Hua led a gaggle of violent scholars down the cracked road, leaving a body in her wake. This was not the first time she’d left a body behind. Unlike some, she cared too little to count her kills. There were few people worth remembering in the first place, so why waste time tallying them all?


    With no destination in mind, Hua simply walked down familiar roads twisted by chaos and destruction, relying on her unconscious mind to lead. No matter how quiet things were now, she would eventually find someone, something, to focus on.


    The idea that nothing else remained but her and some scholars was too comical to consider. As she took in the sights, she realised just where she was. She squinted her eyes and considered that gaping emptiness in the skyline where a great building should have been.


    It turned out that a great ravine had swallowed whole the Taoist Temple of Winter Dragons. Hua walked to the edge and sat over it. Seeing the way it split an entire district filled her with a quiet awe. This part of the city had been flat and now it had two distinct levels, one of which was filled with a rubble-filled lake. There were bodies floating in the water, drifting as aimlessly as the peaked roofs that now lacked their bases. The great iron bell had snapped in half along its length. It floated serenely past headless guardian lions and a drowned priest. Carried within the curve of the bell was a trio of cats that meowed despairingly, trapped in a lake too great for them to swim.


    Qing sat with the cats, staring at Hua with a judgemental gaze.


    “Where else would mortals gather if the temple is destroyed?” she asked her new servant instead of facing that deep disappointment.


    “They may have gathered in the residential districts if they were relatively undamaged. This one cannot be certain as he was waylaid by assailants.”


    She waved away his pointed remark. They were still being followed by two of those assailants who had chosen silence as their means to survive. Hua wasn’t particularly interested in intervening again in their conflict. If Liu Xin was worth anything, he would prevail. If not, it wouldn’t change anything at all for Hua.


    “Why not the markets? Or anywhere outside the city?”


    “Mortals lack your ability to traverse such damaged environs. Based on the patterns of fire, the markets were consumed. With the damage to the roads, there is no guarantee people were able to leave. And if they did, what would they find outside the protection of the city walls? It might be worse outside than in here.”


    A quick answer. Hua appreciated that.


    “Wait here a moment.”


    With a sigh, she leapt away from the edge and across the newly formed lake. She landed with a quiet thud on the bell, sinking it abruptly. The cats hissed at her, leaping back and landing on the curved edges of the sheared bell. With the quick efficiency of a Cultivator used to much faster opponents, she grabbed them and squished them to her chest.


    “Are you fucking satisfied now?” Hua snarled as the cats clawed at her clothes.


    Qing didn’t answer.


    She wasn’t really there.


    But that was the thing with the dead. You may leave them behind, but they always follow you. No matter how far you went, they were always there. Always haunting you with their regrets and hopes and unfulfilled dreams. Sometimes, they had the gall to leave a ball of love to chain you.


    One more leap brought her back to the edge of the ravine. She dropped the ungrateful beasts and watched them bolt away in different directions. Not even loyal to their compatriots. They could have died together and yet refused to spend more than a second together.


    “Lead the way to the residential districts,” she ordered.


    Liu Xin bowed before doing so.


    There were bodies wherever she looked. She was pleased, though, to observe they were all corpses. Not a one was unconscious. It meant someone had found those who still lived and moved them. Maybe neighbours, maybe friends, maybe the helpful stranger only found in myth and story. The bodies in the street represented those who could not be saved and, though they had died hopeless, they made hope for others from the negative space of their existence.


    It would also mean fewer people to feed. She could not let go of the image of the Amber Sea turned crimson, wildfires engulfing the wheat fields that had fed the children of this now forsaken province. So greatly numbered were those fields of wheat that they were also named the Breadbasket of Empire. Would they endure now? The early bounties and harvest, would it be enough to see them through the coming winter?


    Who will lead us? she wondered. What remains of my Clan?


    She had yet to see someone with silver hair. The branch lines with their dark hair and darker eyes were unaccounted for. The few times she had seen the heraldry of their vassals, it had been attached to a corpse.


    One person became two, and soon they became groups.


    The residential district had been coloured black and grey by a mix of ash and choking dust. Entire blocks had been burnt to cinders and it was only the disaster of the reservoir basin cracking that had stopped the unmitigated spread of fire. The city had drowned more than it had burned and that was a miracle worth rejoicing in. If those waters hadn’t separated her from Qing, maybe she wouldn’t disdain them so greatly.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Between the burnt husks of old homes, there was chaos permeating the air. It smelt of sweat and blood, fear adding a sharp tinge to the pervasive smoke. The chaos was of the human varietal, that complicated mix of greed and shortsightedness that had become so prevalent. It revealed its mundane nature without fanfare.


    There, holding a corpse in his arms, was a father. He held a boy no older than twelve in his arms. His death had been quick; staked through the throat with a piece of jagged stone. Lightning had struck here. Yang Qi was prevalent, the scorch marks spread across the ground spoke of heaven’s fury.


    The grieving father was being threatened by a man with a sword. He was supported by a trio of his friends. This was so reminiscent of what she had just dealt with that she turned to make sure that her newfound servant and his enemies were behind her. They were and she made a gesture for them to stay quiet as she went to deal with the problem.


    The man threatening the father wore a priest’s regalia. She’d seen priests from the temples wear identical garb. Watched corpses dressed in the same regalia float in the new lake. When he had stolen it, she couldn’t be certain. Probably ripped from one of the many corpses. Shameless. Utterly shameless. He must be a bandit. No, not bandits, that implied far too much organisation. These were simple thugs taking advantage of the looting.


