The morning market in Tongzhou lay strangely quiet.

  Where once vendors shouted their wares and the air thrummed with haggling voices, now only whispers drifted between half-empty stalls.

  Han Sen walked the lanes as he did every dawn, purse in hand for Master Kim Tun’s restaurant.

  Yet today his basket remained empty.

  “Han Sen,” an old vegetable seller murmured, “the farmers suffer. Fields lie barren.”

  “Livestock die in droves,” another added, voice low. “Many are ruined.”

  It was not merely higher prices.

  The market itself was dying.

  Han Sen returned to the restaurant, coins untouched.

  He laid them before Kim Tun.

  “Uncle… nothing to buy. The stalls are bare.”

  Kim Tun’s broad face darkened.

  “How can we cook when there is nothing to cook?”

  He closed the doors for the day—saving what little remained for the weekend rush.

  Han Sen wandered back to the market, unease gnawing deeper.

  Voices drifted from shadowed corners.

  “Beasts ravage the fields around Tongzhou. Crops trampled, farmers slaughtered.”

  “Generals press every able man into service—no war, yet the farms stand empty.”

  “Taxes!” a merchant spat. “The court bleeds us dry. No trader dares bring goods when levies devour profit.”

  A middle-aged man in plain scholar’s robes listened in silence, brow furrowed.

  “If this continues,” he said quietly, “the realm itself may perish.”

  Han Sen bowed. “Forgive my intrusion, honored sir. I am Han Sen. May I know your name?”

  The man turned, eyes sharp yet weary.

  “I am called Liu Yan.”

  “Where does Master Liu reside?”

  “At the end of this road,” he answered, gesturing toward a grand but weathered house half-hidden by pines.

  Han Sen nodded, committing it to memory.

  Then a child’s scream shattered the morning.

  “Woe! Woe! Monsters ravage FuFang Li!”

  The market stirred like a kicked anthill—stalls abandoned, people fleeing.

  Han Sen slipped away.

  The moment eyes turned, he vanished—Five Winds carrying him swift as a summer gale toward the village.

  FuFang Li burned.

  Black-furred apes—massive, fangs like honed steel—tore through homes.

  Villagers fled or fell.

  Blood painted the earth.

  Rage rose cold and clear in Han Sen’s chest.

  He drew the yellow bamboo staff from his pouch.

  Five Thunders sang.

  PRAAAK! PRAAKKK! PPRAAAAAAAKKKK!

  Three monstrous skulls shattered.

  Bodies dissolved to dust.

  Crimson stains alone remained.

  Han Sen pressed deeper—a whirlwind of righteous fury—cleansing street after street until the forest swallowed him.

  But before he reached the source, a figure dropped from the canopy.

  Landing silent.

  Directly in his path.

  “Who are you?” the man snarled, rags fluttering like broken banners. “To dare slay our children?”

  “Children?” Han Sen’s voice cut cold. “They are monsters devouring humankind.”

  “No.” The man’s eyes burned with grief and madness. “They are born of human wickedness—sent to purge the corrupt.”

  Han Sen understood.

  Enemy.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  He struck first—staff whistling with Five Thunders.

  The man recoiled, then drew twin short swords.

  Ochre crescents erupted—blade qi sharp as winter frost.

  Han Sen parried.

  The force slammed his chest.

  He flew backward ten zhang, spine cracking against an ancient pine.

  Pain bloomed—hot, deep.

  Internal wound.

  Blood rose in his throat.

  “The slayer of my children dies here!” the man roared, voice raw with loss.

  He lunged—movements savage, ape-like, blades tracing deadly arcs.

  Han Sen flowed—Five Winds weaving evasion.

  But this foe matched his speed.

  They spiraled upward through thorny pines, deeper into Phoenix Mountain’s shadow.

  Han Sen spun behind a towering trunk.

  Whispered the Vanishing Art.

  But before the words finished, a monstrous ape—black-furred giant—dropped from above.

  Claw struck.

  Han Sen twisted—too late.

  Ribs cracked like dry bamboo.

  He flew—a dozen zhang—body tumbling through the air like a severed kite.

  Another beast waited below.

  It leapt.

  Impact upon his shoulder—bone shattered.

  Han Sen crashed into the earth.

  Crater formed—zhang wide.

  Blood sprayed from his mouth, crimson upon green moss.

  Agony consumed him—fire in chest, ice in limbs.

  Breath ragged.

  Vision blurring.

  He struggled—lips forming the final syllables of Vanishing.

  Light faded.

  He dissolved.

  The horde arrived—sniffing, howling.

  The crater empty.

  The ragged man stumbled upon it moments later.

  Nothing.

  Only blood upon stone.

  He cried out—a primal wail echoing through pines.

  Monsters scattered, frantic search.

  FuFang Li fell silent behind them.

  No voice left to scream.

  Village annihilated—men, women, elders, children, infants—all devoured.

  Han Sen lay hidden in a narrow chasm deeper in the mountain—body broken, qi flickering like a dying ember.

  Breathe shallow.

  Pain endless.

  Helpless.

  For the first time since the pagoda, death whispered close.

  The dragon, wounded unto the edge of oblivion, clung to fading life beneath Phoenix Mountain’s indifferent shadow.

  And the world above burned on.

  The empire teetered upon the brink, yet the Emperor seemed blind.

  Reports poured in from every province—beasts from crimson gates, villages devoured, fields left fallow.

  Daizong read them, face impassive.

  For Li Fuguo had woven the court so tightly that even the Son of Heaven moved only when the eunuch pulled the strings.

