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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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"We cannot linger," Cao Pi said, his voice trembling but gaining strength as the reality of his new authority settled over him. Lead the way," Cao Pi commanded. "And send one of the fastest runner to the eunuch quarters immediately. Tell them to sound the silent alarm. The entire harem must be mobilized."
As the captain sprinted ahead to clear the path, Cao Pi and the advisors hurried down the wide, opulent corridors. The contrast between the men and their environment was jarring. They looked like walking corpses, dragging the stench of death through a paradise of silk and perfume.
They reached a set of massive, double doors crafted from fragrant rosewood, guarded by four eunuchs who fell to their knees in sheer terror at the sight of the blood stained prince. Cao Pi didn't wait for them to open the doors, he pushed through them himself, the heavy wood swinging inward to reveal the most heavily guarded sickroom in the empire.
Grand Concubine Bian's quarters were vast and bathed in the soft, warm glow of dozens of carefully placed lanterns. The air was thick with the scent of medicinal poultices and burning moxa. In the center of the room, resting upon an enormous, elevated bed draped in layers of golden silk, lay Cao Cao.
The mighty emperor, the man whose very name caused children to hide under their beds across the continent, was terrifyingly still. He was trapped in a profound, unyielding coma.
His face was a sickly, translucent grey, his breathing shallow and rattling. A team of four imperial physicians hovered around the bed, their faces pale with exhaustion and fear, checking his pulse and adjusting thin silver acupuncture needles arrayed across his temples and chest.
Sitting on a small wooden stool right beside the bed was Grand Concubine Bian. She looked exhausted, her usually immaculate hair falling loose around her shoulders. She was holding Cao Cao's limp, cold hand tightly in both of hers, her eyes red and swollen from hours of silent, desperate weeping.
When the heavy doors crashed open, the physicians jumped back in alarm. Concubine Bian's head snapped up, her eyes wide with indignation at the sudden intrusion.
But when she saw Cao Pi, followed by the ragged, soot stained forms of Xun Yu, Cheng Yu, and the coughing Guo Jia, the indignation instantly vanished, replaced by a cold, paralyzing dread.
"Pi?" Concubine Bian gasped, rising slowly from her stool, though she refused to let go of her husband's hand. She took in the sight of her son, the blood on his ceremonial armor, the wild, haunted look in his eyes, the sheer, unadulterated terror radiating from the great scholars behind him. "Pi, by the heavens, what is wrong? What has happened to you? Why are you covered in blood?"
Cao Pi walked toward the bed, his boots leaving dark, ashen footprints on the pristine white rugs. He looked at his unconscious father, feeling a crushing wave of inadequacy and grief, before forcing himself to look his mother in the eyes.
"Mother," Cao Pi said, his voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper, "we have to leave the palace. Now. This very instant."
Concubine Bian blinked, entirely unable to process the words. "Leave the palace? Pi, what are you saying? Your father is in critical condition. The physicians say he cannot be moved, the shock would kill him!"
"If he stays here, the shock will not matter, because his head will be separated from his shoulders!" Cao Pi snapped, the brutal reality of their situation breaking through his courtly manners. He stepped closer, grasping his mother's free hand. "I have already ordered the guards to inform the head eunuchs. The entire harem is being mobilized. You must tell your maids to pack only the absolute bare necessities. A warm cloak, sturdy shoes, and whatever small, high value jewels you can carry in a single pouch. Nothing else. We are escaping through the northern servant gates, into the mountains."
Concubine Bian's breath hitched. The walls of her protected world were violently collapsing around her. She looked from her son to the silent, grim faces of the advisors. Xun Yu, a man who had always preached stability and order, was nodding solemnly in agreement with the prince's panicked evacuation order.
"What... what has happened on the outside?" Concubine Bian asked, her voice trembling violently. "Marshal Xiahou Dun swore he would hold the inner fortress. He promised me."
Cao Pi's face contorted in a grimace of pure, unfiltered anguish. The facade of the stoic leader cracked, revealing a terrified boy who had just watched his world burn.
"We have lost, Mother," Cao Pi said, the words tasting like poison on his tongue. He gripped her hand tighter, his eyes welling with unshed tears. "We have lost everything. The inner fortress wall is gone. The Great Hall is a slaughterhouse."
Concubine Bian let out a small, strangled gasp, stepping backward and bumping into the side of the bed. "But... the generals? Xu Huang? Zhang He? Your uncle Xiahou Dun?"
"Gone," Cao Pi said, his voice hollowing out, delivering the death blow to her hopes. "All of them. Marshal Xiahou Dun led a suicidal charge to buy us the seconds we needed to escape into the tunnels. General Xu Huang, General Zhang He, Gao Lan, Yu Jin, my cousins Cao Xiu and Cao Chun... they have all been overwhelmed and captured. The defense is entirely annihilated. Lie Fan's monsters carved through them like wheat."
Concubine Bian brought a trembling hand to her mouth, stifling a scream of absolute despair. The invincible Wei army, the vanguard that had conquered the north, simply erased.
"And Lie Fan?" she whispered, her eyes wide with terror.
"He is in the Great Hall," Cao Pi replied, his voice urgent, pulling on her arm. "He and his men are securing the perimeter. Once they find the secret door, they will hack their way through the barricade. They are possibly marching here as we speak. Time is of the absolute essence, Mother. If we are caught, Lie Fan will not show us the mercy of captivity. He will end the Cao bloodline tonight. We must move!"
