332 Mount Qingshi

Deep beneath Mount Qingshi, the air hummed with power. The chamber was vast, carved from obsidian and inlaid with veins of gold that pulsed faintly with qi. I sat upon a throne sculpted from dragonbone, its armrests alive with faint blue runes that connected me directly to the dragon veins slumbering beneath the mountain. Qi flowed through me like an endless tide, calm, steady, and terrifying in its depth.

How did such a place come to be?

Mount Qingshi had never been just a mountain. It was Nongmin's greatest secret, a sanctuary forged from foresight and paranoia. Long before the Civil War even began, he had spent hundreds of years quietly hollowing out its heart, carving vast chambers beneath layers of bedrock and qi-sealed stone.

What appeared on the surface as a barren, lifeless mountain was, beneath, a labyrinthine fortress, filled with hidden armories, alchemical vaults, spiritual furnaces, and libraries of forbidden texts. The dragon veins running through its roots were redirected by Nongmin's design, woven into a lattice of defensive and restorative formations that could sustain life for centuries if needed.

And at the very core of it all was the throne, the structure's crown jewel. It wasn't merely a seat, but an artifact-throne built to interface directly with the mountain's veins, allowing whoever sat upon it to draw from the life-force of the earth itself. Through it, I could command the facilities, direct qi flow, and even sense intruders through the mountain's pulse.

It was a citadel, laboratory, and resurrection chamber all in one, Nongmin's legacy to me and the birthplace of the New Empire.

And now? It was almost time to end the Civil War.

Around me floated motes of blue light, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, each one a dormant Manasoul, their glow flickering like trapped stars. They drifted lazily through the air, resonating softly with my breath. I watched them as one might watch embers in the dark, mesmerized yet wary.

Each Manasoul had been born from quintessence, the purest form of life energy I could muster. But unlike true souls, they lacked qi; they were made mostly of mana, inert until I breathed vitality into them. With enough qi infusion, each one could be used as the core for an Ultimate Skill. A shortcut, of sorts, and a way to sidestep the exhaustion of raw creation.

It was convenient, efficient, and dangerous.

I had stopped counting how many times the thought of what I was doing unsettled me. To create souls was one thing, but to use them as ammunition was another. But wars were not won by hesitation.

My gaze wandered from the orbs to the bustle before me.

Dozens of mortals filled the underground hall, training, working, and serving. Some practiced the martial forms passed down from New Willow's cultivators; others hammered away in the forge, sparks flying as they shaped new weapons; the rest cooked, carried messages, washed, and prayed.

And then there were the corpses.

I lifted a hand, and an attendant, a young woman wearing the white robes of a shrine novice, brought forward another cadaver. The lifeless body was laid upon a jade slab as several others fed spirit stones into the humming machine beside it. The runes lit up, channeling the gathered energy through conduits that shimmered beneath the floor.

"Ready," an attendant murmured.

I extended my hand and uttered a Divine Word.

"Divine Word: Raise."

Light erupted from my palm. The corpse shuddered, color returning to its flesh as its eyes fluttered open, glassy and confused. Gasps filled the room.

"W–what… where am I?" the man whispered.

A woman screamed. "He's alive! The dead have risen!"

"You were dead too, idiot!"

"Is this the work of a god?" another murmured, trembling.

I ignored them and continued my work. My voice was calm, steady, as I chanted again and again, reviving body after body. Each time, the mortals recoiled in awe and fear. When the last of the cadavers drew breath, I followed with Blessed Regeneration, sealing wounds, restoring limbs, and knitting scars.

Fingers regrew. Eyes reformed. A boy gasped as he flexed an arm that had been missing from the shoulder down.

"Impossible," he whispered, tears falling freely.

"Miracle," an older woman breathed, kneeling.

Before I could speak, my attendant stepped forward, his voice sharp and clear.

"You stand before His Eminence, Da Wei, the Great Guard!" he proclaimed. "Pay your respects to the future ruler of the New Empire!"

The hall erupted in murmurs and movement as the mortals fell to their knees, foreheads pressed against the floor. The sound of their devotion echoed like rain.

I'd never grown used to this. No matter how often they called me Eminence or Great Guard, it never sat comfortably in my chest. But this was how they understood reverence and to take that from them now would be cruelty. Still, I swore that someday, under my rule, they would outgrow the need to kneel.

A sharp voice cut through the reverent silence.

"Do you fools not know who I am!?"

A richly dressed man pushed through the crowd, fury twisting his features. He unleashed his Fourth Realm cultivation, the pressure rolling across the hall like a sudden gust. "I am the grand nephew of the Left Magistrate! How dare you—"

He stopped when another presence burst forth beside me, older, deeper, and infinitely heavier.

"And I," said my attendant coldly, "used to be your Emperor."

The words struck like thunder. His qi exploded outward, Tenth Realm cultivation flattening the air.

