Night stretched on; the gongs struck midnight.0 Having swallowed the secret elixir, the Emperor, arm in arm with his veiled bride, walked to the bridal chamber under heavy escort.0 The other guests drifted away.0 Li Yuan supported his thoroughly drunk wife back to their quarters, settled her gently on the couch, slipped off her shoes and quietly stepped outside.0 He activated Mortal World Transformation. His body turned translucent, then re-formed as a woman—no servant or kin from the Xie household, just an unfamiliar face.0 Then he gazed into the distance.0 Two years of training, plus the senses granted to him by Mortal World Transformation, had honed his perception to a razor’s edge.0 Li Yuan could feel the newlyweds crossing the threshold of their chamber. He could feel Zhao Gutong departing. He felt the rings of blockade around the Xie residence—so tight even an ant could not crawl through—yet he himself was inside the walls, scarcely a hundred paces from the bridal chamber.1 Clearing his mind of every stray thought, he focused on the rare, almost one-of-a-kind skill that let him see life. Through it he watched the two currents inside the candle-lit room, twin auras knotting, writhing, rippling together.0 The moment the Emperor entered, he all but tore off the bridal veil and his own clothes. Xie Wei hesitated only a heartbeat before slipping out of her gown, eyes calm yet feigning dreaminess as she embraced the man in front of her0 Swiftly, efficiently, they completed the transaction called a political marriage.0 From the distance, Li Yuan observed in silence. He did not draw his blade. Striking now would be perfect timing. Yet wherever his strike landed, Xie Wei would die. Some lines he would not cross.0 Night stretched on. He melted into the darkness, a translucent outline, like the most vicious, cunning predator on earth waiting for the single flawless instant to bite down. He had waited two full years; patience was his strongest weapon.0 Time passed, long minutes, then longer still.0 At last the two currents separated. The Emperor, job done, ignored the warm, pale body among the sheets and, tugging up his trousers, growled, “When I reclaim my dragon throne, you shall be Empress.”0 Then he strolled out of the bridal chamber.0 It was the hour before dawn. He meant to muster Ocean Province’s armored cavalry at once and, come first light, march for the Jade Capital. Once the capital fell, the realm would be his to remake and rule. It would be a new world with a new emperor.0 A new world… The thought had barely formed when the Emperor was suddenly drenched in searing crimson fire.0 The hushed darkness split apart; smoke billowed skyward like border beacons at war. Houses, rocks, trees…everything along his path seemed to melt in that furnace-heat.0 Crack! A sharp report came from the bundle he carried against his chest. A shimmer of force flared around him and shattered at once, just enough to save his life by a hairsbreadth.0 Only then did the Emperor realize what was happening. But realization came too late. The darkest, most ferocious shadow in the world was already upon him.0 No words could capture that speed. The Emperor had the first flicker of a thought. Then the shadow appeared, swinging in close.0 Crimson light blazed, glorious and deadly as a thousand suns, cascading from the single slash—0 Yet a sword materialized before the Emperor, almost of its own accord, perhaps at a mere flick of his will. It was an ancient bronze blade, plain and time-worn, but erupting with brilliance to meet the blow.0 Li Yuan’s mind flicked back to what he’d learned in the past from Yao Jue. The Emperor carried a weapon ranked third among the top ten legendary weapons. That had to be this sword.0 Two slashes of Li Yuan’s blade had already forced the Emperor to lay two trump cards on the table; now the sword showed its true purpose.1 Black, filthy smoke poured forth, and a figure stepped in front of the bronze blade. His hair was loose like sea-grass in a midnight sea, with empty white eyes,  fangs bared in a grin of bloodlust, and a massive halberd oozing with Yin energy in his hands.0 Who else could it be but Lu Xuanxian? Only, this Lu Xuanxian looked far more like a ghost than a grand general.0 Instinct hurled a chain of half-remembered phrases through Li Yuan’s head.0 The Nine Loyal Souls, Martial God, ritual offerings, the mass grave in Hidden River Province, the General’s Temple in Ocean Province… Threads that once seemed separate twisted together into a single web, an imperial safety net.0 In the mass grave lay heroes of the fallen dynasty, their ghost servants walking abroad like living men.0 In Ocean Province, the present dynasty’s great general answered the throne’s summons.0 Nine Loyal Souls, that left seven unaccounted for.0 The Martial God, a figure from a thousand years ago, had once stood unmatched; yet even he could not break the third rank of destiny and perished, his soul severed at five hundred years. If heroes and generals could become loyal souls, why not the Martial God?0 No wonder both Lu Xuanxian and the true Emperor carried the same mysterious ceiling of ???