Ghost Wolf’s heart was full of something close to reverence.

The Gentle Breeze Queen was beyond anything he’d imagined.

Two attendants — just two attendants — and over a thousand Sky-rank cultivators were standing there in collective awe. National-ruler-class powerhouses who had once looked down at everyone were trembling in the presence of the queen’s personal attendants. That arrogant wretch Evil Lizard hadn’t even been granted the dignity of learning the name of the person who killed him. He’d died with his eyes open and his question unanswered.

What kind of bearing was that?

The bearing of someone who looks down on the world from a height where such things don’t merit acknowledgment.

The decision to come serve the Gentle Breeze Queen was, Ghost Wolf had decided, the best he’d ever made.

Feeling the gazes from below — equal parts awe and fear — Ghost Wolf found his spine straightening on its own. The guards around him were doing the same, every one of them pulling their shoulders back and their chins up, the effort of suppressing visible pride only making the pride more obvious.

“Brother Ghost Wolf — once your watch ends, let big brother treat you to some drinks. Please do me the honor.” A national ruler who had previously never acknowledged Ghost Wolf’s existence except to look past him was now approaching with the warmth of a lifelong companion, as though the two of them had been sharing wine together just the previous night. Had Ghost Wolf’s memory been any less reliable, he might almost have believed they had some long history of closeness.

“Oh, Brother Ghost Wolf, you really are just so handsome!” A female mercenary built like a war ox struck a pose of swooning admiration. The people around her had already given up and moved away.

Ghost Wolf had nothing to say to any of this.

By mid-afternoon, Shimmer, Ink-Flame, and Savage Force had finally roused themselves and arrived at the eastern city gate to assess the situation firsthand.

What they found did not settle their nerves.

Could the veiled woman who had dispatched Evil Lizard and Hippo Kuang Liao with single strikes really be a personal attendant? That was impossible to accept. Someone with that kind of strength could have established herself as a dominant power anywhere in the Tianhua Domain — anywhere in the Sky Realm. National ruler, regional hegemon — she could have taken her pick. Why would anyone of that caliber accept the role of an attendant?

Someone raised the obvious alternative: what if the two veiled women weren’t attendants at all, but were the Divine Punishment Empress and the Gentle Breeze Queen themselves?

If that were the case, everything made more sense. The smaller one was the Gentle Breeze Queen — a surprise strike, landing on the completely unprepared Hippo Kuang Liao. The stronger one was the Divine Punishment Empress — one instant kill on each of the other two, then another to finish Evil Lizard. None of that would be remarkable for someone competing at the domain emperor level.

“That has to be it.” The theory gathered quick consensus.

“If that’s the extent of the Divine Punishment Empress’s power, she’s nothing special.” Shimmer’s smile was cold. Killing a national ruler in one strike — for a domain emperor, that was routine. If this was truly the full measure of the Divine Punishment Empress, it proved she wasn’t ready to compete for domain emperor status. A genuine domain emperor-level powerhouse left devastation on a completely different scale.

“Let’s test it and find out.” Savage Force was burning inside. His brother was dead. No one felt good about that. But whatever rage he carried, he hadn’t lost his judgment.

“She may be holding back deliberately,” Ink-Flame cautioned, the most careful of the three. “Even a domain emperor level existence doesn’t have to show everything in one move. You use what the situation requires. She only needed enough to finish Evil Lizard — why bring out the full arsenal? And consider: the Divine Punishment Empress is openly competing for domain emperor status. Without adequate power, would she have dared issue a domain-wide summons to every ruler in the Tianhua Domain?”

Whatever the truth was, it would become clear shortly.

The appointed hour for the Gentle Breeze Queen’s coronation was approaching.

A coronation as national ruler was, at its core, a formal declaration of authority — the acceptance of submission from subordinates. It didn’t require elaborate ceremony. In the Sky Realm, sufficient strength made ceremony optional. If you had the power, your subjects could resist all they liked, and it wouldn’t matter. Strength was everything here. Power meant possession of all else.

By Sky Realm standards, the Gentle Breeze Queen’s platform-and-combat coronation was actually quite formal, suggesting an intent to simultaneously establish authority and send a clear message to the surrounding powers. Other national rulers simply took their seat on the national ruler’s throne while their domain lords and city masters offered a bow, and the transfer of authority was complete. In wartime, some hadn’t even managed that — taking the position mid-campaign, with no crown, no staff, no signet ring, all ceremony abandoned. The most pitiable cases reportedly assumed office hungry, with no rations, heading straight to the battlefield.

The Gentle Breeze Queen appeared.

A roar rose from Greenvalley City that shook the sky.

Shimmer, Ink-Flame, and Savage Force stared, and found the spectacle before them put the grandest processional of the former Radiance Domain Emperor to shame by a factor of a hundred.

