emperor, the paralyzed guards, and the shattered throne.
As Li-Wen took his final step across the threshold of the Audience Hall, stepping out into the open courtyard under the starry sky—
HUMMM—!
A single, deep vibration echoed through the air.
Without a single sound of an explosion, without a single flash of light, the entire Inner Imperial Palace—the soaring gilded towers, the massive Audience Hall, the ancestral shrines, and the surrounding high walls—turned completely pale blue.
In the next microsecond, the entire majestic complex, representing three thousand years of imperial supremacy, dissolved into a colossal, shimmering cloud of pale blue frost-dust!
The cold night wind blew past, sweeping the massive cloud of frost-dust high into the atmosphere, scattering it across the vast, dark sky like a shower of falling stars. Where the grand palace had stood just moments before, there remained only a vast, flat, empty expanse of smooth white granite under the quiet moonlight.
The Crimson Dragon Dynasty was no more.
High up in the distant city watchtowers, the surviving citizens and lower-ranking cultivators looked toward the center of the imperial capital in utter disbelief. The blinding solar glow that had illuminated the city for centuries was gone. The grand palace had vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a tranquil, starry night.
Down on the wide, empty avenue, the solitary traveler in the dark coat walked steadily forward into the night, his boots tapping softly against the cold stone. Beside him, the small girl skipped with light, happy steps, her pink lotus lantern casting a warm, ruby-red glow that illuminated their path forward.
"Brother Li-Wen," Xiao-Yue asked softly, her clear voice carrying a hint of fatigue, "where are we going now?"
Li-Wen adjusted his traveler's coat against the wind, his voice calm, steady, and filled with a quiet warmth that only she ever heard. "We go far away from here, Xiao-Yue. To a place where no one will ever bother you again."
"Is there good food there?" she asked innocently, her big eyes twinkling under the starlight.
"There is," Li-Wen replied with the faintest trace of a smile touching the corner of his lips. "As much as you want."
Together, the solitary Northern Sovereign and the small girl walked past the glittering blue frost-dust of the fallen empire, vanishing into the quiet darkness of the horizon.
See you in next chapter...