    What was wrong with peasants? Did they have no dignity? Couldn’t they see the smoke in the air or the swollen river swallowing parts of the city whole? Was this all that mattered to them? Petty gain that led nowhere.


    And worse, to dare do this without the strength to back their actions.


    Oh, yes, they thought they were strong. That was the problem. They always thought they were strong.


    “You think paper is worth your son’s spirit,” the false priest with the sword snarled, rattling his blade at the father. “If you want him to see peace, stop his Po spirit wandering, you’ll pay gold or you’ll pay silver. Show me that worthless paper again and you can greet King Yama with the boy. Now, give me the silver, you son of a whore.”


    There were other mortals simply watching this. Oh, yes, they whispered furiously, but they did nothing. Pitiful.


    Hua padded forward silently, slipping past the fake priest’s friends.


    She placed her hand on his neck and lifted him before he understood what was happening. Gripped his neck tight enough that he wasn’t going to escape. Not that someone who hadn’t even managed Body Tempering could escape her grip. All Cultivators who dreamt of touching the realm of Qi condensation needed to harden their bodies in preparation for manipulating Qi. The spirit reflected the body and vice versa. Temper the body and strengthen the spiritual vessels that would move Qi refined in the dantian to the meridians. Enough Qi would awaken the Meridians permanently, one by one, until the Cultivator glowed like a constellation.


    “What the fuck?” the hapless fake priest shouted.


    One of his comrades tried striking her. Hua was ready to deal with it.


    Liu Xin slid into place beside her and parried the blow. He drew his leg back and kicked the bandit in the gut. He landed with a crash into a wall that folded over and collapsed, cheap wood and bricks cascading down.


    Saving her that effort automatically made Liu Xin one of the one hundred most useful mortals Hua had ever encountered. And whilst she couldn’t name all those positions, or even think of faces for more than ten, she was sure she’d found a hundred useful mortals in her lifetime. Even if most of them were Clan servants.


    The priest squirmed violently. Tried elbowing her but Hua grabbed that arm and wrenched it up against his back. Pushed and pushed until it popped out. The priest screamed.


    The father’s lips curled with vicious satisfaction. Sometimes, divine retribution came just in time. She would let him revel in his glee for now.


    “Please stop screaming. I can hear you perfectly fine.”


    “You bitch. You’ll be cursed for this. Let me go and you can begin repenting before it''s too late.”


    She bent her elbow and curled her wrist so that he could say that to her face. When he saw her, he immediately coughed out a wad of blood, eyes widening further. He was lucky it hit the floor and not her damaged clothes. Such an insult would have been more than she could forgive.


    “My deepest apologies,” he said with blood staining his lips and teeth. “This priest did not know he was graced to meet a Daoist of the Liao Clan. Surely a fellow Daoist wouldn’t kill a priest? The cost of that karma is great.”


    “Fellow? You are no more a Daoist than I am the Yongtai Emperor. My life has not extended the full fifty-seven years of his reign, so it would be comical if I claimed it, just your claim is comical.”


    She turned to face the crowd, swinging the false priest with her. He choked out a curse. Ah, she’d squeezed too tight for a moment. Hua loosened her grip before he died. His death would happen when she decided and not a moment sooner.


    “When did this city become a hive of degeneracy?” she asked calmly to all present. She was taller than the man so they could all see her cold gaze clearly. “Have you already forgotten the name of your lord, the Liao Patriarch? Have you turned your faces away from his benevolence? Have you all forgotten that Liao stands Sentinel over the Amber Sea?”


    “My Lady, you cannot kill a priest,” one of the bandits said, throwing himself to the ground. “Please, forgive our injustices. We knew not what we did.”


    Hua blinked slowly, which the mortal took as a signal and kissed her filthy boot. Were all mortals incapable of answering her questions when she asked them? Why did they always try to waste her time?


    And why were they so fucking weird?


    “You are forgiven”


    She lifted her leg and brought it down on the bandit’s head. It splattered beneath her sole as the ground cratered. Someone, many someones, decided screaming was an appropriate course of action. Hua flickered her Qi and there was a boom of thunder that cut off their panic.


    “Hear me well, mortals, and remember these words for I will say them only once. He is Lord Liao Xiaosan, the Radiant Lightning Body, and I am Young Mistress Liao Hua who speaks with his authority!”


    She squeezed, then, her steely fingers digging through flesh and fat. Carving through a body as easily as one cut tofu. The false priest did not even have a moment to realise his death. His head hung over his chest, barely supported by the front column of his neck. His twitching body remained standing only because she held one of his arms. In an odd way, from here, the curve where his open neck met his head reminded her of a smile.


    Maybe crimson smiles were inevitable when someone in the Liao Clan was irritated.


    At last, she let the corpse fall to the ground. It landed with a wet thud that rang in the terrified silence. Liao Hua flicked her hand free of the tacky blood on her hand and returned her gaze to those who thought to defile the order her Clan had imposed on the city. Those who had sat back and fucking watched as the name Liao was dragged through the mud in front of their eyes.


    “Kneel at once or die standing.”


    They knelt, all of them. Even the violent scholars who were still following her. They knelt because power was authority, and Hua may as well be a god to these peasants.


    Qing would have hated this, but Qing wasn’t here.


    That apparition judging her didn’t count.