One hundred flying dragons led the advance, each piloted by a dragonwoman, their minimum cultivation at Gold-rank tier ten. Each dragon trailed a colored streamer that released fragrant shimmer-powder in a different hue, painting great arcs of rainbow bridges across the open sky. Behind them came three thousand more flying dragons — Ground-rank, nearly Sky-rank — and by sheer number alone they commanded attention. Their riders were young men and women drawn from a dozen different peoples, every one of them radiating untapped potential. Flying in coordinated formation, they arranged themselves into the words and emblem of the Gentle Breeze Queen, holding the shape as they swept forward in unified flight.

Behind them came ten thousand or more dragon war beasts covering the sky from edge to edge, an overwhelming tide. At the center, a golden dragon of extraordinary size reared its head back and roared with the force of a thunderclap, then dove from altitude through the formation, and every other aerial rider split apart to clear it a path.

Nothing in its way stood.

On the golden dragon’s back sat a passenger — a Bronze-rank tier three mongrel dog of truly spectacular ordinariness, yawning.

Flanked by hundreds of Sky-rank city masters and domain lords, accompanied at the rear by thousands of Eastern Demon Clan warriors, a red palanquin borne on the shoulders of sixteen Sky-rank cultivators advanced at a measured pace. The ornamentation on the palanquin was beyond anything the assembled Sky-rank warriors had ever seen, and the sight of the Eastern Demon Clan warriors in attendance set more than a few uneasy thoughts running. Who was this new Gentle Breeze Queen, and what was her connection to the Eastern Demon Clan?

“Look—”

A sharp-eyed observer spotted the veiled women positioned before the palanquin. Two of them were the same women who had killed Evil Lizard and Hippo Kuang Liao. Seeing them flying in attendance at the palanquin’s side settled the question definitively: they were attendants. Not the queen and the empress themselves.

Which meant something rather significant.

If those women were attendants, what did that say about the actual queen and empress?

The red palanquin came to rest on top of the eastern watchtower. The Gentle Breeze Queen had not yet shown herself, and yet the sheer weight of the procession had already made over ten thousand Sky-rank cultivators feel the pressure of her authority.

Other domain emperors didn’t even manage ceremony like this. You’re a queen of one small nation, formerly the backwater Windstill Nation — did the coronation really need to be this overwhelming? And what exactly was this queen’s connection to the Eastern Demon Clan? Eastern Demon Clan members had come personally to offer their congratulations at a minor coronation? If the Eastern Demon Clan weren’t famously uninterested in expanding into the Sky Realm proper, Shimmer would have been convinced this Gentle Breeze Queen was an Eastern Demon Clan princess.

If she weren’t, why else would they show up?

The Tianhua Domain was too insignificant for the Eastern Demon Clan to covet — those proud peoples had their sights set on the Sky Realm’s upper reaches. Whatever the truth, the Gentle Breeze Queen and the Eastern Demon Clan were clearly very closely connected. Which raised the question of the Divine Punishment Empress — the one who wanted to rule the whole Tianhua Domain. Was she, too, tied to the Eastern Demon Clan? Was she perhaps an Eastern Demon Clan Empress herself?

If that turned out to be the answer, everyone here could go home and rethink their life choices.

“This is not good.” Shimmer caught Savage Force’s eye. Brother, we’ve been played as a weapon by other people’s hands. The wind is wrong. Are we perhaps prioritizing survival right now?

“Just — just wait. Let’s see how it develops.” Savage Force was already sweating through his clothes.

If he’d known the Gentle Breeze Queen had connections like this, nothing in the world could have brought him to Greenvalley City. Or at least, if he’d come, he would never have been the one out front. But the hard words were already said, the public posture already taken, and he’d made himself the Gentle Breeze Queen’s chosen target for her demonstration. Over ten thousand witnesses were gleefully waiting for exactly this.

So what now?

Retreat without fighting would end his reputation as thoroughly as anything the queen might do to him. And even if the queen didn’t kill him for walking away, the people behind him absolutely would not forgive the humiliation. The only hope was that the Gentle Breeze Queen might offer some face-saving language — some step he could use to submit gracefully without looking like he’d broken.

“Today is the day I formally assume the rulership of the Gentle Breeze Country, and the day my elder sister announces her assumption of the Tianhua Domain.” The voice that emerged from the red palanquin was like something out of a different register of sound entirely — clear, effortless, reaching every ear regardless of distance. It didn’t seem especially loud, and yet there was no one present, near or far, who didn’t hear every word with perfect clarity. “My sister and I prefer things simple. In one sentence: you are either our friend or our enemy. Choose for yourselves.”

“Long live the queen!” Steward Ye, Gold-Tooth, and the assembled subordinates dropped to their knees in a wave, the words rising in a unified shout.

This particular ritual had no precedent in the Sky Realm. But the Sky Stairway had it.

Steward Ye and Gold-Tooth and the others had found it, upon hearing it, to be a remarkably satisfying way to express genuine loyalty and respect, and had adopted it immediately. They were already privately planning something even more elaborate for the day the Divine Punishment Empress formally claimed the domain emperor’s position.

Inside the city and out, hundreds of thousands of voices kneeling in homage produced a sound like the world itself coming apart.

Shimmer and the others went pale in stages.

