The nine-dragon jade chariot hovered fifty feet above the trampled clover of the Grand Defile, bathed in a shimmering nimbus of golden spiritual light. Carved from a single block of warm mutton-fat green jade and inlaid with rainbow-bright mother-of-pearl dragon scales, the vessel hummed with the hidden power of forty-eight high-grade floating arrays.
Grand Elder Xuan Ji stood at the chariot’s prow, his white ermine cloak billowing majestically in the artificial updraft. His ancient, wrinkled face was set in an expression of deep, tragic solemnity. The dramatic mask of a grieving patriarch forced by cosmic duty to wield the sword of heaven.
He reached into the sleeve of his golden robes and withdrew an ornate magic charm plate forged from beaten sun-gold, engraved with the snarling face of a sky lion. Infusing the magic charm with his Peak Nascent Soul spiritual qi, he pressed it against the hollow of his throat.
The air in the canyon cracked with an ear-splitting burst of sound feedback.
“HEED THE ETERNAL JUDGMENT OF THE HEAVENLY DAO, VILE Monster OF THE Lonely FOREST!”
The amplified voice didn’t merely carry across the meadow. It struck the granite cliff faces with the bone-shaking force of a battering ram. Blast waves rattled down the canyon, stripping thousands of needles from the ancient pine trees and sending flocks of scared mountain thrushes screeching into the upper clouds. The bubbling brook seemed to tremble in its bed, small ripples shivering across the water’s surface.
Down on the clean cobblestone road, Lin Xiao winced.
He raised his left hand, sticking his little finger into his ear and twisting it back and forth to clear the ringing shaking.
“Good grief,” Lin Xiao grumbled mentally, his sapphire eyes blinking in pained annoyance. “Does he have to scream like that? We’re fifty paces apart. He could whisper and we’d hear him perfectly well in this canyon.”
“Sound measurement confirms sound pressure at one hundred and twenty-four decibels,” Dao Spirit informed him in her unflappable, deadpan voice. “Equal to an unshielded air-powered forge hammer running at point-blank range. Xuan Ji’s vocal projection is designed to induce psychological hearing trauma in low-tier fighters.”
“It’s not trauma, it’s just rude,” Lin Xiao sighed. “The baby badgers in the third grotto just went down for their mid-morning nap. If he wakes them up, Ling’er is going to have to sing them back to sleep with three whole choruses of the river song.”
High in the chariot, Xuan Ji took Lin Xiao’s ear-cleaning gesture as a desperate, pathetic try to shield his demonic soul from the righteous thunder of traditional virtue. A thin, hungry smirk flickered at the corners of the grand elder’s lips before being swallowed by his facade of righteous wrath.
“For four hundred years, the righteous sects of the Eastern Sector have preserved harmony across the mortal realms!” Xuan Ji bellowed through the lion magic charm, his voice echoing from crag to crag. “Yet in the shadows of this untamed wilderness, an unholy monstrosity has dared to crawl out of the primal mud! You have seduced mortal craftsmen with witchcraft! You have gathered a savage horde of beast vermin! You have brewed foul, soul-binding poisons to drain the wealth of honest merchants and subvert the divine hierarchy of heaven and earth!”
Behind Xuan Ji, thirty thousand fighters raised their weapons all at once, their shouts shaking the earth: “Purge the demon! Purge the demon!”
Among the front ranks, younger students like Song Chen chanted with wild enthusiasm. Their faces were flushed red, desperate to believe that this glorious crusader host was the undisputed instrument of cosmic justice. Yet a few older deacons glanced at each other uneasily, noting the complete absence of demonic blood-fog or rotting corpses.
Xuan Ji raised a golden-sleeved arm, signaling for silence. He glared down at Lin Xiao, his eyes burning with undisguised, starving greed.
“Yet, in accordance with the boundless mercy of the Heavenly Sword Manor, the righteous path shall grant you one final opportunity to preserve your pitiful existence!” Xuan Ji’s voice swelled to a world-ending roar. “Hear our righteous ultimatums! Refuse them, and thirty thousand flying swords shall go down like falling stars, reducing this defile, your city, and every living creature within it to glass and ash!”
Lin Xiao folded his hands into the wide sleeves of his azure linen robes, tilting his head with calm patience. “Go on, Elder Xuan Ji. Let’s hear what you came all this way to ask for.”
Xuan Ji sneered. “First! You, the monster calling yourself the Azure Sovereign, shall step forward, shatter your own demonic core, sever your limbs, and submit to eternal sealing within the Nine-Layer Sword Pagoda of Heavenly Sword Manor, where your soul shall be cleansed by sky fire for ten thousand years!”