~122,169.0 The presence before him was that very number made flesh.0 Time itself seemed to crawl. Li Yuan narrowed his eyes, meeting the dead white gaze of the world’s former number one, and every spark of fighting spirit roared to life. A quiet flame rose behind his calm pupils.0 In the instant beyond description, his Dragon’s Breath, gleaming crimson, was still hurtling forward, blocked by the ghost general.0 But at that same heartbeat Li Yuan’s third slash followed, slow only to the eye, its after-image almost fused with the first blow.0 The shade of Lu Xuanxian met it without yielding. Both hands on the halberd, he released a counter-slash whose layered after-images mirrored Li Yuan’s own, a thunderous detonation between them.0 Only then did the Emperor’s thoughts begin to move again—swirling with bewilderment.0 Who is that? The one from the mass grave that day? The figure who was spying on me with the birds in Gemhill County? He was a woman? Why is she here? How did she get in? Why try to kill me? Have I wronged her?2 All those racing thoughts froze upon that single word—escape! He tried to turn but had not yet turned.0 The ghost general Lu Xuanxian and the blade wielding woman moved with a speed, reflex, and mastery that defied imagination.0 Two savage after-images crossed and tangled. Blade against halberd.0 Yet this time no thunderclap followed.0 Lu Xuanxian thrust, but the blade, instead of meeting the blow, slid alongside the halberd in perfect rhythm. Metal kissed metal without impact, the two weapons momentarily still.0 In the next heartbeat the blade slipped around the haft like a gust of wind, darting to the halberd’s blind side.0 Lu Xuanxian’s ghost-pale eyes flicked sideways; for one timeless instant their gazes locked—an eternity packed into a glance—then passed.0 The moment the blade cleared the halberd, Li Yuan unleashed the power stored in its steel. It was a tidal rush, wild and unrestrained, pouring forth in a single slash. It landed on the Emperor, who had only just thought of fleeing, and detonated in a blinding red flare.3 At near point-blank, the furnace-heat wrapped the Emperor, charring him to a shriveled cinder and then, with a crisp pop, scattering him to ash. Not a drop of blood remained.1 Lu Xuanxian’s ghost swung his halberd in a sweeping arc, but Li Yuan shot upward; the arc stretched after him like a shadow.0 Above, an old man with snow-white hair streaked through the night. It was Xie Shiheng, patriarch of the clan, drawn by the commotion. He arrived to find shattered buildings, crimson flames, choking smoke, and two blurs too fast to see.0 Li Yuan’s gaze brushed him, noted his peak combat power was above 30,000, and accelerated. While he closed the distance his body swelled—limbs thickening, height shooting past twenty feet. Skin glowed red, muscles bulged like hot iron plates fresh from the forge, every fiber braided and steaming. The fearsome monster still wore a woman’s face; the juxtaposition was grotesque.0 As the giant woman bore down, Xie Shiheng turned to flee, bewildered.0 Li Yuan caught him from behind, arms locking tight. With one squeeze, bones shattered, flesh burst, leaving only a terrified head spinning away through the dark.0 The brief pause let Lu Xuanxian catch up. Layered halberd shadows crashed onto Li Yuan. Yet in the same instant he whipped an elbow back like a returning spear, smashing into the descending weapon.0 At that moment every inch of Li Yuan’s body had become a weapon. The elbow counter was part of his old ultimate skill, Six Convergences, but honed far beyond its original bounds.0 Elbow-spear met ghost-halberd.0 And once again, the expected collision never came.0 The halberd skimmed along his elbow-spear, sliding past the thrust and whipping straight for his throat. In a heartbeat the ghost general Lu Xuanxian mirrored Li Yuan’s own skill and turned it back on him.0 Li Yuan’s neck snapped sideways; the motion threw his whole body upward, his throat gliding along the halberd’s edge. An instant later he sank his teeth into the weapon with a sharp crack.1 Two fingers became a blade. His Dragon’s Breath flared again, a scarlet slash aimed at the ghost’s belly.0 Lu Xuanxian neither dodged nor blocked; he let the slash strike while his hand rolled, the halberd twisting like a sea-dragon breaking the surface.0 BOOM! BOOM! Lu Xuanxian’s arms blew apart.0 Li Yuan’s head exploded.3 Headless, Li Yuan hovered in mid-air. Though blind, his senses stayed sharp; flesh squirmed and knitted, racing to grow a new skull. The same happened to Lu Xuanxian, reduced to a snarling head and shoulders, yet more excited than ever.0 Just then Li Yuan twitched his fingers. This was no place to keep fighting; he could already sense the Flying Bear Army—and even the ghost cavalry—mobilising. With luck, killing the Xie patriarch would clear the clan of suspicion.0 With a twitch of a finger, he activated the Thousand-Mile Thread. In a blink, he slipped through a shadowed tunnel and emerged near Dawn Manor in Cloudpeak Province. He did not enter. His current form was far too monstrous for comfort.0 The silent night cloaked him; at last his heart eased. He had done it.0 This update is available on novel•fire.net At the right time, in the right place, he had carried out the assassination. The Emperor was dead.4 Whatever crises loomed were, for the moment, held at bay. He was going home.0 But in the next breath, a dark shape condensed out of the night beside him—a figure gripping a halberd, glancing around before rasping its first words.0 “So…this is where you ran.”0 Stunned, Li Yuan’s new throat answered from deep within, “Why…push me this far?”1