Allow me to paint you a clear and detailed picture of what was happening. As you might've already guessed from earlier descriptions, the Blade Palace is absolutely huge. Really huge. We're talking spread out over a massive area that would take you a solid hour to walk from one end to the other.
To the North were the extensive family residences for the royal family and their countless servants, the South had elaborate gardens and meditation spaces, the East had multiple ceremonial halls, and the West had heavily guarded treasury halls and armories filled with weapons. Right at the very middle of this entire complex is the huge outdoor training ground, completely surrounded by the main pavilion with multiple floors and intricate architecture, and that's exactly where I was currently standing and waiting nervously for our special guest to arrive.
Feichen was currently in one of the chambers in the very pavilion I was staring at. His next scheduled session of healing with Mei was supposed to begin in just a few minutes, but obviously, this time around, Mei wouldn't show up for the appointment. He would eventually go around searching for her throughout the pavilion, but to his surprise, or maybe not, depending on how smart he actually was, he wouldn't find anyone at all. Not just Mei, but literally anyone else. The entire palace had been evacuated.
I kept waiting anxiously, tapping my feet on the ground repeatedly. Five long minutes passed, then ten, then twenty. I started to genuinely worry that maybe he'd somehow left the palace already, which would throw my entire carefully constructed plan right into the drainage system.
Just a few more tense minutes of waiting, and finally, I saw him.
I could clearly see his tall figure walking slowly in the corridor, looking directly at me with the occasional visual obstruction of the pillars blocking my view. Then he suddenly stopped in his tracks, seemed to consider something for a moment, and started walking deliberately towards me with absolute silence. The dude really took his sweet time, probably trying to intimidate me with the slow approach.
He was a tall, imposing guy wearing a dark robe with a retracted hood. Around his neck, he wore a necklace with a black thread and what looked like a single green crystal pendant hanging from it. His face wasn't covered though, unlike when he'd confronted the king. There were several prominent scars on his face and they all seemed quite old, clearly from battles fought long ago.
Finally, he stopped at a reasonable distance from me and just kept staring at me for an uncomfortably long while with a completely blank expression, like he was trying to read my soul or something.
I chose to break the awkward silence and spoke up first. "Ahem, so, you must be Xun Feichen. I'm Ling Ziyang. Nice to finally meet you."
He smiled slightly, almost amused. "Did the government send you here to deal with me?"
"Nope. I'm here all by myself, actually," I replied. "Though I do represent the Zenith Sect officially."
"Zenith Sect?" He tilted his head slightly. "Never heard of it."
"Of course you haven't," I said. "It's brand new. Just about a week old, actually."
"Mhm."
"So..." I continued, trying to sound casual, "you're the infamous Feichen who supposedly killed two hundred people over a single lost coin."
"Fuck no. That's complete bullshit," he said, sounding genuinely annoyed. "That's a ridiculous rumor. I mean, I did kill two hundred people in that town, but it definitely wasn't for a fucking coin. What are you, stupid? People just love spreading exaggerated lies about us Supreme Beings to make us seem like we're some kind of mindless psychopathic freaks. We're actually pretty reasonable, you know. Most of the time."
"Is that so," I said flatly.
"Yup," he let out a long sigh, "so, Ziyang, the apparently young leader of 'the newly founded Zenith Sect', may I know what exactly you're doing here? Standing alone on the training ground with seemingly the whole palace mysteriously evacuated."
I slowly began to pace around in a circle, trying to appear confident. "I think you already know."
He gave another amused smile. "You wish to what, fight me? Kill me? You look like your balls haven't even fully dropped yet, kid. And you seriously wanna fight a Supreme Being?"
"No, no. No fighting," I said quickly, waving my hands dismissively. "I just wanna talk. Have a civil conversation."
He started pacing around a little too, mirroring my movements. "Yeah sure, we can talk if you want." He looked around at the empty palace. "But I honestly don't see much use in talking. Looking at how you're completely alone here, unless you somehow have some kind of incredibly powerful secret technique hidden in your pocket, I don't see any realistic chance of you winning this confrontation."
"Meh, I got nothing special," I admitted with a shrug. "But I sure am smart as hell."
"Haha! Smart?" He chuckled genuinely. "Alright, let me guess your entire plan, shall I? Just for fun. First things first, Cangyuan is clearly out of my spell, that's obvious from the evacuation. Nobody's going to listen to a damn kid's orders to evacuate an entire palace, so you obviously had him order everyone out.
Next, you're most probably going to try and fight me anyway, because I'm apparently in a significantly weakened state right now. A dangerous assumption to be honest, given how I would've still easily crushed you even when I first crashed in this place a month ago and wouldn't have broken a sweat doing it.
And last but not the least, you definitely wouldn't want to waste the impressive military prowess of this town, so you're planning to outnumber me and use all those soldiers as a Plan B in case you're unable to take me down yourself, which is most probably what'll happen. I'm guessing the soldiers are preparing for battle as we speak?"
I took a few long moments to consider his analysis and finally spoke, "Hmm, you got it all almost right. Emphasis on the 'almost' part. Because obviously, you ain't quite as smart as you think you are."
Feichen smirked with a slight frown appearing.
"Nevertheless, you're completely cornered now. No choice but to surrender peacefully," I continued confidently.
"Oh is that so? How fascinating," he said mockingly. "Please, by all means, enlighten me on how exactly I'm cornered."
"Well, first off, you're going to hand over Li Xue to me immediately," I stated firmly.
"Li who?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"The king's wife," I said with a serious face. The asshole had kidnapped the woman but didn't even care enough to know her actual name.
"And why the hell would I do that?"
"Because I'll kill Mei if you don't," I said simply.