Greenvalley City.

Even in the years when the Windstill national ruler had hosted lavish banquets for Lady Zhiguang, filling the halls with guests night after night, Greenvalley City had never seen anything like this. Over ten thousand Sky-rank cultivators had descended on the city — city masters, domain lords, national rulers, regional governors who had carved out territory by force, heads of financial conglomerates, patriarchs of distinguished clans. Alongside these figures of wealth, military power, and political authority came waves of mercenaries, drawn by a different kind of calculation.

These mercenaries generally had some cultivation to their name and ambitions that outpaced their current standing. Circumstances and the gap in their strength had kept them from the recognition they sought, the positions they believed they deserved. They had come to Greenvalley City hoping that the Gentle Breeze Queen’s coronation might offer what years of wandering had not — a worthy master to serve, and a reason to stop selling their lives by the job.

Whatever had brought them, the Gentle Breeze Queen’s decision to establish her authority through direct combat had ignited something across every category of Sky-rank cultivator present. Opportunity, after all, looks the same to everyone.

Ten thousand Sky-rank cultivators inside the city walls would have been a disaster. Most of them carried grudges from the battlefield and worse temperaments besides. Given ten minutes together in an enclosed space, old enemies would start killing each other, and Greenvalley City would be rubble before anyone had the chance to see a single fight. The Dragon Emperor and the others had seen this coming well in advance. Every arriving guest was directed to the area outside the eastern city gate. Against the city wall, a great fighting platform had been raised. Nearly twenty thousand seats were arranged below it — those who wanted seats took them, those who preferred to stand stood — with each faction assigned its own section, keeping hostile parties apart. The most powerful and prominent Sky-rank cultivators were placed in the front rows; lesser-known figures with weaker cultivation were directed to the back.

This arrangement substantially reduced the odds of the audience killing each other before the main event.

National rulers with genuine standing, even ones with blood debts between them, tended to observe a certain dignity in public. Open combat was beneath them before witnesses of this scale. At most, they traded cold remarks and sharp words. Their subordinates, without their superiors actively starting anything, confined themselves to cold stares across sections and loud boasting to their own allies. Equally importantly, everyone present understood the subtext: insulting the Gentle Breeze Queen might not matter much in itself, but if the Divine Punishment Empress genuinely became the Tianhua Domain’s ruler, anyone who had made an enemy of her sister today would be paying for it for a long time. No one wanted to be that person.

So no matter how formidable anyone fancied themselves, they extended a basic level of courtesy and kept their behavior inside Greenvalley City’s boundaries. Did they really think the Divine Punishment Empress was toothless?

A domain emperor’s authority was not something that could be challenged lightly. If it were, why would Polar Day, Thunderstorm, and Teng She be hiding behind Shimmer, Ink-Flame, and Savage Force? The answer was simple: they were afraid the Divine Punishment Empress would actually become domain emperor.

The Gentle Breeze Queen’s public demonstration of power and the mysterious sisters of White River City could not both exist at the same time. Fortunately, for someone with the Three Realms Compass, this was a trivial problem. Two hours earlier, Yue Yang in his capacity as dutiful guard captain had personally escorted the mysterious sisters onto their ship and seen them off — which allowed Old Iron Anchor, who had been tipping flasks down his throat at the dock, to exhale quietly for the first time in days.

Things had been feeling off. His associate Jellyfish had moved to detain the spy from the Whale’s Drink Tavern — the sort of operation that should have succeeded without question — and it had simply not happened. Not only had the target not been seized; Jellyfish had vanished. No call for help, not a trace of a struggle, nothing. That kind of disappearance from one of White River City’s known experts was the sort of thing that warranted serious concern. Then the target Xijiu and the tavern owner Ganquan had also disappeared, as though they had never existed.

Old Iron Anchor had strong suspicions that all of these vanishings were connected to the mysterious sisters. But the sisters had departed calmly and without incident, apparently indifferent to White River City entirely — their ship loaded with purchased Spark-Flower ore and nothing more. And they had left a sizable group of subordinates behind to continue purchasing ore, which was not what you did if you were an enemy. Real enemies didn’t leave junior members behind as cover. Every intelligence line his people had pulled pointed the same direction: these sisters had been moving through the region buying Spark-Flower ore everywhere they went, and showed interest in nothing else. Why they needed it in such volume, he couldn’t determine, and he decided not to pursue the question.

