Mofu Suno was not the sort of person, even after all he'd been through, to acknowledge fault. And yet... as he watched the destruction of his clan, from its least supporting members to the most elite, and watched his own Patriarch shrivelling moment by moment as his qi began to run dry, all because of the one insignificant woman that he, Mofu Suno, had provoked, it began to register to him. The phrase 'woken a sleeping dragon' had never seemed to apt or appropriate, to him.
Mofu Suno's cultivation was broken; his dantian was cracked, and all his stored qi had vanished. His qi senses all burned at him and echoed strangely if he tried to use them, and so he watched the final hour of the Mofu clan with his eyes and ears alone. But although he was qi-blind, even he could not even begin to miss the breakdown that Djang Ren Sui was beginning to have.
His qi was in a riot, ever since that foreign demon witch had mentioned his cousins. In the first moments after she had begun to fight, he'd said something strange: "What sort of monster have those demon-damned fools allied themselves with?" And as the demon witch showed no signs of slowing or running out of qi, slaughtering even those beneath her in station with ruthless efficiency--though the clan had not brought anyone weaker than the witch had seemed when Suno had first seen her--his qi had begun fluctuating more and more, as though the man was becoming increasingly unstable.
Mofu Suno only ever caught him saying one thing, and it was, "This is it." Perhaps if he'd understood what the man meant, he might have fled in time, but he did not.
The moment at which the man snapped appeared arbitrary to him. The Mofu Patriarch and his mother still stood, although the total numbers of the Mofu clan army had dwindled to less than twenty. The Mofu Patriarch had unleashed a technique that seemed entirely profound to him, one he had never seen, and he regretted that his qi core's damage meant that he could not hear the name of the technique. It seemed a variant of the Golden Sun Shot, but so concentrated that even qi-blind Suno could feel it, the point echoing painfully in his mind up until the moment when the shot struck the demon witch's shield.
The explosion knocked Suno off his feet, although he was almost a half dozen li away, and the sound of cracking trees and churning stone could just barely be heard over the echoing explosion and rumbling fireball. He did his best to jump to his feet and rush to look out--but he was mortal, now, and the fall strained something in his shoulder when he landed badly on a rock. By the time he limped to the edge, the massive fireball's blackening soot cloud was still there in the sky, growing in size as it lost its intensity.
One of the witch's three shields was finally broken, the second... was perhaps damaged. It was a long ways for mortal eyes to judge. She was speaking with her qi to the patriach, and while Suno could not hear them, Djang Ren Sui could.
There was a moment just before the man snapped when suddenly, Mofu Suno could imagine for a very strange moment that he had not been crippled, that the qi in his core had suddenly been replenished, although... it felt strange, somehow. Foreign. And when he tore his eyes from the battlefield to look down at his hands, a movement at the edge of his sight drew his attention, but not in time.
Djang Ren Sui's qi was suddenly unleashed, and when he did, his technique began to appear almost of its own accord--massive spiritual chains appearing in midair, circling him and expanding out into arcs and loops, joining and separating from other lengths of chain as they went.
One of those chains passed straight through Mofu Suno's chest. He felt the pain as it did, a pain some part of him expected to be phantom, illusory, but his torso fell over in two pieces, and he found himself laying there on the ground, helpless, as he began to bleed out.
He had never known, nor cared, how long it took a person to die from blood loss. For him, it felt like an eternity. But where he fell, he could see what followed.
"You will not take this from me," Djang Ren Sui, said, apropos of nothing, moments after he had inadvertently killed him, and then teleported towards the demon witch. Although she maneuvered those impossible shields to try to stop him, the man's chains appeared from nowhere and everywhere, at all angles, and latched onto the demon witch's arms and legs in instants.
Mofu Suno was in no physical condition to feel excitement, and yet in his mind, he could not help feeling hope, that at the very least, all his suffering--all his clan's suffering, he correct himself, could at least be avenged.
And then Djang Ren Sui's chains ripped one of the witch's arms off, and she screamed. Mofu Suno, though his nerves were flayed and his mind waning, felt his lips spread into a wide and contented smile, as the Djang ripped off a leg, and then the other arm, the other leg. Only moments before he lost consciousness for the last time, Mofu Suno watched the witch's torso be ripped entirely to pieces by spiritual chains, and one small part of him felt entirely at peace.
His spirit, no doubt, would find its way to hell, but he knew it would be received there with a party in his honor.
