6.20 - Return to Iron Gate City

The following morning, He Yu joined Tan Zihao in the palace courtyard. When He Yu stepped out into the early morning air, Tan Zihao was speaking with an official of the palace. The others were nowhere to be seen. As much as he would have liked to have bid them farewell, and given Chen Fei the chance to return from her journey, He Yu understood the need for haste. Sha Xiang wouldn’t wait any longer than she had to, so He Yu shouldn’t either.

Tan Zihao turned at He Yu’s approach. The palace official scurried off on whatever errand the king had set him to. “We depart.”

The golden cloud that Tan Zihao had stood upon when he’d greeted He Yu the day before appeared once again. This time it expanded, so it was large enough that it could easily accommodate the both of them. It was a welcome sight. As fast as He Yu had become with his advancement to Divine Body Attainment, he’d little doubt that Tan Zihao’s flying cloud was faster still.

As they rose into the air and the palace banners below snapped in the winds of their departure, Tan Zihao spoke. “My daughter will be along behind us. The armies of the Jade Kingdom will take some time to muster, but they’ll move through the desert more quickly than you might think. They won’t be a major factor in the coming fight, though. That’s why you and I are going ahead of them.”

He Yu understood. Iron Gate City would have its own forces stationed there under the command of the Li. Further, once Sha Xiang and Long Tingguang were dealt with, that would free up the more advanced experts within. As much as he didn’t want to think about things in those sorts of terms, an army of lower realm cultivators wouldn’t stand a chance against even a handful of Sixth and Seventh Realm experts. Once the leaders were dealt with, the battle would be as good as over.

“Why bring me, then?” He Yu asked. The question didn’t mean he was ungrateful—the opposite, really. Tan Zihao would be more than capable of dealing with Sha Xiang on his own. He Yu himself wouldn’t be of much help against an Eighth Realm expert with a demon core, either.

“Xiaoling told me or your relationship with this Lady Sha. I’d thought you’d want your chance. I do have my own reasons, too. First among them, I’d love to hear the account of your travels, what you found beyond the steppe, and how you managed to finally advance your art.”

It was about the answer he’d expected. Tan Zihao had proved himself to be as much a scholar as he was a warrior, so it made sense he’d want to learn about what He Yu had found. There may have been personal reasons for it too, besides those of academic interest. Tan Zihao had been in the Eighth Realm for a long time, after all. And while He Yu didn’t think the Golden Tiger Cultivation Law was of the same primordial sort as his own cultivation arts, Patriarch Sun Lei had mentioned that it was an old one. Anything He Yu could share may be of aid in Tan Zihao’s own advancement, or perhaps more importantly, his daughter’s.

This was the sort of information cultivators would typically guard jealously, though. But He Yu figured he owed the king, and he couldn’t deny that he’d come to value the mutual respect that had grown between them over the years. So he told his story. The recounting of it took some time, and when he’d finished, they were well away from Jade Mountain Citadel and soaring over the gleaming sands of the White Desert.

“Fascinating,” Tan Zihao said when He Yu had finished. “This Monarch of Sky’s Throne you speak of must be one of those ancient guardians the cultivator in the story claimed to have met.”

“I believe so,” He Yu said. “Pushing through the storm, and his following test of my spirit were both too similar to my tribulation to reach Golden Core. I can only imagine the feather he gave me was the sort of treasures this expert mentioned, too. I owe you a debt of gratitude for providing me with those tales.”

“Think nothing of it,” Tan Zihao said with a dismissive wave. “I said I’d help you after you fought alongside my daughter for so long. I meant that. Further, you strike me as the type of man who is a strong and loyal ally. One can never have too many of those, especially when embarking on a path such as the one we’ve stepped upon now.”

An understatement if he’d ever heard one. “I understand what you said last night about why you’re helping the Li. I get the feeling there’s more to it you haven’t said, though.”

Tan Zihao turned from where he was seated to fix He Yu in his golden gaze. “You have the right of it in that. I’ll answer you with a question of my own. Once you’ve defeated Jin Xifeng, what do you intend?”

He Yu opened his mouth to answer, then immediately shut it again. For the first time in all the years since the fall of the Dawn Palace and the Shrouded Peaks Sect, he realized he’d never given it much thought. He supposed that, deep down, he always assumed he’d simply carry on as before. He would keep reaching for the heights of cultivation. He would follow his Way, and grow his legend. He would simply be the hero he’d always envisioned himself as in his wildest fancies of imagination.

Tan Zihao’s question had, for the first time, forced him to really think about what it all meant. And now that he thought about it, the answer wasn’t as clear as he’d first thought.

Should he actually defeat Jin Xifeng, wouldn’t he already be at the heights of cultivation out of sheer necessity? She was at the peak of the Divine Soul Apotheosis stage after all—at least she had been when she destroyed the sect. For all he knew, she could have advanced to the Ninth Realm since then. Her arts seemed the kind to facilitate that, especially if she had access to the whole of the empire.

So, too, would he truly be a figure of legend. He would have fought and defeated an ancient expert, escaped from imprisonment and in control of the empire itself. One that, as Elder Cai had said, could not be defeated by any one foe. That defeating one such as Jin Xifeng, who grew in power by sapping the strength of her followers and who desired always for more, would make him into a hero in truth was a given. At least so far as he was concerned.

