Destiny in Cinders

”Umm...” Zheng Mo, who had been frozen in fear, appeared confused instead. ”I believe Your Majesty was the one who gave me these instructions. Was I mistaken?”

”Instructions? For what?” King De asked.

It took no more than an instant and a simple exchange for the sharp minded to immediately notice that something was off. Zheng Mo was at a loss for words as the realization began to set in. Even in his soul form, his pale face was plain to see. ”Forgive me, Your Majesty! Save me! Save me!”

King De looked rather bewildered himself. ”Ah, I see. It appears that some brothers of mine have already turned their attention here...”

He looked at the kowtowing Zheng Mo helplessly. ”If my guess is correct...”

Zheng Mo’s soul suddenly shuddered before he fell like a kite with a cut string and melted away like a body with no skeleton, sinking back into the nether. The mandate of dragon qi within his body flew back in the direction of the divine capital. Both signs pointed to the death of his actual body.

King De held up a finger sigil as he chanted, ”By the decree of the imperial court, I bar this soul from the nether realm and claim him under my throne. He shall enjoy the blessing of another century of lifespan from the date of his passing in the body of a Fengdu official.”[1]

He raised his hand and pointed at Zheng Mo’s soul body that was just about to sink into the nether, channeling a mysterious power that stabilized it once more, this time, with the dragon-qi mandate even more secure within him than ever.

”I am filled with utmost gratitude, Your Majesty! Hail Your Majesty King De!” Zheng Mo was all too relieved that he managed to narrowly avoid death, fully aware that it was King De’s imperial-court edict that saved him. The imperial court that ruled more than half of the Northblack Sacrifice Continent possessed the power to reverse yin, yang, life and death, allowing mandated officials like him to enjoy life after death. However, it didn’t change the fact that his body back at the prefectural capital was gone, killed by another sentinel king!

”Stop kneeling. This is not the time for formalities,” King De said casually. ”You do appear to be quite the lucky one to have survived, losing only your physical body after being dragged into the messy spiral around a divine arc and the imperial court. And I just so happened to be here to preserve your soul and make you my yin envoy. Tell me. What were the orders given to you by the mental manifestation that looked like me?”

”Initially, I was asked to investigate the abnormal activity of the terrestrial veins and look for traces of the commanderial princess,” Zheng Mo said honestly. ”After I made the report, I was praised and told that I rendered enough merit and that I should report to the prefectural bureau for an evaluation.”

”Aren’t you going to tell me who that is?” King De shook his head helplessly, not even mad at the chubby official. ”I know that you don’t dare to tell me the identity of that person because of their status, but if your superior was King Cheng of the Northwest or King Shan of the Southwest, there’s no reason for them to hide their identities...”

”Your humble servant wouldn’t dare...”

”I know that you wouldn’t, which is why I said you were lucky. If you had dared, you would’ve died long ago. I wouldn’t have been able to save you. Sigh... And there I was still wondering how the demonic cult’s Lord Inspector of the West was able to order the divine armament around, not to mention the heavenly fiends... It seems like quite a few mysteries are behind the recent infiltration of heavenly fiends into Keensight. There’s some really bad people within Grand Chen...”

King De wasn’t the least bit surprised that somebody in Grand Chen was collaborating with the demonic cult. It seemed like an extremely close working relationship. Grand Chen was a large heavenly sect and it was incredibly likely that many factions within it had ties with all the upper sects of the Northblack Sacrifice Continent, very close ones. This was how Grand Chen exerted its influence across the entire continent.

What kind of Eight Sentinel King didn’t have their own illicit channels? Well, King De was the only one who didn’t. He had once been a member of the imperial family who enjoyed his life without bearing any important responsibilities. It was after the death of King Jing, Xuan Guangyun, that he was picked to succeed the position of the North Pacification Martial King despite having no minions, resources or connections.

In fact, the previous North Pacification Martial King hid the celestial armament he wielded before he died, with nobody knowing its whereabouts. The newly promoted King De was left without the symbol of power that came with the title he bore. Even the territory that theoretically fell under his jurisdiction, the northern frontier of Hanhai Circuit, ended up as a battlefield when the northern barbarians from Dustdawn invaded.

Despite all that, King De was a person with a big heart, capable of seeing the good side of things. It wasn’t like he had to work for his new title. If he managed to reach the Pure Yang Realm by borrowing the title of a sentinel king, he would easily be able to spare a thousand years to slowly get things in order. As long as he was patient and survived long enough, he would be able to secure a decent position for himself.