In White River City, he had one job. He intended to do it.

If the mysterious sisters were not enemies, Old Iron Anchor was relieved. He had no desire to deal with opponents of that caliber. When their ship cleared the harbor in the early morning, the weight he’d been carrying settled back to where it belonged.

He never imagined that mere moments after leaving White River City, the mysterious sisters had stepped through the Three Realms Compass and returned to Greenvalley City in Windstill Swamp, resuming their identities as the Divine Punishment Empress and the Gentle Breeze Queen.

At this moment, Fengxian and the Southern Wilderness Demon King were sitting with Yue Yang, enjoying a substantial midday meal that Steward Ye had spent the entire previous night carefully preparing. Ordinarily Yue Yang and the two women ate in the Grimoire World — Xiao Nu’s greatest ambition in life was to keep Yue Yang’s stomach continuously full of excellent food — but attendants couldn’t be refused every opportunity to contribute. Sometimes you had to let them show what they could do.

“The Dragon-Beard Red-Spotted Fish is well done. Very fresh.” Yue Yang offered a rare positive remark.

Steward Ye received this with barely concealed delight, while mentally noting: Titan young master prefers fresh steamed fish. Both madams show no objection to the dish.

“The opening soup was acceptable. The dessert at the end was slightly too sweet.” Coming from Fengxian, whose standards were notoriously exacting, this qualified as high praise. Steward Ye had been braced for a thorough critique and was genuinely relieved to find himself still standing. One full night of effort — not wasted.

“Good variety overall, and the flavors held up. One small issue — too many supporting dishes crowded out the centerpiece. The spirit of service here is commendable and deserves recognition. Continue improving. Everyone involved in this meal is to be rewarded. Steward Ye — yours will be withheld for now. Consider it recorded; we’ll acknowledge it the next time you distinguish yourself.” The Southern Wilderness Demon King’s words sent Steward Ye into a rapid bow of gratitude. He didn’t need the money — what he needed was for the people above him to remember he existed. As long as the master’s mind held a place for him, that was worth more than any material reward.

The Southern Wilderness Demon King’s next sentence, however, nearly stopped his heart.

He dropped to his knees on the spot.

“Have the cook who prepared the honeyed sky-larks beheaded and the head displayed publicly. I don’t know who sent him or care to investigate, but poisoning a dish served at our table is not an offense I’ll overlook.”

Steward Ye was simultaneously horrified and furious. He pressed his forehead to the floor in apology and swore to root out every spy in the kitchen and restore a clean guard around the queen’s table.

Yue Yang waved a hand, unhurried. “No need to make a spectacle of the investigation. The poison had to have been added at the last moment the dish was prepared — the timing’s the only way to mask it, which means the cook himself is the culprit. Behead him publicly and stop there. Don’t expand the investigation unnecessarily; it’ll rattle people we don’t need to rattle. Tell the staff that as long as they work faithfully, the queen will not treat them poorly. The poisoner was almost certainly an outside agent who inserted himself into the kitchen — this isn’t on anyone else.”

Fengxian smiled. “If those people genuinely thought something like this could bring us down, that’s almost flattering. Is this really the best the Tianhua Domain’s so-called powerhouses can manage? Deeply disappointing.”

Ten minutes later, Steward Ye returned with a large, fat would-be assassin bound in dragon-chain shackles and dressed in a cook’s clothes. The arrest had been carried out by Zhongguan, Heitu, and Baima, joined by a newcomer who had approached with particular enthusiasm: Ghost Wolf, Blue Wolf’s younger brother, who had brought his entire extended group to serve the new queen after his brother’s death. He was eager to prove himself and had volunteered immediately. His cultivation was only Sky-rank tier three, but the potential underneath it was notable, and Yue Yang had tentatively marked him as a probationary candidate to watch.

With that kind of status on the line, Ghost Wolf was not going to do anything halfway.

“Execute him. Send the head to the eastern city gate for public display. Certain people are overdue for a lesson in what this queen’s patience looks like.” The Southern Wilderness Demon King gave the order with a single wave.

“My master will avenge me — you women will soon be—” The assassin didn’t finish the sentence before Ghost Wolf’s palm connected with his face hard enough to reset the conversation. “Lots of mouth, not much substance. Is this a place where you get to speak?” Zhongguan and the others, who took personal offense at any verbal disrespect aimed at their master, dragged the man out, performed a thorough and unsentimental rearrangement of his skeletal structure, and then carried out the beheading for public display.