The noble's color drained from his face. His eyes darted between the man standing proudly beside my throne and the massive portrait that hung above us, a painting of Emperor Nongmin, adorned in his imperial regalia. Above that, larger still, loomed a painting of me, clad in divine armor, the colors inverted, my figure dwarfing his.

The noble's mouth opened, but no sound came out. His arrogance melted into sheer terror as understanding dawned. He looked once more between the paintings, my throne, and Nongmin's piercing stare.

Then he dropped to his knees.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence! Forgive my insolence!" he cried, pressing his forehead to the floor until blood stained the tiles.

Nongmin's voice cut through the hall like an iron gavel. "You have two choices: serve in the coming war… or die."

I did not relish these moments. Coercion left a taste in my mouth I could never quite wash away. Still, wars were not won on sentiment. They were won on commitment, numbers, and the willingness of the people to bleed for something larger than themselves.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Their voices rose in a chorus of fear, worry, and rash impulse, pleas and curses braided together until the hall itself seemed to tremble.

"Silence!" Nongmin's bark silenced them. "Decide at once."

I let my voice fall calm and measured into the hush. "If leaving is your choice, go," I said. "Take your chances with the wide world. I will not chain you. But know this: the traitors who run amok in the Imperial Capital still live. They prey on the weak and the fleeing. Choose to leave now, and you gamble your life. Choose to stay and you accept a different danger, but also a promise."

Heads swiveled. Eyes found me like iron filings to a magnet. A woman in the back whispered, "What promise?"

"You may not be a soldier under a banner," I explained, "but you can be part of a community that eats with you, sleeps with you, and fights for the same roof. Hidden cities welcome those who resent the Seven Imperial Houses and their taxes, and their martial law that strips people of freedom in the name of order. If you remain, we will teach, train, and shelter you. If you leave, the world will take what you brought into it and more. Make your choice."

For a long beat, no one moved. Then, almost like a tide, a quarter of them did. They rose in a quiet line, some dragging children, others clutching bundles of clothes. My attendants guided them toward the tunnels in small, ordered groups. Each one was blindfolded before they stepped away. I had instructed that precaution: if the traitors watched for movements above, they must not be able to map the paths back to the mountain. Darkness would be their shield for the first few miles of freedom.

Seeing them go pricked something sour in my chest. Freedom chosen in blind haste, some would survive, some might not, but I could not stop those who believed in risk. The men and women who went carried tears and curses both; some sobbed with relief, others with fear. I watched them until the last blindfold vanished into the passage.

The hall remained, thick with reluctance. Those who stayed pressed closer to the steps of the throne, voices small and urgent. Mothers begged for sons; old women choked for husbands; a young man with a shard of a badge begged to find the rest of his unit. Faces that had once belonged to market stalls and temple corners now looked to me and Nongmin as though we could unmake grief with a single edict.

I told them the truth.

"Reuniting the living with the missing will be difficult," I said. "We have coffins and names from the city registers, we have scouts and informants planted in the ruins of the capital, but war eats records like flame. If you go now, your chance of finding a lost love drops drastically. If you stay, we can trace, we can wait, and we can trade favors and information. We can bribe quartermasters for manifest lists, we can pay scribes to dig into old ledgers. Most importantly, we will be able to search together; organized searches are far more likely to turn up survivors or at least proper graves."

A woman pressed her hands to her mouth. "Can you promise we will be reunited?" she asked, voice thin with the ache of hope.

"No," I answered honestly. "I cannot promise the tides of war nor the mercy of fate. But if you stay, you will not search alone. Your burden will be shared. And if a path to reunion exists, we will find it together."

They weighed that, and slowly, a new current formed. Hands reached for one another; a smith wiped his face with an oil-stiffened sleeve and declared he'd stay to make spears; a pair of schoolteachers volunteered to run the children's training. Even the noble, who had knelt and begged forgiveness, rose and spoke again, steadier than before. "If this is how the Empire will be mended, then let my hands serve. Give me a post. Give me purpose and I will not retreat."

Nah… I think not so easily…

Nongmin nodded once, the motion like a gavel. "Then it is settled. Those who remain will be assigned." He looked at me, and there was no softness in his gaze. "Is this to your satisfaction, Your Eminence?"

"Yes…"

Those who left would be fine, I reminded myself. They had soaring vessels to bring them closer to civilization. We'd probably insert our spies, while at it, but I guessed that should be fine.

An attendant began reading names, pairing recruits with trainers, assigning tents and watch rotations. Children were placed with teachers, and the elderly were given lighter duties. Scribes were dispatched to my information pool to cross-check missing persons. Scouts would set out at dawn to bring back any word of survivors in the capital's outskirts.

As they organized, the mood changed from raw fear to a brittle resolve. There was talk of food rationing, of forging schedules, of who would be sent to the southern forges and who would learn to ride wolves on the east ridge. They argued, worried, and made pacts. Those small human things from complaints about food, about hard beds, and about who kept the wood warm, were the scaffolding of communities. It steadied me to hear them.

