Destiny in Cinders

”Wait, isn’t that amazing?” An Jing said with some surprise. If that really was the case, it wasn’t a surprise that those martial-officials and scholar-officials would take this risk.

You Ruhui shook her head and said, ”No, it’s not as good as you think. Mandate bearers have to return to the divine capital at fixed intervals to have their mandates refreshed. This all vanishes if they lose the imperial court’s support. The external power that they amassed would eventually scatter and return to the Celestial Ocean and terrestrial veins instead of persisting. That’s the reason many officials need to report to the divine capital from time to time. The path of mandate bearers is filled with limitations. They’re far less free than lifearc bearers. But at the very least, with unclaimed dragon qi, they’d be able to do many things without being restricted by the imperial court in the short term.”

You Ruhui’s feelings about this were complicated. While she wanted to rebel and seek vengeance against the empire, she was no fool. After all, she was the bearer of imperial blood, so was her father. What if the ones who went after his father weren’t the empire itself, but rather, officials like these? Did that mean she would have to go back to protect the empire from these corrupt officials?

”Stop overthinking,” An Jing said after he sensed how she felt. ”Those officials work for Grand Chen, so they do represent the empire too. There’s no way to cleanly separate the officials from the imperial court. Your father got in the way of many people, both members of the imperial court and the officials that work for them. Otherwise, his death wouldn’t have happened without any fanfare at all. It must’ve been coordinated from both sides.”

A massive, layered net had been cast over the waters of the empire. It was impossible to see, yet incredibly dense. King Jing had gotten entangled in this invisible net of officials, martial and scholar, as well as the imperial court. Perhaps the same had also happened to the previous emperor. An Jing shook his head to dispel those thoughts.

”Let’s forget about that. I’ll figure out the true nature of these formation discs and tell you more about them if I have the time. You have to grow stronger. Only then would you stand a chance at discovering the truth.”

”Yeah. I’ve already received lots,” You Ruhui replied softly.

An Jing smiled. ”That’s good. Get your cultivation down until it’s solid. I’ll reach out when I have more time.”

Bai Qinghan observed An Jing smiling with his eyes closed and squinted, taking note of something. Senior Disciple must be communicating with someone through psychic intent. If I had an arcanum like this, I might not need to use waterscreens anymore...

An Jing opened his eyes and smiled at her when he saw her looking at him. Then, he turned his attention to the formation discs and the major terrestrial-vein formation. The discs didn’t seem to be generating too much dragon qi. The divine armament had taken most of the dragon qi with it as it withdrew, leaving only a few last strands that eventually got sent to You Ruhui. Riverside wasn’t actually thriving as a city at that moment. Even though there was still natural qi in the environment, there wasn’t any sentient qi from the masses to be combined with it to generate more unclaimed dragon qi, so the formation discs would be spinning for no good reason.

An Jing, however, didn’t really mind. It wasn’t a bad thing for the formation discs to keep doing their thing. He did possess a divine-armament body refinement technique. As the terrestrial veins of Riverside weren’t occupied by a divine armament, this allowed him to tap into the terrestrial veins of the city to manifest more seals with Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal or make progress on his martial technique. Once he dealt with the troubles caused by the True Fiend Cult near Brokeblade Mountain and found Yvelbane’s fragment, he would be able to stay in Riverside for quite some time.

He stood up and looked around the city. A commotion had begun to form following his fight against Mo Li. Many citizens who had planned to stay were already at the brink of breaking down from the forceful methods of the Bejeweled Traders Guild. The only reason they remained was the relative safety in the city, and even that was no longer something that could be taken for granted. As such, they decided to try their luck out in the wilderness, braving the beasts and snow calamity. No doubt, quite a lot of them would perish after they escaped the city.

Hmm... I think I’ve been a little too reckless with the actions I took. While he had engaged in a fight against Mo Li and the guild out of anger at seeing them mistreat the citizens so much, killing them did destroy the fragile order that the city formerly maintained. No matter how greedy the guild had been and putting aside the fact that they didn’t really do anything to protect the citizens, they did give them a sliver of desperate hope. Once that was crushed, order would collapse and result in many losses and deaths. The situation could still worsen.

An Jing didn’t think there was anything wrong about what he did. If anyone was to be blamed, it would be Grand Chen. Their biggest mistake was abandoning the order that they themselves had built, allowing the officials to run amok with their own agendas. The officials themselves were also responsible for leaving Bejeweled to do as they liked just because it furthered their personal ends, ignoring the plight of the masses. If An Jing was at fault for anything, it would be taking too much time to deal with the guild. Had he killed them all before the commotion could build up, the citizens would have had no reason to fear staying in the city. To that end, he contemplated what he could do to stop the ones who were preparing to flee, sparing them from dying in the blizzard.

Should I use my reputation as a divine-arc bearer to calm them? It might work, but there will always be those that don’t believe me. Will Qinghan, Xu Tai and I be enough to cause them to stay? It doesn’t seem particularly likely.

While An Jing contemplated the matter, Xu Tai came over with a few martialists from the guild dressed in butler uniforms. ”Brother An, I’ve brought you the people that seem to matter.”

After Xu Tai helped destroy the terrestrial-vein node, he made up his mind to help An Jing to the bitter end. When he saw Bai Qinghan, he was stunned by her extraordinary presence and air, but didn’t really mind it. It wasn’t surprising that An Jing made friends with other stunning geniuses like himself.

”The other martialists are nothing but a chaotic rabble. They’re already so terrified that they probably won’t be able to get anything done. What are we going to do next, now that we’ve taken down this inhumane guild?”

”Huh?! Do next?!” said one of the captured martialists before An Jing could answer. The young man looked up furiously with an eerie smile. ”You think there’s a ’next?’ It’s over for you! All of you! Without the young master or the major formation to defend us, the demonoids and monsters out there in the mountains will come charging here with the beast tide! The young master and the rest were the city’s defenders! You guys don’t know anything! So what if they collected payment? Without the young master and the formation, Riverside would’ve been destroyed long ago!”

”Oh, so is that your excuse for working with the True Fiend Cult?” An Jing chuckled and looked at the youth disdainfully. He was probably one of Mo Li’s manservants. ”I see. So you guys and the True Fiend Cult are keeping each other in check, is that what you’re saying?”

The young martialist was at a loss for words and immediately shut up. Then again, An Jing didn’t care if he said anything else. In fact, he didn’t plan to let him leave. His eyes flashed with Ocular Blaze. The young man felt a burning sensation in his chest that caused the qi in his body to go amok, spreading high heat across the rest of his body instantly. Before he could speak, he melted away from the intense heat and pain and screamed uncontrollably before finally collapsing into a charred pile. An Jing had set him aflame and reduced him to a burnt corpse.

That audacity when you’re the ones working with heavenly fiends... Had you kept quiet, I would’ve spared you... An Jing didn’t know where the youth got the balls to threaten him like that. Though, he did gain a spark of inspiration.

I got it. He looked up and turned to Brokeblade Mountain with a fiery gaze. No matter what I say about protecting everyone, it doesn’t matter. Even if I defeat Bejeweled, it’s nothing but an internal squabble in the eyes of the citizens. As far as they’re concerned, they’re still in danger with the people who maintained the previous order gone.

Just like how human leaders in ancient times had to kill feral wraiths and bring back their heads as proof of their conquest and split the rest of the spoils with their people to gain their acknowledgement, I need to achieve a feat of my own if I’m to earn the trust of the citizens of Riverside, something that they once placed in Bejeweled! True Fiend Cult... Looks like I’ll be borrowing your heads to prove a point!