Destiny in Cinders

”You were indeed much stronger than I imagined.” Though Mo Li was dead, the blue flames in his dimmed eyes continued to burn, a sign of the Dragon General’s psychic intent speaking through him. ”The martial department had your power pegged at nine-three, that is to say, someone with the talent of a ninefold Fortification martialist. Even if you didn’t actually manifest a single wonder, you are considered to be as strong as someone who has manifested three. But it seems that you’re much stronger than even Fortification martialists with five wonders. I don’t know how many you have, but my guess is that you’re a class nine-four or even nine-five. Your divine arc also seems rather powerful, being comparable to imperial blood, and you have a deep grasp of it.”

An Jing furrowed his brow. He knew that martial academies had their own complicated classification schemes, but he didn’t think that the Dragon General would speak to him so calmly as if An Jing hadn’t just killed his grandson. ”You seem rather calm for someone who just had his grandson killed. Are you really not mad?”

”Maybe a little. But after killing so many people and feys at North Ocean, I’ve long lost that touch of sentimentality,” the Dragon General said without the slightest change in tone. ”I won’t accuse you of wanting to make an enemy out of Grand Chen either, since this really doesn’t have anything to do with the empire. It’s nothing but a private mission carried out on Bejeweled’s own accord. I hope this doesn’t prejudice your opinion of Grand Chen.”

An Jing almost lost his cool from hearing that. He grasped Mo Li’s head harder and harder until bone cracked and even more blood spurted out. ”To think that someone as unrepentant and sinister as you would dream of asking me to drop my prejudices... The ones I am out to kill are the very kind of corrupt officials that your grandson represents!”

”Mo Li isn’t an official. He’s just a civilian. At the end of the day, this is nothing but a fight between civilians,” the Dragon General said, correcting the record. ”Come to think of it, I appreciate people like you far more than my pitiful descendant that can’t even kill properly. I love your decisiveness. Things in war can change all of a sudden like an unpredictable windstorm or forest fire. Yet, you took every precaution in your preparation and left little to chance. If not for the fact that you’re twelve years old, I would’ve thought that you were a veteran general. This is how I feel about you and I needed you to know that. I can understand why you want to see me mad, but it really isn’t something I would lose my cool over.”

As the Dragon General’s voice grew softer, An Jing smirked and said, ”Stop pretending. Perhaps you’re truly not mad that one of your many grandsons just died. But the fact that you sent him here must mean that you wanted him to do something. I bet that you’re feeling somewhat shaken given how you went out of your way to give me that long-winded explanation. You must be trying to mislead me into thinking that this matter ends with the death of your grandson while you’re secretly trying to move to the next phase of your plan. It doesn’t matter, I’ll stop you no matter what you’re trying to do!”

”You’re sharp indeed,” Mo Que said with some delight. Misdirection had never been beneath him. He sighed and said, ”Well, I guess there’s nothing left for me to say.” ℯℯ𝑙.

”Then get out of here.” An Jing crushed Mo Li’s head and extinguished the blue flame completely. The head’s vitality was truly fearsome; the blue-purple blood-brain mush wriggled nonstop in the snow. An Jing mixed some of his blood lethal qi into Ocular Blaze to vaporize it completely. He also gave the body the same treatment, refining it with scorching flames to prevent any abomination from rising from it.

***

The distant Baiyuan Region was right next to the northern waters of the continent. There was no proper beach. Instead, glaciers would come flowing from the cold, inky ocean up north, within which countless feys hid. There were all sorts of creatures, ranging from massive fish a few hundred zhang tall or even jellyfish with feelers that stretched tens of li long. The appearance of these aquatic creatures often caused lots of unrest at the Celestial Ocean.

In ancient times, the entire region of Baiyuan was covered in saline-alkali land. The splashes of water that resulted from the activity of the leviathans caused massive bouts of rainfall at the coastal area that went on for hundreds of days or even a whole year. If the creatures fought in close combat near the coast, the ocean waves that resulted would have wreaked endless devastation to those that lived there.

But a long time ago, a divine being called the Wallfather descended unto the mortal realm in the body of a human. He began to move mountains to construct a wall, inspiring all other lifeforms on that piece of land to follow suit, marking the beginning of a megaproject to resist the tides of the Celestial Ocean. In time, the Wallfather returned to the high heavens, creating a celestial river as a trench, leaving the land of Baiyuan with a great wall that stretched across the northern apex of the Northblack Sacrifice Continent, shielding the creatures of the land from the attack of ocean feys.

It was at one of the mountains that the Great Wall of North Ocean was situated, atop of which a towering beacon was built. At the top of the tower was a man with a head and beard of needle-like hair, eyes slightly squinted. His build was burly and his face was weathered. His back and shoulders appeared like steadfast walls and his arms looked like thick, metal poles with a fine coating of rust, firm like rocks. Though he appeared worn on the surface, he nevertheless persisted like a massive cliff’s edge that stood tall even after taking the hammering of the ocean waves to no end.

Dragon General Mo Que fell silent for a moment before shaking his head. ”It does seem like he’s the Ninedawn Armsmaster after all.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t care for his grandson in the slightest. It went without question that he was the one who sent Mo Li to the northern frontier to put his plan with Bejeweled into action. Had Mo Li been able to survive that ordeal, he would no doubt have been promoted to the rank of captain in the military. His lifearc would also break through as a result. It was too bad that it didn’t come to pass.

Even so, Mo Que had far too many descendants to speak of. He had given Mo Li a chance, yet he was unlucky enough to die from an encounter with a divine-arc bearer. Such was his fate. Encountering powerful elites on the battlefield was no different from running into natural disasters; one simply couldn’t do anything about it. So, the general didn’t get mad. He had more than one thing to worry about, after all.

However, he did ponder a distinct possibility. ”If the bearer of the Ninedawn Armsmaster divine arc joins the five Dustdawn Sects and leads the Dustdawner tribes to invade Grand Chen...”

His heart heated up the instant that notion surfaced in his mind. It was the smoldering heat of a furnace that carried a hint of industrial hardiness mixed with a dense cocktail of bloodlust. However, it lasted but a single instant.

Mo Que looked up ahead, far away from the ramparts of the great wall at the ocean that stretched endlessly out. Many powerful creatures of the sea circled the coast, but not a single one of them bothered to stop nearby after seeing the Great Wall of North Ocean. It was both a sign of respect and submission, something that the ocean feys showed to the king of dragons on the land.

The intent that flared up within the man’s heart cooled down when he sensed the reverence coming from the ocean. The cold, azure flow put out the flames in him completely, causing a sense of pressing ennui to set in. It was as boring as usual this far up north.

He closed his eyes once more and recalled a time two centuries ago. Flashes of a sea dyed crimson surfaced in his mind, echoing with the lamentful cries of dragons that reached the nine firmaments above. Only in his dreams could he relive the days of hot-blooded battle, the sense of conquest that caused every fiber of his being to tremble. ”An Jing, even though you were not part of the plan, you will do just as well.”