With this many people behind her, stepping up to challenge the queen now was the equivalent of throwing yourself at a moving boulder and expecting the boulder to notice. But not challenging her — after today, the three of them would be the laughingstock of the Tianhua Domain for as long as anyone remembered this day. And even if they chose to walk away without fighting, would the Gentle Breeze Queen simply let them leave? Absolutely not. She needed precisely three people to make an example of, and they were standing right there.

The thought that they were the chosen examples made Shimmer’s stomach turn. How had a simple Windstill Nation queen’s coronation turned into something that looked more like a domain emperor’s investiture? If the Gentle Breeze Queen had this much power, why was she bothering with a tiny plot of ground like the former Windstill Nation? She should have followed her sister’s ambitions and gone straight for the whole Tianhua Domain — then at least no one would have misjudged her and blundered into this situation.

“Shimmer, Ink-Flame, Savage Force — regarding your provocations, refusing to respond would invite people to call this queen a coward. But personally involving myself might make the three of you feel this is unfair — a larger power crushing a smaller one. So here is what I propose: this queen’s attendants and personal guard — choose any one of them. Survive three exchanges without defeat, and this queen will forgive the discourtesy.”

The voice drifted out again from the palanquin, and this time no one present retained any doubt about what they were dealing with.

“Attendants or personal guard?” Savage Force looked at Shimmer.

“Let’s wait and see first—” Shimmer felt that neither category offered anything reassuring. If the queen was bold enough to guarantee forgiveness for surviving three exchanges with any of them, then clearly even the weakest among them could win comfortably. Better to let Ink-Flame go first and test the waters, then assess.

If Ink-Flame scouted out the situation and it was genuinely hopeless, Shimmer was prepared to abandon every shred of dignity for the sake of breathing. Drop to the ground, beg forgiveness with genuine sincerity. The Gentle Breeze Queen was too elevated a figure to pursue total annihilation over a public slight — probably. So the plan was to watch how things developed first.

Standing beside the red palanquin, in addition to the veiled attendants, were three men with expressions of complete indifference. One crackled with arcing electricity, his air so overwhelming that Shimmer felt that going up against him would mean being cooked to a cinder. The middle man’s frame was mountainous, his energy so rooted and immovable that engaging him would end with Shimmer face-down in the earth permanently. The third was somewhere between shadow and presence, his will-force having already silently announced itself — clearly someone who had comprehended an inextinguishable divine will. Fighting him meant death; the only variable was how unpleasant it would be first.

Intelligence identified these three as the newly risen Tianzhu, Dragon Emperor, and Underworld Emperor — almost certainly the personal guard of the two sisters.

None of them were remotely approachable.

There was also, however, a silver-masked young man at the front of the palanquin.

Even with the mask covering half his face, you could tell at a glance that this was someone who made a living with his looks. His cultivation wasn’t impressive — in the vicinity of Sky-rank at best, probably bolstered by equipment. Intelligence indicated he was the Gentle Breeze Queen’s most favored personal guard captain.

If there was a safe option, it was him.

Shimmer’s mind worked fast and reached conclusions faster. The terms said surviving three exchanges without defeat — not winning. Against that masked young man, exchanging three moves was trivially achievable. Killing him was out of the question — the queen would react immediately — but taking three of his strikes without going down required essentially no effort from someone at Shimmer’s level.

The plan crystallized: when his turn came, he would choose the silver-masked guard captain. The opportunity was limited and couldn’t be wasted.

“I’ll take — this attendant.” Ink-Flame stepped forward first, offering a small, formal bow toward the veiled girl who had dropped Hippo Kuang Liao with one strike at noon.

“You saw through me — I really am the weaker one between us.” The veiled girl floated off the palanquin platform with a distinctly unaffected candor, landing lightly on the fighting stage. Ghost Wolf leaned toward Gold-Tooth in quiet confusion and received a rapid murmured briefing: “That’s Little Princess Future. She’s actually the young master’s life-guardian war beast, believe it or not. The other one at noon? Bold of you to even look — that was Red, the Red Matron. Even Her Majesty the queen treats her with exceptional courtesy. Going forward, you are not to make inquiries about the young master’s affairs. Little Princess Future is adorable, isn’t she? Until the queen has children of her own, just treat her as the little princess — which is essentially what she is. Genuinely sweet and kind. Remember that near-dead war beast your sister had? She was the one who healed it. Right, no more talking. Watch carefully. And remember — complete secrecy.”

Ghost Wolf nodded quickly. He understood that if he didn’t hold provisional status as a candidate under observation, Gold-Tooth would never have told him any of this. This category of information belonged only to the most trusted inner subordinates.

Just as Future and Ink-Flame were positioning to begin, Shimmer lunged forward.

“Wait — in the next round, I wish to challenge that guard captain there.”

He saw Savage Force opening his mouth and moved first. Underhanded or shameless, those were acceptable costs. Alive was the only outcome that mattered.

If Savage Force got to the silver-masked guard captain before he did, Shimmer was going to need a very different plan and a significantly worse day.

The opportunity existed once. Shimmer intended to take it.

Friendship?

Friendship could go straight to hell.