The small demonstration had an immediate effect. A number of the observers present reassessed the Gentle Breeze Queen’s resolve considerably upward.

A dragon doesn’t cross without leaving a mark.

A queen willing to demand that three of the Tianhua Domain’s top hundred national rulers kneel and flagellate themselves in public was not someone who would be rattled by a poisoner in her kitchen.

No one knew who had sent the assassin, but the instantaneous and total response made the answer to the real question clear enough: this Gentle Breeze Queen was not a figure who bent. Unless you had power that clearly exceeded hers, Shimmer, Ink-Flame, and Savage Force were about to walk into something very unpleasant.

The blood-dripping head went up on the eastern city gate where anyone who looked could see it.

Ghost Wolf and a dozen or so Sky-rank city masters who had come to pledge their service to the new queen stood guard on the eastern watchtower, ensuring no one would be foolish enough to take it down. Alongside them, two veiled female guards had flown out from the national ruler’s residence — apparently personal appointments from the Gentle Breeze Queen herself. Ghost Wolf and the others didn’t recognize them, but treated them with complete deference from the moment they arrived.

The two women acknowledged the greeting with nods and said nothing further.

Their surface cultivation was entirely concealed — unreadable, somewhere between Sky-rank and something beyond it. Whatever the truth, personal appointments from the Gentle Breeze Queen weren’t a category that invited comparison with a probationary recruit like Ghost Wolf.

“Well, well — Ghost Wolf. Hanging a bloody head up here, rather ruining everyone’s appetite.” A tall, gaunt figure with a flat, expressionless face materialized from the crowd with a cold smile, making trouble for its own sake. His cultivation read at Sky-rank tier four, and arrayed around him were more than a dozen others, none below tier three, all of them raising their voices together in theatrical mockery.

“If you have any spine, drop the disguise and show your real face. Anyone who hides their identity while running their mouth — do you have the nerve to say another word with your actual face?” Ghost Wolf stepped forward, pointing at the tall figure. “Let me be plain: anyone who touches this head is challenging the Gentle Breeze Queen’s authority and will be killed without quarter.”

“Oh, I’m frightened.” The disguised man’s voice dripped with contempt. “Tier three trying to act important — are you trying to intimidate us into an early grave?”

“Come down here alone and say that. I’ll fight you one-handed.”

“Coward.”

“Ghost Wolf’s got no—”

“Under the Gentle Breeze Queen’s banner, there are only warriors who die standing, never soldiers who retreat. I am Ghost Wolf, and I am unexceptional. But if anyone insults the queen’s dignity, the answer is my life. You things in your borrowed faces — if you dare take that head, I dare act. Do you really think your masters give you cover to challenge the Gentle Breeze Queen? When she is crowned, the Divine Punishment Empress’s rule over this domain begins. Anyone who won’t submit will be swept clean. Test it if you don’t believe me.” Ghost Wolf reined in his anger and let the words land clean and hard.

“Who said anything about the Divine Punishment Empress? The Gentle Breeze Queen is challenging three major national rulers and overreaching herself. That’s what’s happening here.”

“What we are is none of your business, lapdog—”

“Take the head? Too tedious. ‘Insulting the queen’s dignity’ — don’t pin that label on us. We’re just spectators. Can’t we watch? And besides, with the quality of guard you’ve assembled here, a stiff wind might be enough to carry it off. Ha!”

A sudden gust ripped through the crowd, throwing sand and debris in every direction and sending the crowd scrambling. In the chaos, the gaunt figure had somehow reached the top of the watchtower without anyone tracking his movement. But his hand didn’t go for the severed head. It extended toward Ghost Wolf instead.

“Brother Ghost Wolf, long time no trouble. Let me buy you a drink. Don’t say no.”

Ghost Wolf roared. He and a dozen Sky-rank guards threw their full power at the tall intruder simultaneously.

The gaunt man’s body flashed gold, and the pressure rolling off him alone was enough to send every one of them stumbling backward.

He laughed. “Too weak — not even worth—”

The sentence ended there.

A sound detonated below the watchtower — the kind of impact that suggests something very large has struck the earth with extreme intent. The shockwave expanded outward in a ring, sending over a thousand Sky-rank cultivators tumbling back tens of meters in every direction, clearing a perfect circle of empty ground.

