Immortal Paladin

The guard blinked, clearly not sure if he heard me right. “Excuse me?” he asked.

I grinned and repeated it, slow and clear, “The Emperor calls me daddy.”

Alice’s voice pressed sharply against the back of my mind in Qi Speech, “David, not now. Don’t antagonize them. Keep your tongue in check.”

Of course, I didn’t. The urge to stir trouble was too strong, and besides, I was curious. If the guards here were truly devoted, then an insult to their Emperor should’ve made them leap off the walls to gut me alive. Instead, all I saw was hesitation. A couple of the younger ones snorted, trying and failing to smother laughter, until the older officer barked for discipline.

The lead guard glared at me. “You should go.”

That was bold, considering the aura I wore wasn’t anything small. Even with my Spiritual Pressure suppressed, I still radiated the strength of a Tenth Realm cultivator, the same as Da Ji beside me. Most sects would fold themselves in half to curry favor with someone of that power. For a mere gatekeeper to stand his ground, something was off.

I decided to push harder. “Zhu Shin,” I said casually, “the Iron Bull of the Empire. Tell him I’m here. He’ll know me well enough, especially if you remind him about that charming little sister of his who once tried to flirt with me.”

The sneer that crossed the guard’s face was sharp enough to cut stone. “No need. Zhu Shin is no longer the General of the Western Watch. His threatening actions against the Empire have stripped him of all rank.”

My brows furrowed, but before I could say another word, the guard leveled his spear in my direction. “This is your last warning. Leave.”

Did I leave? Fuck no.

I narrowed my eyes at the guard and asked Alice through Qi Speech, “Can you cast Charm from here?”

Her voice in my head turned sharp, offended. “Of course I can.”

And so she did. The shift was subtle but immediate. His rigid posture softened, his hostility dulled. I leaned in, feigning plain curiosity. “What happened to the Emperor?”

“The Emperor had been deposed!”

The words cracked like thunder across the ranks. The guards shifted uneasily, their faces betraying confusion. It was clear this was the first time most of them had heard anything of the sort. Yet the lead guard, under Alice’s influence, straightened and continued, voice ringing with conviction. He spoke of a civil war unlike any other, bloodless in its swiftness, where the tyrant Emperor had been dethroned to pave the way for a better future.

“Yes. The Emperor is no more. Cast down for his tyranny, for shackling this Empire in endless fear. Do you not see? This land will no longer kneel beneath a single despot’s shadow. From the ashes rises a stronger Empire, one led not by bloodline, but by will! A new dawn approaches, brighter than any age that tyrant could have given us!”

His speech was too passionate… and that unsettled me.

I dissected every syllable, weighing what it meant. Jia Sen had claimed civil war, but I thought it would be an uprising crushed before it drew breath. To imagine the Final Emperor losing? Impossible. Yet here it was, right before me.

Despite my denial, this explained why I couldn’t feel my Human Soul in Nongmin.

My mind drifted involuntarily to Riverfall, the couple governing Yellow Dragon City, Ren Xun, my disciples, and even Lin Lim. Hell, I even worried about Sikao Biaoji. If this “bloodless war” were real, their fates could already be twisted into something unrecognizable. I opened my mouth, ready to press further, when his head erupted in a spray of crimson. His body crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

Walking up the wall was an old man with a gruff face carved by years of battle. A giant war fan rested across his back. Recognition hit instantly… It was Bai Zheme, the provincial general of the Western Watch, and the warrior who came along with me under the burning sun of the Great Desert.

He called out, voice carrying the weight of command, “Friends from afar, you’ve come a long way just to sling mud at the Empire.” Then his tone darkened, sharp as a blade. “Is it customary where you come from to speak rudely of the Emperor? To disparage him by twisting the minds of a faithful servant?”

Hmph. He was clever. Twisting the scene and turning it so the slain guard’s words seemed my fabrication.

I sneered back. “Isn’t it brutal of you to kill your own simply because he spoke the truth?”

Inside, I stilled my thoughts. No way could he perceive Alice, not when she was concealed so deeply in my shadow. Yet there was equally no way Bai Zheme had climbed to the Ninth Realm by natural means. Twenty years ago, he was barely in the Seventh Realm!

The irony didn’t escape me. For all my suspicions about Bai Zheme, I was hardly one to speak. My own disciples bent the laws of heaven daily, Ancient Souls slumbered across False Earth waiting to break common sense once more, Alice was absorbing cultivation like a sponge, and then there was me… a walking contradiction in flesh, or in this case, a spiritual flesh. But none of that mattered here. What mattered was the mask I wore, and I realized perhaps I had chosen the wrong one. Coming here as the Willow Sovereign might be more trouble than it’s worth. Coming as Da Wei would have been a death sentence. Still, maybe I should have donned another face entirely.

I continued. “I did not come to quarrel. I came because the Grand Ascension Empire has long been renowned for its ingenuity. Your technology, your craftsmanship… blacksmiths in these lands can forge blades so fine even mortal coin can buy what rival sects spend fortunes to replicate. That is what I desire. Knowledge and progress, to be shared.”

Bai Zheme’s gaze remained like frost on iron. He did not budge. “Leave.” One word, flat and final.

The refusal stung more than I wanted to admit. For a moment, I considered tearing away the Willow Sovereign mask and letting them know who I truly was. But the whispers of civil war echoed in my mind. The Final Emperor dethroned? If the balance of power had shifted this much, then revealing myself was nothing short of suicidal.

