The throne room still reeked of incense and bloodless judgment. Guards avoided Tianming's gaze as they cleaned the unconscious traitors from the marble floor. Ministers bowed lower than ever before. They used to walk past him as if he were a ghost. Now, they shuffled like mice in a palace ruled by crows and Tianming sat alone atop the Vermilion Throne, fingers pressed to his temple, listening not to them.
To the System, which had gone oddly quiet since his breakthrough.
[Core Seed successfully stabilized.]
Cultivation Progress: Foundation Realm Complete → Core Seed Formed.
Passive absorption of National Qi active.
Kingdom Loyalty: 48% and rising.
"Your seat is hot. Your enemies are colder. Time to build your web."
He exhaled slowly. It had begun. Beneath the palace, beyond the reach of sunlight or ceremony, Itachi Uchiha moved like a shadow with purpose.
Torchlight flickered across ancient stone as he descended the sealed lower levels of the palace fortress—a forgotten armory once used by the old kings during the last demonic incursion. Now, it would become something else.
He paced the hollow halls with silent steps, pausing at each corner, each ceiling joint. With a flick of his fingers, he placed illusion anchors, blindfolding the very stones. By the time he was done, the entire underground floor would vanish from detection—spiritual, magical, or divine and in one sealed chamber at its center, Kisuke was already humming to himself.
"I like what you've done with the place," Kisuke grinned, spinning his cane as Tianming entered the hidden chamber. Stone walls had been stripped bare, etched with a new series of living arrays. Scrolls fluttered as if breathing. Diagrams pulsed. A massive map of the Eastern Realm was projected in midair, cities and borders glowing with formation nodes.
"Is it ready?" Tianming asked.
"Room's sealed tighter than your secrets," Kisuke replied. "Sound-voided, illusion-cloaked, and spiritually detached from the surface. Even a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator couldn't sniff their way down here."
Tianming nodded. "This is now the Shadow Lair. From here, we move unseen. From here, we break kingdoms without leaving our chair."
Itachi appeared beside him in a blur of crows. "I've already tagged the most dangerous nobles and generals with passive genjutsu," he said. "If any of them plot treason again, we'll know."
"Any cracks in the outer courts?" Tianming asked.
"Plenty," Itachi replied, his voice low. "Fear will hold them for a month. After that… they'll test you."
"Let them," Tianming murmured. "This time, they'll choke on their own bait." Kisuke tapped the hovering map with his cane, zooming into the capital.
A new glyph lit up near the outer wall. "Also, you have a visitor," he said casually. "He's been trying to sneak into the city. Poorly, might I add."
"Enemy?"
"Scout. Trained. Good reflexes. But not enough to dodge my whisper webs."
Tianming turned to Itachi. "Alive?"
"For now," he answered. "Want him dead or desperate?"
Tianming's lips curled. "Neither. I want him terrified—then turned."
Elsewhere in the capital, in a dusty alley behind a spice shop, a boy no older than sixteen lay flat on the rooftop, breathing raggedly. Sweat poured from his back. He had already dodged five patrols and evaded two formation scans.
His name was Xin Lian and he was a spy. The moment he crossed the city border, he knew something was wrong. The Vermilion Capital was too quiet. The streets too clean. The fear in people's eyes didn't come from war or famine—but something else.
A shift.
A ruler they didn't understand yet. He'd been trained to gather information, to find holes in power. But the more he watched, the more he felt like the kingdom was watching him. Then, just as he made it to the inner wall…
The sky turned black. A thousand crows erupted from the rooftops and Xin Lian finally understood: he hadn't been spying.
Back in the Shadow Lair, Tianming reviewed another scroll. Not a military report.
A disciple candidate list. Fifteen names. All orphans. All outcasts. None accepted by the major sects. He'd requested them personally—young cultivators abandoned or discarded by the Eastern Realm's prestigious sects for lacking "heavenly fate" or "pure bloodline." But Tianming knew what others didn't:
Pain made sharper blades than privilege ever could. Itachi returned and handed him a sealed scroll. "The first three will arrive in three days."
"Are they ready?" Tianming asked. "They're not. But you will make them so."
As the torches in the Shadow Lair dimmed, Tianming stood before the floating map of the realm.
To the west, the Black Tortoise Kingdom stirred.
To the north, the Azure Hawk clans prepared tributes—but not loyalty.
To the south, the Storm Lotus Sect waited to see if the prince-king would survive a moon's rule. The kingdoms were watching.
Hoping the Vermilion Bird would fall like the rest. But they didn't see what Tianming had built beneath their gaze. A throne in the light. A blade in the dark and it had only just begun.