"This is gonna work, believe more in yourself, Da Wei…"

Every exhale I made carried motes of radiant mist, dissipating over the rows of newly awakened mortals. The jade slab pulsed with runes beneath my hands. Every time I channeled power into it, I could almost hear it breathe.

There was probably a smarter way to do this, but we needed our numbers. The war had dragged on for a century, and attrition was our greatest enemy. The resurrected mortals were led away in orderly lines, guided by attendants to record their names and assign them duties. Some would fight, others would till fields, mend weapons, or craft supplies.

The jade slab had been made by Nongmin and Gu Jie, working to make it easier for me to resurrect the dead. So, I worked.

I reached into my pocket dimension, pulling out more cadavers from young, old, men, women, and whatever remained intact enough to be restored. The attendants quickly arranged the bodies. I pressed my palm to the slab once more, and white light surged outward, crawling like rivers of lightning through the corpses. One by one, they gasped back to life.

While I worked, I multitasked, my consciousness split across several fronts. Within my mana road, I refined more Manasouls, each one glowing faintly blue as they orbited me like fireflies. With every breath, more came into existence, tempered with qi, and shaped by quintessence, each one a seed of potential destruction or salvation.

I glanced through my inner sight, watching my Six Souls at work.

The Animal Soul had nearly reached Riverfall; the army there gathered under its banner, restless and ready.

The Ghost Soul remained with Gu Jie and Ru Qiu, while they continued to analyze the barrier surrounding the Empire. I felt a pang of worry for New Willow, vulnerable without them, but Chief Wan Peng was steady and pragmatic. He'd hold.

The Asura Soul waged guerrilla warfare, striking the Seven Houses' supply lines alongside Zhu Shin's soldiers. Each death they caused became another body brought here for resurrection.

The Human Soul, with Alice and Da Ji, stalked the shadows, cutting at the enemy's core, unraveling their strategies before they even reached the battlefield. They took advantage of whatever advantages the Shadow Clan and those who sympathized with our cause could offer.

Meanwhile, the Hell Soul and Heaven Soul were with Lu Gao and Jue Bu, their combined strength gathering for the inevitable clash as they worked to hunt heretics, while they waited for imminent battle. I'd asked Liu Yana to loan the Heaven Soul to Jue Bu temporarily. If we were to end this war once and for all, every fragment of my power would need to burn bright.

Just as I finished reviving another dozen men, the jade slab dimmed and entered my visitors.

"The Isolation Path Sect is here," said Nongmin evenly. "They bring more of the dead. Thousands of them."

It had been a long time since I last saw Jiang Zhen. He still carried himself like a shady person, his long robes dusted from travel, his hair streaked faintly with silver. Behind him trailed his disciple, Fan Shi, who looked far too serious for her age.

"You look older than the last time I saw you," I said, standing from the throne. My voice carried easily through the hall, resonating faintly with the qi that flowed from the dragon veins beneath Mount Qingshi.

Jiang Zhen gave a small, weary chuckle. "Don't think too much about it," he replied, running a hand through his graying hair. "My cultivation technique is strange just like that. A decade in meditation for me might as well be a lifetime for someone else."

Fan Shi stepped forward and bowed deeply. "Greetings, Lord Wei. We've come with more bodies."

The air grew somber again. The Isolation Path Sect had long abandoned the pursuit of immortality for a far humbler duty, undertaking. They were the silent shepherds of the dead, collecting what was left of those who fell in battle, famine, or plague. I had hired them years ago to recover the fallen from across the war-torn lands. Many of those who died alone, nameless, would find a second life through my hands.

I gestured toward the wide chamber, where the faint smell of incense and sanctified ashes lingered. "You've done well," I said quietly. "I trust you haven't encountered too much trouble?"

Jiang Zhen sighed. "It's getting bad out there. Bandit groups are becoming more common, most of them made of deserters and scavengers now. The common folk don't stand a chance. And the sects…" He shook his head. "Most are closing their doors, turning inward. No one wants to be involved in this endless Civil War. They're content to let the world burn as long as their walls hold."

I met his gaze and saw the same tired conviction that mirrored my own. "Then we'll end it soon," I said. "One way or another."

He smiled faintly, a ghost of the man I once sparred with under moonlight. "I hope you bring a conclusion to this sooner, my friend."

From within his robes, Jiang Zhen drew out a storage ring etched with faint golden sigils. It pulsed lightly in his palm with a heavy presence of death resting within. He handed it to me with both hands.

I took it, feeling the faint chill of residual yin qi brush against my fingers. With a flick of thought, I transferred its contents into my pocket dimension, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bodies waiting for rebirth. Then, I returned the ring to him with a nod of gratitude.

"Your efforts won't be forgotten," I told him. "Every one of them will rise again. And when they do, they'll have a home… and a purpose."

Jiang Zhen inclined his head, his eyes dim with weariness yet still steady. "Then I'll hold you to that, Da Wei."

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