That was why he wandered carefreely from place to place, testing his luck to see if he could pick up anything good. So far, he had amassed quite the decent haul. Both Zheng Mo and the Keensight Bell were rather important clues.

”Did anyone among the Eight Sentinel Kings realize something and made the decision to do Keensight harm? Was it the divine arc? Or Mingjing’s whereabouts? Hmm, the divine arc’s manifestation came as a surprise to everyone, so it must’ve been Mingjing... I have no idea what Big Brother Guangyun left behind that would cause us siblings to plot against each other and even their children... The sentinel king that took action might have something to do with the circumstances behind Big Brother Guangyun’s death too.”

He put away the Keensight Bell and Zheng Mo’s soul, fully aware of the initiative he had managed to grasp for himself. The person who killed Zheng Mo definitely wasn’t aware that Zheng Mo’s soul had been preserved before it was able to scatter. King De, still shrouded in shadow, would be able to maneuver himself into a better position.

Still, who in the world is this person? It wasn’t that King De wanted to avenge Xuan Guangyun. He used to be quite the useless member of the imperial family and didn’t have a particularly close relationship with his imperial brothers who became sentinel kings long ago.

He was more concerned with something else. If an incredibly talented sentinel king like Xuan Guangyun who was just about to reach the Pure Yang Realm could die just like that, wouldn’t that make him, a haphazardly selected successor of the dead sentinel king’s title, even easier to kill? The position of North Pacification Martial King was rather decent and King De didn’t want to give it up, nor did he wish to die. So, he had to find out the truth.

”Both King Yun, Xuan Yueche and King Chu, Xuan Guangzong had a good relationship with Big Brother Guangyun back in the day. I can see these two sending people to escort Mingjing out of Grand Chen, but they probably wouldn’t work with the demonic or fiend cults or heavenly fiends.

”Could it be the ones from the younger generation, King Shan, Xuan Mingxian or King Yi, Xuan Mingzhen? No, those two are just like me. They were picked to succeed their titles not long ago. The only difference is that they’re still children with no real power to wield. Thankfully, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” King De moved on to eliminate those two juniors from his considerations. ”As for King Cheng, Xuan Guangjiu and King Su, Xuan Guangjue... the northern frontier is their territory. On the other hand, King Zhong, Xuan Guangzhong, has been at the divine capital the whole time. This is getting very interesting. I didn’t think that we sentinel kings would actually plot against each other. I suppose internal conflict only gets better with practice...”

The imperial clan of Grand Chen was really casual in that mundane members who didn’t bear imperial blood could be named any way they wanted. However, bearers of imperial blood followed a strict naming scheme according to the precept of ”the righteous path of heaven and earth, the illumination of sun and moon.” This was a custom that could be traced back some thirty thousand years to the founding emperor, Xuan Tianji. Two cycles of sixteen emperors had passed by. The True Martial Emperor of the current generation, Xuan Mingyu, marked the beginning of the third cycle of imperial rule.

What was the old saying again? The third shall not be followed by the fourth, or something along those lines. Will there even be a third cycle? That notion popped up in King De’s mind for some reason, but he soon cast it aside with a wry laugh. ”Haha! Now that’s some good-quality nonsense if I do say so myself.”

He addressed the Keensight Bell and Zheng Mo’s soul that he pocketed in his sleeves earlier. ”Let’s go. Come back with me to make the report.”

”A report? To whom?” Zheng Mo asked, somewhat puzzled.

”Who do you think a sentinel king like me has to report to? We’re going back to the divine capital to have an audience with the imperial majesty, of course. I just claimed the Keensight Bell, so I have to make a report about that one way or another. As for you... we can talk about this another day.”

Unlike the flabbergasted Zheng Mo, the Keensight Bell seemed to be unnaturally excited about how things were developing. Being able to catch the eye of the martial sentinel king and brought to an audience with the emperor were nothing short of a huge stroke of karmic fortune, even for a divine armament.

The Keensight Bell wasn’t the only one that got blessed by luck. In fact, An Jing was just about to come into his own stroke of karmic fortune in Skysource.

1. Keen-eyed readers will notice that Fengdu(酆都) has come up before, but in Skysource, referring to the mechanized soldiers of the Fengdu Guard. The characters used here are the same and are a reference to Fengdu Ghost City. See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengdu_Ghost_City ☜