  The Emperor showered honors upon him—titles, estates, praise that rang hollow in the throne hall.

  How magnificent was Li Fuguo!

  Cheng Yuanzhen, ever the shadow behind the shadow, fed his master endless flattery while quietly replacing old retainers with younger eunuchs—men bound to Li Fuguo by gratitude, to Cheng by fear.

  The Shence Guard bent the knee to gold and terror alike.

  Captain Lung Kiam—elevated for his “role” in Empress Zhang’s fall—received the rank of general and command of Longyou Circuit, the city of Shanzhou near Qinghai Lake.

  Once Tang had crushed Tubo's power there through generals like Li Jing and Hou Junji.

  Now Lung Kiam swaggered into a lavish estate, laughing loudly as he claimed two virgin brides, the most beautiful in Shanzhou.

  He who had once only dared glimpse palace beauties from afar.

  That night, the bridal chamber glowed with lanterns and incense.

  Wine flushed young cheeks.

  The general—naked, triumphant—rose above his trembling wives, senses drowning in fragrance and moon-white skin.

  Primal hunger, long suppressed, surged.

  Foreplay gave way to the feast.

  Then—a knock.

  “General! Disaster! Black panthers breach the walls!”

  Another cry: “They are inside the city!”

  Lung Kiam leapt from the bed, sword in hand.

  The paper-window exploded.

  Two massive panthers burst through—eyes yellow flame, fangs gleaming.

  The bridal bed ran crimson. Not with virgin blood.

  Far from Chang’an’s gilded halls, Li Fuguo remained ignorant of his loyal dog’s fate.

  Shanzhou lay distant.

  In summer, Daizong—face proud, heart hollow—bestowed upon Li Fuguo the title Prince of Bolu, with palace and estate beyond the walls.

  Military authority stripped away.

  Generals greeted the news with hidden smiles.

  Cheng Yuanzhen’s quiet hands had prepared the ground.

  Li Fuguo—martial artist, not statesman—had long chafed the commanders who valued soldiers’ lives.

  Farmers turned to spears through blood and drill.

  Brotherhood forged in shared hardship.

  Li Fuguo understood none of it.

  Cheng Yuanzhen rose in his place.

  The old eunuch, believing his protégé loyal, suspected nothing.

  Prince of Bolu retreated to his isolated palace.

  For a brief season, he floated among clouds—wine, silk, young attendants.

  Until one moonless night.

  Assassins came.

  Jianghu killers—Core Formation at least, lightness skill, silent as falling snow.

  Chosen and paid by Cheng Yuanzhen’s hidden gold.

  They slipped past guards like ghosts.

  Found Li Fuguo upon his opulent bed.

  Blades flashed twice.

  The Prince of Bolu died in a pool of his own blood.

  No cry escaped.

  Morning found him cold.

  The empire’s puppet-master cut.

  And in Chang’an, Cheng Yuanzhen bowed before the throne, eyes lowered in perfect sorrow.

  While Emperor Daizong gazed upon him with fragile hope.

  The monstrous tide surged across the land like a black flood, and the warriors of the jianghu rose to meet it.

  Many fell.

  Crushed beneath claw and fang, their qi scattered like autumn leaves before a winter gale.

  Yet a precious few fought on—unyielding, driven by honor or hunger—and pierced the secrets of the crimson swirls.

  They dared enter the hidden realms.

  Found the caverns where the greatest horrors waited.

  Too many perished there, overwhelmed by power beyond their grasp.

  The spawn poured forth unchecked.

  But some emerged victorious.

  Hands clasped wondrous artifacts—fans that commanded wind and flame, rings that bent light, spheres that whispered ancient truths.

  Some treasures bolstered qi to new heights.

  Others imparted lost techniques of the ancients.

  All were gifts from heaven, bestowed upon those who conquered darkness.

  Those touched by such fortune ascended swiftly.

  Foundation Establishment bloomed across the jianghu like spring plum after frost.

  A mere handful—two warriors alone—touched the first threshold of Core Formation, guided by knowledge sealed within a single mystic amulet.

  They became beacons in the growing night.

  Elsewhere, a ragged figure walked the roads.

  Where he passed, martial artists fell—righteous and wicked alike.

  Even bandits who had preyed upon the weak now knelt in terror.

  “I am the Dark Emperor!” the man proclaimed from a rocky outcrop, voice rolling like distant thunder.

  Hundreds knelt before him—foreheads pressed to earth, trembling.

  “I am Huang He, the Dark Emperor! All shall bow!”

  His power—pinnacle of Core Formation—appeared as sorcery to eyes that knew only muscle and bone.

  Few among the bandits could condense qi.

  Fewer still had reached Foundation Establishment.

  They saw a god.

  And bowed.

  Southward, the crimson swirls grew taller—some one and a half zhang, others two, a rare few three zhang high.

  No warrior beneath Core Formation could stand against a beast born of a three-zhang gate.

  Fortunately, such horrors emerged seldom.

  In the west, within the high plateaus of Tubo, a different storm gathered.

  Tens of thousands assembled.

  Then a hundred thousand. Weapons sharpened.

  Horses fed. Armor polished.

  The Kingdom of Tubo had suffered little from the lesser beasts.

  Now its king looked east.

  Toward a Tang empire bleeding from a thousand wounds.

  Trisong Dets?n smiled upon his growing host.

  The snow lions are prepared to descend.

  And across the realm, beneath Phoenix Mountain’s ancient gaze, a wounded youth clung to fading life.

  The dragon lay broken in darkness.

  While the world above marched toward greater ruin.

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