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Djang Ren Sui lost the last shreds of his patience when this coddled expert raised by his so-called cousins in secret had stopped a true forbidden technique, one that he himself would have hated to face directly, for all his Ruby Qi was a full stage superior to the Mofu Clan Patriarch's Mithril. The Patriarch had been forming this technique for minutes, and had clearly spent decades designing it. It resonated perfectly, somehow, with their Golden Sun qi, producing an explosion much more powerful than his qi alone should have produced. Only with the assistance of that woman by his side had the patriarch even survived it, and it had drained the last of the woman's qi to defend against it.
But the foreign demon had simply sounded impressed. "I wasn't expecting to see that kind of technique here," she said, as though she was a witness to a tournament, or shopping for a new sword. And then... to Djang Ren Sui's horror, she spoke again.
"Clearly you don't know quite how it works, but you came very close."
It was then that Djang Ren Sui thought he understood it all. This was no expert raised by the Djang Ban clan, but a visitor from the heavens themselves, come to enshrine the Ban once and for all as the true descendants of the Diamond Lord. His own Ren clan had worked hard to create geniuses through time, but their every effort to suppress the Bans had failed.
Djang Ren Sui was younger than his cousin the Prince, but older than his cousin the Princess--and the Princess was stronger than her brother. Ren Sui was so thoroughly outclassed by the Ban prodigies that he could not even bear to think of all the stages between them. They were Flame Qi, and he was still in Earthly Gem.
And this prodigy, this... being in front of him had all the knowledge the Ban would need in order to raise even more geniuses. No. His official role here as overseer was only to witness what occurred, but he could spin this if needed. He unleashed his qi, the [Quenching Chain]s scattering around him, and growled under his breath.
Djang Ban Fen... "You will not take this from me."
He leaped at the woman, and wasn't surprised when she pivoted her shield with a thought, even without turning to look at him. He sent one chain, then two, against the shield, and they might have cracked if he had applied more pressure. But he could see her forming more shields, and could remember with perfect clarity just how easily she had thrown the shields together. If her qi was truly bottomless, she could slip even from his grasp.
But unlike the other fools here, Djang Ren Sui didn't need to physically move around the shields in order to command his chains to strike her from other angles, and his [Infinite Thirst Prison] spreading out to control the entire area around her. Once she was within his domain, his chains attached themselves to her instantly, sucking the qi from her dantian.
Only... it wasn't her dantian that was powering all of the effects.
The woman's face held pain, it was true, but somehow she had the sheer gall, the nerve, to try to speak to him, no doubt to attempt to negotiate, but Ren Sui simply pulled her arm off. It was a fascination of his, limb loss--he had been studying joints ever since he began to use his clan's chain techniques, and he had dislocated joins or removed limbs on hundreds ever since then. A macabre fascination, he might have admitted to a friend or lover, if he's had either, but one that had served him well.
When the woman screamed, finally, Dajng Ren Sui's mouth stretched into a sneer without his conscious knowledge. But he sensed something, in the arm that he'd removed, and he let himself be distracted. The [Quenching Chains] were quite sensitive to qi, as they had to be to suck things dry, and so he noticed that one of the bones was peculiar.
It was soaked in qi, or... no, it was already fully attuned. It even had a qi technique engraved into it, though it was a strange one. Djang Ren Sui's eyes turned from the arm and its bone to the woman. This was a technique that should not be possible below the Earthly Gem phase, and even then, only with the help of elders. Only a prodigy could have designed their own below the Heavenly Gem Phase, and it was more common in the Transcendent Gem phase, as people reached sufficient mastery of their techniques that they could finally say they knew what they wanted to make permanent in their qi.
She had more than just one bone fully attuned and engraved with intent. This was beyond genius; it truly could only be something from the heavens, beyond all rational human capability. And Djang Ren Sui could, in his mind's eye, so perfectly picture the woman turning and smirking at Djang Ban Fen, not even bowing in her presence, and the other woman smiling back, warmly, openly.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He would not have it.
Djang Ren Sui methodically ripped the woman's limbs off, and from each of the removed limbs, extracted those spiritually enhanced bones and threw them in his spirit ring, and then he began tearing apart her torso as well, ignoring all else as he searched for any abnormalities. But physically, she seemed so... human. Her blood, her liver, her womb, her stomach... none of them accounted for her abnormal nature, even when he held them in his hands, studying them closely. There were... at least more bones in the torso to keep and study, but none of the interesting parts. None of the organs.
He felt them approaching, of course, and found that he didn't care. When all that remained of the woman's torso was her spine, he ripped that out, too, leaving only a disfigured, blood-smeared head staring back at him, but no matter how he looked over the spine, it was nothing.
When his two cousins appeared on the battlefield, he glanced up at them as though completely unconcerned, although it was an act. The two of them had sensed something was wrong, surely, but they didn't know that he had crushed their little pet, their friend from afar, until they arrived. He got to see the look of horror on their faces, as he turned to them and smirked.
