The Emperor of the Central Kingdom hovered five li above the Great Heavenly Cultivation Tower, in the center of his broad domain. From here, thanks to his divinely sharp vision, he could see every corner of his lands—not just with physical sight, but with the ability to view lux as well. All his cultivation towers were working as they should, peacefully splitting lumos into lux, where it could be gathered by cultivators under his watchful eye and used to fuel their path and the security of his kingdom.
He made a note of two towers that were showing signs of becoming out of balance. He would inform his administrators to prepare for a tower cull on them before they could spawn an eruption. From up here, he could sense the presence of the hundreds of thousands of cultivators in his realm, from those just starting their path of bodily refinement to the few dozen poised on the precipice of being able to convert lumos into lux on their own, without the need of a cultivation tower. He paid attention to those individuals at all times so that if any of them dared to take the critical step without his approval, he would know. He was considering allowing two of them to fight for that honor.
He had six Prisms working under him currently, faithfully guarding and administrating the empire, pushing back its borders and keeping his people safe. Three of his Prisms were in the east right now, fortifying their defenses against the rival cultivators from the neighboring Asomeri continent. One watched the north for threats of divine beasts entering from the wilds. Another kept guard over the coastlands and ports of the southwest, where enemies sailed up from the Shashang Sea. In the west, his newest Prism was taking care of the nomad problem—a delicate task that the emperor had watched over for centuries, now at last coming to a head.
The emperor smiled over his realm, his own personal garden. For a thousand years, he had tended each newly sprouting cultivator, watching for promising sprouts to nourish into great trees to support and defend the empire, rooting out noxious weeds before they had a chance to take hold. He had ruled for so long, even he could barely remember a time before.
He was about to descend to the imperial palace and seek out one of his consorts when a presence appeared on the northeastern border of his empire, passing rapidly over the vast desert that separated his fertile lands from the next nearest inhabited.
He reached out with his lux senses, feeling out the newcomer, and stiffened. It was a foreign cultivator, one capable of splitting lumos on his own, therefore a potential threat. What was he doing here? Cultivators of that rank could gain nothing from the cultivation towers within the empire unless they somehow accessed the emperor's own heavenly tower, which reached floors higher than any other in his land.
The emperor, quicker than thought, moved to intercept. He considered summoning his nearest Prism. For the interloper to be moving so quickly, he must have full mastery of both indigo and violet lux. No, the emperor decided he would handle this matter himself. It had been some time since he'd had any kind of challenge. Perhaps this foreign cultivator would offer one.
The emperor pulled his favorite weapon from void space. The enormous sword was twice as tall as an ordinary man, curved and with a sharp hook tip at the end. He infused it with orange lux, then carefully wove a four-color lux pattern that would enable it to slice through a cultivator's lux barriers. The emperor himself wore a rainbow robe of pure lux, though to an untrained eye it looked like silk. As he raced to meet the newcomer, his long dark hair streamed behind him for li, each strand capable of absorbing lumos. His core was packed dense with pure lumos. Now he set it spinning, converting it to the lux he would need for this fight.
Then, as he came within ten li of the new cultivator, the vast empty desert stretched out beneath him, he realized his mistake. There was not one presence. There were three. The strongest cultivator had been shielding the other two. Now, having no doubt sensed the emperor's own presence, the lead cultivator had dropped his shields.
The emperor reached out and sensed the others. They were nearly as strong as the first, all three capable of cracking lumos on their own.
Now he could see them with his own eyes. One was a woman with dark red hair that fell to her knees and fanned out behind her. She wore trousers and a low-cut tunic that shimmered with condensed lux, and she carried a bow whose string was made of pure lumos. The other two were men. The first was a tall, strong-looking cultivator who could have been from the empire by his looks, with almond skin and dark slanted eyes. He wielded a pole staff with an orange lux blade at the end. The second was a shorter man, squat, with blonde hair in two long braids and an unkempt mass of hair dangling from his face—a barbarian from a very distant land. He gripped an axe in both his hands.
The emperor slowed and descended until he was hovering only a few thousand span above the desert. This was a good place for this confrontation. No one except these interlopers would be hurt. He began preparing several techniques as the lead cultivator stepped forward, dark eyes flashing, as he pointed his polearm sword at the emperor.
"We have come to challenge your will, old man!” he shouted. “We shall, by virtue of the strength granted by the heavens, wrest your holdings from you. We shall throw you down and consume your lux on our own ascension to heaven!”
The woman nocked an arrow to her bow, bending it to focus on the emperor. The arrow itself was a braid of green, blue, and red lux, meant to punch through the emperor's own shields and deal him a nasty blow. No doubt the green and blue lux would afflict him with debilitating ailments which he would be forced to fight off. The short, blonde man said nothing, just growled.
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The emperor smiled to himself. "Thank you for coming.” He put his hands together and bowed low, with the respect one cultivator would show an equal. "It has been too long since I faced a sufficient challenge. I welcome you."
"Enough talking," the blonde man spat. "Time to die." He raced in. The woman loosed her arrow.
The emperor unleashed one of the techniques he had been storing. A wall of lux snapped up between him and the arrow. As the arrow hit, it was deflected right back at its shooter. The woman's eyes widened. She jumped away. The emperor unleashed another technique, a complicated weave made of three different braids combining the five base lux and enhancing them with indigo and violet. At the same time, he smashed down his sword hard on the axe wielder.