Instead, I pressed once more, tightening the authority in my tone. “Do you not know who I am? I am the Willow Sovereign, Master of the Floating City of New Willow. I believe in mutual prosperity between realms. Knowledge exchanged fosters rapid development. Shared, it becomes the most reliable resource in times of strife. This is what I offer, and this is what I stand for!”

The words hung in the air, echoing against the wall’s stone.

Bai Zheme’s eyes narrowed. His hand moved slowly, deliberately, and from his back came the war fan. The sound of its iron ribs clicking open cut the air sharper than any blade. “Enough. For your suspicious activity and for lurking at our borders, you and your companion are to be detained.”

I kept my face composed, though annoyance pulsed behind my ribs. Detained, was it? I raised my hands lightly, feigning compliance. If nothing else, this was still a way inside. The great double gates groaned open, and Bai Zheme strode forward with his war fan in hand, iron ribs glinting under the pale light. His guards flanked him, each man no higher than the Fifth Realm, but their discipline showed in their posture. Two stepped forward, fine spears at their backs, thick cuffs in hand.

I didn’t think ordinary restraints could ever hold me or Da Ji. The guards demanded we stand side by side, and we did so without resistance. In a single breath, the cuffs snapped shut around our wrists, cold steel biting deep. Before I could react, the two guards sprinted in opposite directions. Bai Zheme lashed his war fan with a sweep, summoning a gust so sharp it nearly cut the sky. I felt my strength falter as the cuffs drank it away. My cultivation vanished like water poured into sand.

Recognition struck me hard. These weren’t just shackles or some artifact that could merely suppress qi. They were kin to the slave collars from Lei Jia’s Arena of Pain. Most horrifying of all was how this kind of technology could suppress even Ascended Souls, like me… My teeth clenched as I staggered against the sudden hollowness inside me.

The gust threatened to tear me apart, but a shimmer rippled up from the ground as Alice cast silently from the depths of my shadow. “Magic Guard.” The invisible barrier devoured the cutting force that would have otherwise split me in two.

“That’s not nice,” I said flatly, forcing calm.

With Divine Might alone, I pulled against the cuffs. No Qi, no cultivation… just raw Strength. With a screech of warped metal, they shattered. Da Ji hissed beside me, straining against her own set. “A little bit of help, brother. They’re leeching everything from me.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” I muttered. Planting my feet, I seized the shackles binding her, letting Monkey Grip crush the metal like brittle bone. The fragments clattered to the stone floor.

I straightened, looking at the assembled men, their eyes wide, their weapons trembling. My voice carried casually, as though the tension in the air were nothing more than an inconvenience. “I hope all of you are bad people, so I’ll feel more assured of my safety.”

Bai Zheme narrowed his eyes, confusion cutting through his stern face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said as I raised my hand skyward, “the best outcome of what I’m about to do is for there to be no survivors at all. I’d hate to implicate New Willow.”

Above, the heavens split with blinding light. A colossal scale manifested, its balance swaying with judgmental weight. Shadows warped as Final Adjudication descended, announcing Da Wei’s arrival for all to see.

“Impossible,” uttered Bai Zheme. “You are alive?”

Chains lanced from the scales like living judgments, and the nearest guards answered with shrieks, their bodies cracking into ash or burning in golden flame as the links tightened and judged. I let the wooden mask fall away back to my Item Box, dispersing the quintessence-made disguise. Emerald robes showed bright against the dust, my dark hair caught against sunlight, and my [Level 1] Ascended Soul plainly expressed to the world.

“Da Wei!” cried Bai Zheme. “You are not supposed to be here-”

The war fan on his back folded, ribs clicking until they locked into a single red wing that snapped free, anchoring him with impossible speed as he bolted for the gate. He moved like a man trying to outrun fate; the fan-wing caught the wind and made him a blur.

“Let me handle the rest,” said Alice. “I have a new spell I want to try. If it works, no one will remember the Willow Sovereign or Da Wei appearing here. We need discretion.”

The surviving guards froze mid-motion as Alice’s spell, Mass Hold, took effect. It was a soft prison that rippled through muscle and will. She stepped out of my shadow as the spell finished, graceful and grim, and I felt gratitude for the way she cleaned up after me.

“You won’t kill them, right?” I asked, not really willing to kill them if possible.

“They will be fine,” she insisted. “It will require a lot of work on my part, so you’d better be grateful. Now, go…”

The chains from the hovering scale stretched farther, reaching the outer fortress where the bulk of the city’s civilians and militia clustered.

Da Ji’s silver form dropped beside Alice in an instant, fur bristling with readiness as she took in her beastly shape. “I’ll secure the walls. Make sure that it doesn’t escalate any further,” she said, voice as crisp as ice. “Brother, make sure you get something out of this. I think we’re taking a big risk already by coming here.”

Clearly, my sister didn’t have that good an opinion when it came to Empire. I imagined she’d rather have me focus on New Willow than anything else.

“I’ll be back shortly.”

I launched without ceremony, relying on Divine Speed and casting Zealot’s Stride in sequence, the air tearing apart as I moved. Gold erupted beneath my feet with each step, a living carpet that left light smoking on the cobbles.

With a single breath, I closed the distance, golden light flashing underfoot. Bai Zheme’s red wing strained for the horizon, but I raised a hand and cast Halo of Restriction, once, twice, and then thrice. Rings of binding force locked him in place mid-flight. His body seized, frozen as if the heavens themselves had clasped him. I stopped just short, smirking as I said, “Running’s good for the heart, old man… but not when I’m the finish line.”