"Ah, cousins... did you know that this foreign invader, this ...foolish demon working to bring down the empire, claimed to be a friend of yours? How shameless."
Djang Ren Sui had several times experienced qi effects strong enough to leave a mark in his mind. Mostly, this was only intent performed by experts, and usually amplified by a weapon. The Mofu Patriarch's [True Golden Sun] had for a moment, reached that level, when the technique released and generated extra qi through its self-destruction.
Never before had he felt such a qi mark simply from an expert unveiling their qi.
He felt genuinely blinded by Djang Ren Fen's aura, the sensation of her beautiful [Jade Feathered Wings] technique burned into his mind, far overshadowing her brother's [Seven-colored rainbow sword] technique--and these were just their natured qi expressing itself, pouring into their attunements and engraved organs, without explicit intent.
He couldn't stop himself, though, as his smile only widened. No matter how much they hated him, they could not harm a member of the Djang Imperial Family, not unless he attacked them directly. That was a rule set by the Diamond Lord Himself, and even they dared not cross it. Even if he pissed on the faces of angels, they would not dare.
"You have no idea how badly you've messed up this time, Ren Sui," said Djang Ban Dai, but Ren Sui could only smile and hang there in midair, trying to adapt to their qi in time to have something more pithy to say.
But Djang Ban Fen--why was it always her, that damned woman? That girl?--spoke quietly. "The one you have just slaughtered is one that Grandfather expressed an interest in meeting. One that we were commanded to bring before him, personally. Today."
Djang Ren Sui felt the smile slip from his face. There were plenty of excuses he could have made, but he already felt it--the inexorable and inevitable unfairness of it all. The Ren clan knew all too well how unfair the 'true' Imperial Family was, and how it would persecute any of the branch families for the smallest offense. He could see how this was turning from him conquering an invader to him spitting in the face of the Diamond Lord.
He could see how fate had aligned against the Ren and in favor of the Ban, again. And something within him started to fray, something that the two in front of him could never understand.
Because Ren Sui was truly a despicable person--not that he would admit it to anyone who mattered--but he had grown that way because his family were despicable people, and they were despicable because they had been abandoned, marginalized, and forced to fight for scraps of power and resources while the Ban wasted theirs, producing prodigies who would so often go on to be unambitious people, foolish followers in a land that needed true leadership--leadership that had been missing since well before the Diamond Lord had entered seclusion.
It wasn't even something that Ren Sui's family had needed to say, although it was clear in how they framed things. The hunger of the Ren, their pride and ambition, were far superior to the pathetic subservience of the Ban. And yet here they were, succeeding once again where he had failed.
The thing inside frayed, but not quite enough.
Djang Ban Dai held out a hand, his eyes like portals straight into his overwhelming dantian, an endless sea of qi; Ren Sui could feel them with his own eyes shut, feel the fury behind everything.
"Give her to me, and we might spare your entire family from Grandfather's wrath."
Might. Might spare. Djang Ren Sui could not stop himself from laughing, and could not feel fate rearranging itself. The fate of their two clans had been on a precipice for centuries, but now Ren Sui knew for certain that one way or another, that was finished.
He threw the blood-smeared skull at Djang Ban Dai, though it was Fen who caught it, the bitch. Her Jade Feathers were sublime, able to protect that worthless piece of meat from their combined qi. Ren Sui had hoped to see the thing explode simply from the pressure, but he could only snarl at the two of them.
"That thing is an enemy of the Empire. I here today witnessed her challenge and slaughter the Mofu clan--"
"The Mofu clan were the oppressors." Suddenly, Do Min, their family-appointed lapdog, appeared, his approach concealed from Ren Sui by the auras of the Ban. The man had been there when Ren Sui had been chosen to watch over this ...debacle, and had sworn off getting involved, because he had some new artifact to play with and wanted to enter seclusion for a short while. He had heard the same summary, and Ren Sui knew his clan couldn't pressure him, not with his position. "They originally attacked Lady Shiva Alassi at her home. Twice."
Ban Dai and Ban Fen traded looks, and Ban Fen, without a single word, scattered her Jade Feathers, and every remaining Mofu who had come with the army died instantly, mostly painlessly. Nothing--not the patriarch, not the cripple... oh, Ren Sui had killed him with his chains earlier. He hadn't even noticed. It was meaningless, although his father and uncle would have chided him for not keeping better control.
"Where is her space ring?" Ban Dai demanded, and Ren Sui blinked. The woman... had a space ring earlier, it was true, but his Chains would not make that mistake--it was not on her person, had not been. He frowned, searching through everything his chains had touched, but...