His technique hit the prime cultivator square on, blasting the man backward and down to the ground. It scoured a hole in the earth thirty feet deep, kicking up a blast of sand and dust into the air, hundreds of spans high. The emperor's blade came down on the axe-wielding cultivator, but the man caught it on the hilt of his own axe. The emperor felt his sword rebuffed. That was a nasty shock.
He revised his expectations upward and considered calling in a Prism. Li-na Jou could be here in moments if he called her, but he did not want to give her the satisfaction of helping him. She was the oldest of his Prisms currently, and he had been encouraging her to ascend, fearing he would have to fight her if she refused. This would give her reason to believe incorrectly that she could take him.
Instead, the emperor pulled a script from void space and activated it. It unfolded into seven identical copies of itself as the violet lux layer burned away. The seven scripts hung in a circle around him. They began to spin about, the fifty-span-long strips of parchment covered with dense writing becoming a whirling dervish of sharp-edged paper. He pushed them outward with a thought, and they flew toward the cultivators, wings and blade at the same time.
The woman screamed as one of the scripts hit her. It activated as it did, enveloping her in multicolored lux that burned through her defenses. But the emperor's attention was back on the main cultivator. He had leapt upward from the ground and was flying forward, arms outstretched, spearpoint leading the way as his hair and feet trailed behind. The force of his flight burned the air around him. Lux boiled off of him in every color.
At the same time, the axe man roared and leapt. The emperor swung, this time sending a weave just in front of his sword. The red and orange of the weave sliced through the cultivator's defenses. Yellow lux exploded, propelling the inner packet of blue lux into the cultivator himself.
The emperor followed up with a second technique designed to take advantage of the chink he'd made in man’s defenses. It crashed against the cultivator, and the emperor felt his technique sliding into the cultivator, through his lux channels. The cultivator cried out, dropping his axe as he cycled desperately, trying to drive the foreign lux out.
The emperor's attention turned back to their chief. The man's eyes glowed red with hatred. His spear lengthened, enhanced with orange lux. At the same time, the man began to cast a technique.
The emperor didn't wait. He summoned all his stored indigo and violet lux and used his Heavenly Clone technique. Suddenly, there were three copies of him, each moving independently. He heard the woman's scream as the first copy fell on her.
The chief cultivator's eyes widened, and the emperor allowed himself a small smile. This technique was one he himself had invented over a thousand years ago during his rise. It was incredibly difficult, and he had hunted down every other cultivator that he had sensed might be capable of using it. Only his Prisms were allowed to learn this technique.
As the woman cultivator died, the emperor felt her lux expelled from her body. Her shade screamed in horror as he casually reached out and ripped away everything she had ever been. He cycled it quickly through his core, even as at last he clashed with his main enemy.
Their weapons struck. Great gouts of flame spurted from them, searing the landscape. Technique clashed with technique. The emperor, casting both offensively and defensively, wove together a seven lux technique on the fly, hurling it between them like a net. The enemy cultivator slashed at his weapon, destroying the lux.
"You are stagnant, old man," the cultivator jeered, even as his other friend was overcome under the attack of both the emperor's clones. "You should have ascended centuries ago. Both you and your land are easy pickings."
But now the emperor had another supply of fresh lux to call on. He ripped apart the axe man's shade, scavenging its powers, cycling them through his core in the complex Way of the Ten Heavens pattern he himself had designed centuries before.
"I am not stagnant," he said as their weapons clashed once more. The skies around them bloomed with colors, and the emperor knew anyone for five hundred li would see this like an aurora burning in the heavens and quake at what it meant. "I am not stagnant," he repeated. "I am perfected.”
And with that, he cast his ultimate technique. The foreign cultivator's eyes widened as he was torn apart. A mortal man would have died too fast to feel anything, but the blessing and the curse of a cultivator meant the intruder sensed himself unraveling, felt his very soul dissolving under the emperor's powers.
Almost casually, the emperor reached forward, destroying the man's shade even as it formed. He didn't even bother to collect the lux from this intruder, letting it dissipate into the air where eventually it would be absorbed by one of his cultivation towers and used to improve his empire.
Satisfied yet somehow feeling a bit hollow, the emperor turned his back on the borders, facing into his empire once more. Millions of humans slept, not knowing that he had just faced a powerful enemy on their behalf, one that, had they been able to destroy him, would have gone on to tear the country apart.
For a thousand years, the Central Kingdom had known nothing but peace. He had made sure of that. He had seen enough suffering in his youth as a mortal and on his path to godhood. He was not strong enough to extend protection over the whole world, but he had vowed a thousand years before that he would protect his own country. And he had. Every decade, his Prisms pushed the borders a little farther, absorbing more people into the peace and security of the empire. Someday, perhaps, it would be enough.
With one last smile of satisfaction, the emperor descended to his palace. The hundreds of acres of gardens were dotted with beautifully appointed buildings he had caused to be built in his own honor. There, a hundred beautiful cultivators waited for him. There, his children and grandchildren were born, raised to understand their duty to the empire, to help him ensure the peace of the whole realm. It was just as it should be.
Perfected.
Just like him.