At the center of that circle stood a veiled girl.

She was wearing silver-embroidered boots.

Under one of those boots was a very fat man, lying on his back with his stomach visibly compressed, vomiting blood in a continuous stream, limbs twitching like a stepped-on toad.

The fat man’s eyes had rolled back. He was hovering at the edge of unconsciousness. Beneath him, the ground had sunk into a shallow crater, its cracks spreading outward in web-like fractures that extended hundreds of meters in every direction and still hadn’t stopped.

Unconsciousness had stripped away the fat man’s disguise. His face was reverting — the muscles slackening and shifting back toward their original configuration. As it became clear, gasps broke through the crowd.

“Hippo Kuang Liao? That’s Savage Force’s younger brother—”

Kuang Liao was not an unknown quantity. Almost no one present failed to recognize the name. He was one of Savage Force’s two brothers, with Sky-rank tier five cultivation. Not quite the equal of his older brother, but a national-ruler-class powerhouse in his own right.

And this national-ruler-class powerhouse had been unable to survive a single move from that girl and was lying on the ground dying.

Who was she?

The Gentle Breeze Queen herself? No — if she were the queen, why would she personally be standing guard over a publicly displayed head? But if she wasn’t the queen, then what was she? An attendant? Could a mere attendant have just annihilated a national-ruler-class fighter in one move?

If the attendant was this capable, then the queen herself—

The thought reached its conclusion and made everyone’s scalp tighten.

The quiet girl standing there, saying nothing, was the most dangerous person among nearly a thousand Sky-rank cultivators who had been watching.

Ghost Wolf and the others broke into cold sweats. They had, at least, been adequately respectful from the moment she appeared. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

The tall, gaunt figure on the watchtower had gone rigid. This was very bad. He needed to not be here. He launched himself skyward, unfolding his movement technique at full speed, a bolt of lightning heading for distance.

Everyone watching saw exactly what happened next.

Before he moved, the second veiled woman on the watchtower had been completely still. The instant he left the ground, she was already faster than him by a factor of ten, and her palm connected with the center of his back before he had time to register that he was being attacked. Two figures launched from the crowd below — his people, moving to intercept her and pull him clear.

“Come find your death if you want.” She flickered out of sight and appeared behind both of them simultaneously, seizing the back of each man’s neck with a hand, and drove their heads together with a force that left nothing in doubt.

As the two bodies fell, the tall man came down like a thrown stone.

He hit the ground and caught himself on both hands. Blood was streaming from his nose and mouth. Anyone with experience could read what had happened to him: his heart and lungs had been shattered by that single palm strike, and the will-force woven into the blow was the kind that didn’t reverse.

He tried to push himself upright. It was like a mountain sat on his back. He wasn’t going to stand.

His face shifted back. The flat, borrowed features gave way to his real ones, and another wave of recognition moved through the crowd.

“Evil Lizard!”

“That disguise expert — that’s who this was? Sky-rank tier five hiding as tier four, the slippery wretch, no wonder Ghost Wolf couldn’t touch him. Didn’t help him in the end. He ran into the wrong person today. Another one down for Greenvalley City’s Gentle Breeze Queen — the wind in the Tianhua Domain really is changing, ha!”

“Who were the other two?”

“Probably national-ruler level, same tier as him. Doesn’t matter now — once you’re dead, being a national ruler means nothing.”

“I will not — accept this—” Evil Lizard forced every scrap of cultivation he had left into a final attempt to straighten his spine. The effort was futile. The veiled woman’s foot was planted on his back. His vertebrae ground and shrieked under the pressure and didn’t move.

She looked down at him with the mild disinterest of someone stepping on a pebble. “Tedious. You’re already dead. Stop performing.”

A single unhurried addition of her weight, and Evil Lizard’s spine gave way at multiple points, his ribs followed, and what had been a person was reduced to something that looked very much like a lizard that had been thoroughly stepped on.

Evil Lizard sprayed blood. With the last air in his crushed lungs, he shouted as loud as he could manage:

“I want — to know — whose hands I’m dying at—”

The veiled woman turned away, and the slightly smaller girl beside her turned with her.

“You’re not worthy of knowing my name.”

Evil Lizard heard it, vomited blood, and died.

He never did close his eyes.