"I have found it," said Ban Fen, suddenly, and a jade feather appeared next to her, with what Ren Sui thought must have been a Lai Shi Po ring on it. "It has... a number of things in it. Perhaps she discarded it to keep it from him." She turned to Ren Sui, and when she finally laid eyes directly on him, Ren Sui was sure that the intensity of her Orange Flame Qi--a full stage above her brother's--made his own qi seize and stagnate of its own accord.
Djang Ban Dai glanced down at the head. "And the Lady Expert... will she make it to meet father?"
Of course the answer was no, and Ren Sui felt a tingle of excitement at the idea of watching them confront their powerlessness, but Ban Fen's next words stopped him.
"Her soul defense technique appears intact," she said. "At the very least, she should be able to speak with Grandfather. What he will do is another question, perhaps, but..."
Everything, everything, everything lines up in their favor, Ren Sui thought. He was certain, in that moment, that his own life was a cosmic joke, that the universe itself had been put here specifically to make him suffer. Even that thing, that... heavenly visitor, if that's what it was, was only here in order to make him suffer.
He made up his mind, as fate swirled around him. He only had one option left, and he knew it. The whole Ren family only had one option. They would rebel, with every last shred of their resources. Nothing else would save their lives.
"Then you'd better hurry," was all Ren Sui said. "I would hate to disappoint Grandfather any more than we already have. Wouldn't you?"
Djang Ban Fen, at least, took that seriously, immediately departing. But Ban Dai turned and leveled the [Seven Colored Rainbow Sword] at him. At him! "You will come with us, cousin."
"Ah..." Ren Sui trembled. If he didn't escape, there would be no one to warn the family. "I think not, cousin."
Ren Sui was bluffing, of course. The [Seven Colored Rainbow Sword] was not something held in his cousin's hand; it was thirty meters long and five wide, but no more than half a meter thick at its widest, its spiritual mass so concentrated that one could feel its movements from a ways away. Like most techniques of that level, it moved as though of its own accord, listening closely to Ban Dai's intent while having its own, and the sword sensed its master's fury. If that sword was commanded to strike Ren Sui down, all his techniques wouldn't give him more than a single moment's respite, certainly not enough to get away, not even with his emergency teleportation token, not unless he could use it while his cousin was surprised.
He was more and more serious about trying to use it now with every passing moment. The space artifact would shatter when used, and they were insanely rare, as space artifacts always were. The whole Ren family only had two left, and it was precious luck that one was in his space ring right now. It was likely his only chance to escape, but there were few things more precious to the family, especially if they... no, not if. Because they needed to go to war.
From the look on Ban Dai's face, his cousin was seriously considering ending Ren Sui right there and then, and so Ren Sui stalled him, knowing he was less clever than his sister. "Who even was that... expert, you say? Cousin, surely you know that I was interfering for the good of the Empire? Look at the slaughter she committed here."
"An expert craftsman," Ban Dai said, closing his eyes in memory, the fool, if only for a moment. Ren Sui withdrew the token but kept it hidden, not able to break it quite fast enough. "She produced an artifact that we purchased at great expense. One which will ensure the next generation of prodigies rises even higher than We did. And, we imagine, a person capable of creating other, truly profound tools in the future."
"Yes, yes, I'm also very impressed by her ability," Ren Sui snapped, hoping to find a weakness in Ban Dai's focus. "But who is she? Where did she come from? Is she some being of great destiny? Perhaps from one of the prophecies?" Ren Sui, himself, didn't believe in prophecies one bit, but the family had passed them all down, on orders from the Diamond Lord. The bit about insignificant people destroying the empire had felt like insulting nonsense, and no one that he knew took any of it seriously.
And yet... Ban Dai hesitated. Ren Sui's smirk returned with a vengeance.
"Ah, so there is a prophecy, perhaps? One of Grandfather's? Maybe you think--maybe even you know that she was here to destroy the Empire? For shame, cousin, if you want to offend me, the great Djang Ren Sui, who stopped that prophecy and saved the empire, by saying I did something wrong."
That was the moment he needed. Djang Ban Dai set his jaw, looking ready to argue, and lowered the Seven Colored Rainbow Sword. Ren Sui threw up his chains in a defensive mesh and exerted all of his qi, focusing on the teleportation token. Even so, it was almost not enough.
In the last moments before the token broke and his body was moved instantly away, Djang Ren Sui felt the very tip of the Rainbow Sword cut through his nose and begin to pass cleanly through his skull. In truth, it was only fate itself that allowed the token to act before the blade cut into his brain.
Fate had decided that the Djang Empire would go to war with itself, and so it would.