Beside Lin Xiao, Tie Shan’s massive iron fists clenched with a sickening crunch of star-iron knuckles. The titan bear elder’s breath hissed between his teeth like escaping fire steam. Gu Qingfeng simply rolled his eyes, taking another slow swig from his chipped wine gourd.
“Second!” Xuan Ji continued, his voice dripping with venom. “All enlightened beasts dwelling within this valley—wolves, bears, serpents, and foxes—shall submit to blood-binding slave collars! They shall be divided among the Five Sects to serve as battle mounts, draft animals, and offering blood-cattle to fuel our alchemy kilns!”
On the warm stone by Lin Xiao’s boots, Xiao Hei’s black ears flattened against his skull. The midnight wolf didn’t growl. He merely turned his glowing ruby eyes toward the chariot, a thread of liquid shadow bleeding from his paws and sinking into the cobblestone fissures.
“Third!” Xuan Ji proclaimed, reaching the true, burning core of his ambition. “All spirit springs, fertile terraces, ancient archives, and healing workshops within the Grand Lonely Forest shall be surrendered unconditionally to the righteous coalition! The formula and production rights for the substance known as Jade-Dew Wine shall become the exclusive, eternal property of the Heavenly Sword Manor!”
The grand elder leaned over the golden railing, his face twisted in triumphant arrogance.
“Bow down, demon! Kowtow three hundred times upon these cobblestones, swear the eternal blood oath of servitude, and perhaps this elder shall allow your surviving mortal slaves to live out their terrible lives in our iron mines! What say you to the judgment of heaven?!”
The defile went dead silent.
Thirty thousand righteous students held their breath. They waited for the trembling, scared youth to drop to his knees, cry in despair, and beg for the mercy of the sword. In their eyes, standing against thirty thousand fighters and a Peak Nascent Soul grand elder was impossible. The azure-robed boy was an insect facing an avalanche.
Even Elder Yan Lie crossed his thick, fire-tattooed arms. A cruel grin was spreading across his face as he waited for the boy to break. At the rear of the coalition, Abbot Hui Lun lowered his head. It whispered a quiet prayer for mercy, troubled by the naked greed dripping from Xuan Ji’s demands.
Lin Xiao stood quietly on the gray stone road.
The morning breeze rustled the soft hem of his azure linen robes. He carried the sweet, clean scent of yellow buttercups and mountain pine. He looked up at the floating jade chariot fifty feet in the air, his sparkling sapphire eyes entirely devoid of fear, hatred, or anger.
Instead, his expression carried the gentle, exhausted patience of a seasoned warehouse manager dealing with an unreasonable client who had arrived two hours late with an expired shipping manifest.
Lin Xiao let out a long, quiet sigh.
“Elder Xuan Ji,” Lin Xiao said, his clear deep echoing across the defile with easy deep ring. “You spent thirty thousand spirit stones on carriage fuel, dragged thirty thousand young people across two mountain ranges in the freezing wind, trampled our wild clover, screamed through a golden horn until your neck veins turned purple, and threatened to butcher five thousand innocent people who never harmed a single soul.”
Lin Xiao gently shook his head, looking directly into Xuan Ji’s wide, startled eyes.
“And all of that... Just because our wine is cheaper than yours and you don’t want to die of old age?”
A choking hush dropped over the thirty thousand fighters.
In the front ranks, several junior students blinked in shock, their eyes darting toward their grand elder. Xuan Ji’s face flushed an alarming shade of dark crimson. His hand grabbed the golden lion magic charm so tightly that the metal creaked.
“Impudent vermin!” Xuan Ji roared, his voice cracking with humiliated fury. “How dare you speak to this elder of petty coin! We’re the sword of righteous order!”
Lin Xiao raised two fingers, pointing calmly toward the meadow beside the road.
“I had Auntie Chen bake fresh turnip cakes this morning,” Lin Xiao said softly. “The kettle is boiling. If you had walked down that path, knocked on our gate like an honest neighbor, and said, ‘Elder Brother Lin, my spirit veins are stiff and my sect is losing money, can we share some spring water and negotiate a fair price on wine?’... Do you know what I’d have said?”
Lin Xiao smiled, his eyes warm, bright, and sincere.
“I’d have pulled up a stool, poured you a hot cup of tea, and given you three barrels for free.”
Lin Xiao’s smile slowly faded into a look of quiet, unbending sorrow.
“But you didn’t knock. You brought thirty thousand swords to steal what was freely offered.”
Lin Xiao took a single step back, unlacing the silver ribbon at his hair.
“So come, Elder Xuan Ji. Let’s see if your thirty thousand swords can cut through a bowl of warm water.”