The stark, undeniable reality of impending death finally broke through Concubine Bian's paralysis. She turned to the terrified physicians.
"Prepare him!" she ordered, her voice suddenly finding a hysterical, commanding edge. "Pull the needles! Wrap him warmly! We are moving the Emperor!"
Outside Grand Concubine Bian's quarters, the silent alarm had rippled through the Harem Palace like a localized earthquake, unleashing a wave of absolute, unfiltered pandemonium.
The secluded, luxurious world of the Emperor's women and children, a place of quiet politics, silk dresses, and manicured gardens, was violently ripped apart. Eunuchs sprinted down the long, lantern lit corridors, their faces pale, banging gongs and shouting panicked orders.
"Evacuate! Evacuate to the northern gates! Take only what you can carry! The enemy is in the palace!"
The panic was instantaneous and total. The heavy wooden doors of dozens of private chambers flew open. Concubines, who only hours ago had been worried about their complexion and court gossip, spilled into the hallways in a state of sheer terror.
Maids ran frantically back and forth, crying openly as they blindly stuffed handfuls of pearls, jade hairpins, and gold ingots into small silk pouches, often dropping more than they secured.
The air was filled with the deafening cacophony of fear, the wailing of terrified toddlers being violently woken from their sleep, the shrieks of noble ladies tearing their expensive silk robes as they tripped over each other in the chaotic rush, and the shouts of the eunuchs desperately trying to herd the royal family toward the northern exits.
Young princes, boys who had never seen a drawn sword in anger, clutched wooden training swords, their faces pale and tear streaked as their mothers dragged them by their wrists.
Princesses wept over heavy chests of dowry items they were being forced to leave behind, while pragmatic older concubines barked orders to layer warm clothing, abandoning their makeup and finery for survival gear.
Priceless porcelain vases were knocked over and shattered underfoot. Silk tapestries were torn down to be used as makeshift blankets.
The opulent hallways of the Harem Palace quickly resembled a looted marketplace, littered with discarded slippers, spilled jewelry, and the frantic, desperate energy of a doomed dynasty trying to flee the slaughter.
Back inside the sickroom, the chaos was a focused, desperate undertaking.
Cao Pi and the advisors oversaw the extraction of the Emperor. The physicians, trembling with fear, carefully removed the acupuncture needles from Cao Cao's pale skin. They wrapped the comatose warlord in thick, heavy layers of wool and silk, swaddling him against the cold night air and the inevitable jostling of the escape.
"Careful! Support his neck!" Xun Yu commanded, his administrative mind trying to bring order to the desperate medical evacuation.
Two sturdy eunuchs and the Imperial Guards brought in a reinforced wooden stretcher. With agonizing care, the physicians lifted Cao Cao's slack, heavy body from the massive gilded bed and lowered him onto the canvas. He did not stir. His chest rose and fell with a shallow, rattling rhythm that sounded perilously close to a death rattle.
Grand Concubine Bian stood right beside the stretcher, her hands refusing to leave her husband's side. She had draped a heavy fur cloak over her shoulders, her pockets bulging with the few imperial seals and medicines she had managed to grab.
"We have him, Your Highness," the lead physician reported, wiping sweat from his brow. "He is secured. But moving him quickly... it is a massive risk."
"Staying here is a certainty," Cao Pi countered coldly, drawing his ceremonial sword once more. He looked at Guo Jia, who was leaning heavily on Cheng Yu, his face as pale as the Emperor's. "Fengxiao, guide us. The northern tunnels."
"This way," Guo Jia pointing toward the rear doors of the bedchamber that led out into the secluded inner courtyards of the Harem Palace. "We bypass the main gardens. Keep to the shadows."
With the Imperial Guards forming a tight perimeter around the stretcher, the desperate procession moved out of the warm, lantern lit bedchamber and into the cool, ash choked night air of the Harem courtyard.
They moved as quickly as they dared, the eunuchs straining under the weight of the unconscious Emperor. Cao Pi walked point, his eyes darting frantically from shadow to shadow. The distant sounds of the panicked harem evacuating echoed from the surrounding buildings, a chaotic soundtrack to their flight.
They were halfway across the manicured courtyard, approaching the moon gate that led to the northern servant paths, when the world suddenly froze.
From the main, southern entrance of the Harem Palace complex, the very direction they had just fled from, a sound erupted that shattered the night.
It was the unmistakable, terrifying clash of heavy steel meeting steel.
Cao Pi stopped dead in his tracks, his blood turning to ice. The advisors behind him froze, their breath catching in their throats.
"Protect the Emperor!" a Wei guard screamed in the distance, followed immediately by the sickening sound of a body being violently cleaved in two.
A cacophony of violence suddenly exploded into the tranquil gardens of the Harem Palace. The screams of the fleeing eunuchs and maids turned from panic into pure, unadulterated agony. The heavy, rhythmic thud of armored boots echoed off the stone pathways, moving with terrifying speed.
"They are already here," Tian Feng whispered, his eyes wide with horror, looking toward the southern archways where the flickering light of torches was beginning to cast long, monstrous shadows.
Lie Fan's forces had not just breached the Great Hall, they had sent flanking units scrambling over the inner walls, bypassing the primary chokepoints and dropping directly into the rear courtyards of the palace complex.
The Hengyuan soldiers, riding the high of absolute victory, were swarming the Harem Palace, cutting down the lightly armed eunuchs and inner guards with merciless efficiency. And as if to seal their doom, a secondary, entirely different sound of violence echoed from the very building they had just exited.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0