The question, He Yu realized, was one of what came next. In defeating Jin Xifeng, the very thing that had driven him so far for so long would cease to matter. He would have accomplished everything he’d set out to do. So, then. What came next?

He hadn’t the slightest idea.

“I ask mainly because you will be emperor after,” Tan Zihao said after a too-long stretch of silence.

The statement hit He Yu like a collapsing mountain. It wasn’t something he’d really thought about, but it wasn’t hard to see the truth of it, either. The imperial system depended heavily on who had the strength to rule. The noble clans all kept their positions by defending themselves against their enemies and any upstarts with lofty ambitions. That required strength. Jin Xifeng’s defeat would leave a massive power vacuum that only the strongest would be fit to step into—and by right of victory, He Yu would be the one qualified to do so.

He didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he’d an entire empire at his fingertips. This was more than his lingering, if lessened, discomfort at the idea of stepping into any sort of authority. It was a deep, almost visceral dislike of the very idea itself. In that moment, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather less do than rule an empire.

“Sounds boring,” he said. Like so many other comments in his life, it came out before he could stop himself.

Tan Zihao laughed. “Far more wise than your years suggest!”

The reaction at least made him feel a bit better. Although he wouldn’t expect Tan Zihao to insist it upon him, he had at least braced for some less than comfortable questions.

“You can ford that river when it’s time,” Tan Zihao continued. “You should give it some thought, though. Once it’s all said and done, there will be a lot of eyes watching what you do next.”

He Yu took the advice for what it was and gave Tan Zihao his thanks. As the sands of the White Desert raced by below, broken only by the occasional splash of green when they passed over an oasis, they spoke of the finer details of He Yu’s journey in the north. It turned out He Yu’s initial hunch had been correct, and the king was looking for insights into arts whose origins reached back to the earliest days of cultivation. He Yu shared what he could, and Tan Zihao filled in the rest with his vast knowledge accumulated through centuries of study. The back and forth they engaged in atop the golden cloud was both a welcome distraction from what lie ahead, and a valuable chance to organize the insights he’d grasped from his time in the north.

The pleasant times weren’t to last, however. At midmorning the following day, the walls of Iron Gate City came into view above the horizon. Moments later, so too did the imperial army beyond. He Yu opened the Peerless Judgment and took in what lay before them.

Iron Gate City stood much as he remembered it. A fortress of a settlement, surrounded by a high, sturdy wall and bolstered by ancient formation scripts. Those scripts flowed with power, and even from his current distance, He Yu could feel the thrum of the script’s power. Soldiers lined the walls, protected yet vigilant. Ready for the army outside to make its move.

That army, the forces of the empire itself, stretched far beyond the horizon. Tens, or even hundreds of thousands of cultivators, awaited the order to attack. The army camps were shielded by their own formation scripts, less powerful than those of the city, but deterrent enough. At the center of the vast field of bodies lay the command pavilion.

From what He Yu could gather, most of the army was made up of Body Refiners, with Golden Core officers leading them. A few presences at the Nascent Soul. Although none of them could threaten Tan Zihao or himself individually, a large enough pack of wolves could defeat the tiger. Unleashed on a city, a Body Refining expert could do damage enough. But the army wasn’t what He Yu concerned himself with. The command tent remained suspiciously still as they approached. Given what Zhang Lifen had said in her letter, he didn’t expect it to remain so for long.

“Shall we announce ourselves?” Tan Zihao asked. He hadn’t needed to. They both released their spirits at once, dispelling any uncertainty as to who had just arrived atop the soaring golden cloud.

As the raging storm and the great golden tiger revealed themselves, both the army camp, and the besieged defenders reacted. The formation script of Iron Gate City flared with power, a bulwark against the combined might of a Seventh and Eighth Realm presence fully unleashed. The army camp’s own formations activated, too. Soldiers themselves scrambled for their weapons. Qi blazed in the midmorning sun as a hundred thousand body enforcements activated at once, responding to what could only be an attack from two higher realm experts.

Finally, the response He Yu was most looking for flared to life. A cracked expanse of earth opened up in his spiritual sight, venting great plumes of toxic, sulfurous smoke. Molten rock oozed in slow-moving rivers across jagged, sundered stone, no less deadly for their lack of speed or urgency. Deep within the yellow smoke moved a shadowy figure, reeking of hunger and blood. Sha Xiang. It could be none other. Yet her presence wasn’t what he’d expected. Instead, her spirit contained a similar to potency to his own.

He Yu glanced at Tan Zihao. “Zhang Lifen said she was still peak Soul Refining,” he said.

“Seems you’re not the only one moving forward,” Tan Zihao answered.

Then, a second presence joined the first. This one was a gaping pit, filled with metal and shadow, blood and want. A yawning chasm ready to devour all who came close. It could be none other than the Eighth Realm the Zhang Lifen had said accompanied the army—Long Tingguang.

“Ready for a real fight?” Tan Zihao asked with a laugh too reminiscent of his brother’s.

As Sha Xiang and Long Tingguang rose into the air atop flying swords on the far side of Iron Gate City, He Yu summoned his guandao.

He was ready.