It had been a couple years now since the Tortoise King had fallen, and our army was quietly moving to the west. By this point, a full quarter of our forces were of the Master rank, with none of our ten thousand fighters anything less than an Expert. And all of them were constantly cultivating, drilling, sparring, or talking to each other about what they were learning. Even I picked up a few useful tips I hadn’t thought of.

Li had consolidated his cultivation as a Master, though he’d lacked the time to work on breaking through. He was disappointed, but I told him about my plans going forward, and he agreed it was the perfect idea.

Then I distracted him for a while, and “forgot” that little trick that prevents conception. Hey, I’m not actively cultivating right now, and have honestly chosen not to take the front line anymore. I’m needed as a teacher.

Kaoru was still annoyed that I was “catching up,” but buckled down on her cultivation and gradually broke through to full Mastery, earning… seven tails?

Hm… Ah. Must be because there’s technically two levels of Master, physical and spiritual. One tail for each side. Explains how ascendant foxes have nine in all the legends.

Anyway, I had her train a bit more from there, and we began the march west. The Vermilion Queen’s domain is particularly desolate, a hot and arid plain that slowly shifts into wasteland, then desert. The Vermilion Palace sits in the center of all this, with its queen living in opulence within. It’s said the gardens and pleasure houses are impressive, but that maintaining them takes every last drop of water in her entire domain.

Li confirmed this pretty hard, saying it was a good thing we’d essentially loaded an entire lake into casks as part of our supplies. Even he couldn’t draw water from the air or ground here.

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I had no idea where the Vermilion Queen’s armies would be. Our scouts reported that most of them were still fighting in the north, but it was likely that she’d reserved a set of her best cultivators to guard her palace. But we weren’t here to fight, not yet.

We were here to recruit.

Dotting the land, doing their best to survive, were hundreds of small villages. Most were occupied only by the very young or very old, both of which were glad for our supplies and gladder to follow us. From what I’d heard, the Vermilion Queen conscripted any handsome young men into her army, forcing them to cultivate and indoctrinating them to her methods and preferences.

Any attractive young girl… suffered a different fate. And the children those girls had were shipped randomly off to these villages to be raised until they were old enough to repeat the cycle. Only those who survived long enough for the beauty-obsessed Vermilion Queen to no longer find attractive escaped to raise these children. Those who came out homely, slow, or disfigured were executed on the spot by her soldiers.

Selfish and cruel. No better than the Tortoise King, even if she had different priorities.

The queen herself was noted to be quite attractive, and I’d seen this for myself when she’d tried to destroy the world tree I’d made. Bright orange hair, pale skin, golden eyes, long finger and toenails sharpened to talon points and painted blood red, and with curves in all the places humans find attractive.

Including the midsection. And that was a challenge we’d have to work around, striking at a rare time when she wasn’t pregnant. She kept all her favorite soldiers as lovers, then gave her favorite “ladies of the court” to them so she’d constantly be surrounded by swollen bellies. She apparently got some sort of sick pleasure out of “spreading the gift of life,” but never gave those she so gifted a choice in the matter.

Disgusting. I was glad to free these people from her control while she was busy. Still, raiding her palace wouldn’t be as easy as cracking the Black Fortress. There were actual innocents in there to be evacuated, and I knew full well the place would turn into a massive column of flame the moment the Vermilion Queen died.

So this phase was a lot more subtle, but we were almost ready to strike.