68: The Slaughter Game
When Shi Long let that True Immortal qi out, the whole compound went quiet. Not polite quiet. The kind where even the wind forgot its job.
There were a little over thirty cultivators hanging in the sky above the Shi household. The weakest of them was Spirit King, ninth stage. The one making the most noise was still Yan Chi, Divine Spirit, first stage, wearing the Ju Empire like it was sewn to his skin. Bei Lu was there too. Spirit Emperor. Formation already torn. His son's name still sitting in his mouth like an excuse he had not gotten to use.
They had all come for the same thing. Rogues. Small families. Sect leftovers. The Bei. The Empire. One rumor about a treasure that could push a man up the realms, and not one of them had stopped to ask who started the rumor.
When they first arrived they saw a formation covering the place. Some of them were strong enough to pick out the weak points. They never got the chance. The lock opened from the inside. Bei Lu was standing there looking stupid, and Shi Long was standing there with fire in his eyes, saying they should begin the slaughter game.
Nobody was scared of that line.
They looked at how strong Shi Long felt and decided it had to be the treasure. Greed did the rest. They did not notice that the qi coming off him was not ordinary cultivator qi. It did not climb. It did not struggle. It just was.
Yan Chi took out a scroll. The family men cupped their hands the second they saw it. The rogue cultivators did not even glance at him. Their eyes were on Shi Long, and on whatever they thought he was hiding.
"I am the envoy of the Ju Empire," Yan Chi said, with that elegance people use when they want to sound like a throne. "The Emperor sent me to present this message to Shi Long of the Shi family."
He read.
"The Emperor of the Ju Empire, Ju Han, orders the patriarch of the Shi family, Shi Long, to submit the treasure reported to be in Shi possession, and to contribute it to the growth and development of the Ju Empire and its people."
Contribute. People. The other powers' faces went sour. They all knew what that language meant. If the Shi had a thing like that and lived, Ju Han's empire would not last. Submit, get wiped. Refuse, get wiped. The words were just a nicer way to say the second one.
Shi Long laughed. It rolled over the courtyard.
"Ju Han knows how to play with words. My Shi family contributed until we were the weakest house in his empire. He felt threatened, so he sent our warriors to the front with no reinforcements. He took the lands he claimed he gave us. He took the businesses. He left us a mine, then he sucked that dry too."
Those fiery eyes sat on Yan Chi.
"Yan Chi. Tell me. Is that not enough contribution?"
After the pills, Shi Long had used one of the immortal tricks. World Sense. The memory of a place, laid open. He had watched his people die on Ju Han's front line. He had watched the Emperor count Shi corpses like taxes. So when he spoke, it was not guessing.
Yan Chi's face hardened.
"Shi Long. It is a capital offense to slander the Emperor of the Ju Empire. Punishable by death. As his representative, I will enforce this. You and your family end here."
Divine Spirit energy slammed down. The others actually flinched. For a second, the envoy looked like the strongest man in the sky again.
Then a cultivator in black drifted forward. Poison leaked off his sleeves. His nails were dark. Spirit Emperor, eighth stage. He smelled like a well nobody should drink from.
"Envoy Yan. I am the Poison King. Why don't we ally and share the profits. You keep the sacred treasure that speeds cultivation. I will take whatever is left. Their corpses included."
Yan Chi waved it off like a fly.
"I don't care about anything except the sacred treasure."
Hundreds of lives, mortal lives, did not even make it into the sentence.
The Poison King turned to the rest of them, poison spreading as he talked.
"Fellow cultivators. I, the Poison King, will carry out this punishment, since the envoy has already sentenced the Shi family to death. Whatever remains after Envoy Yan picks will be shared equally. Do you agree?"
They nodded, until they heard equally. Equally meant that after Yan Chi took the prize, they would kill each other for the scraps and call the winner fair. A lot of them started smiling.
"Charge!"
The courtyard emptied.
It did not empty because they were fast.
Time stopped. Space held still. That was an immortal's trick too. In the old stories, immortals also came back from death ten times. Shi Long had been given the costume. He did not feel like wasting extra lives on these people.
He walked through the frozen charge like a man crossing a quiet room and tapped the Poison King on the shoulder. The body started swelling around the tap, slow and ugly, like fruit that had stayed on the tree too long.
He stopped in front of Yan Chi and let the world run again.
More than twenty cultivators were simply gone.
The Poison King finished exploding in Yan Chi's face. Red. Wet. Over.
Shi Long looked calm. He always looked calm now. That was the pills, or the grief, or both.
"You think because you are Divine Spirit, you are strong? I could tell you about realms above Immortal. It would be wasted. You are going to die. And if you were thinking of letting that puppet out of a ring, don't. Naive."
Yan Chi's head did the only math greed knows. Sage. Higher. Treasure. If Shi Long had gotten this from a treasure, then Yan Chi could have it too. Hunger and fear sat on his face at the same time.
"If you think I am weak," he said, and his voice had already started shaking, "why don't you attack."
Shi Long did not answer him. He looked at the Spirit King ninth standing beside the envoy.
The bodyguard folded. Blood ran. Meat. The same ugly trick Anastasia had used on a different Ju dog in a different hall. Yan Chi hit the dirt hard enough to remember he had knees.
"H-how. How are you this strong. It has to be the treasure. Hand it over. The Emperor will spare your life. He will spare your family. He will reward you."
The puppet in the servant's ring had died with the servant. Yan Chi had used every option except dignity.
Bei Lu tried to leave.
World Sense found him anyway. Shi Long pinched. The Spirit Emperor who had come to talk about humiliation and intact corpses came apart the same way his formation had.
Shi Long looked down at Yan Chi.
"What a fool you are. You think I view this broken world as a threat. This world is going to face destruction by the devils soon enough. No need to worry. Those beings might even help. The sad thing is you will not be alive to see it."
He tapped him.
Yan Chi thinned, like breath on cold glass, and then he was not there.
Shi Long rose. The compound became a stamp. The city became a mark. The sky over that stretch of the cultivation world showed its cracks, as if it had been leaned on too hard.
He did not break the planet. He was not allowed that. He was allowed a voice.
"You are all ants."
…
In the Infinite Realm, the screen was still up.
Patrick had popcorn. Athena had stolen the bowl. Anastasia had his wrist, thumb idly tracing the bone, watching her father hang over a courtyard full of absences and try on a line that was not really his.
"He's learning," Patrick said.
"He's quoting," Athena said.
Anastasia's smile was faint.
"Let him. Ju Han still has an empire to lose."