CC3 -CH14- (Patreon)

Finding Jia and Hou proved to be somewhat difficult.

They’d apparently ended up running into Xing city proper and were now somewhere in the streets. Dodging city guards and cultivators alike.

There wasn’t anything he could do to catch up to them, they were well and truly out of his sight.

Ju and the crown prince were much easier to locate, thankfully.

He’d been able to talk to several royal guards who knew what’d happened to them all.

Apparently the crown-prince and Ju had been secured in a warehouse not too far away. That his people were acting as guards at this time.

Arriving at said warehouse Ash felt better immediately. Na and Tala were standing out in front of the warehouse he’d been directed to. He imagined that Liu, Biyu, Shu, and Lifen were somwhere nearby, or inside.

Seeing everyone standing around and confidently he felt like things were at least going well here. That while they hadn’t been able to save the king, they’d saved a part of the royal family.

Ash dropped Tyan-yu down in front of Na and nodded his head at her.

“Chunhua is trying to find Jia and Hou,” he explained. “We ran down Tyan-yu. This is him. He’s alive and we can hold him on trial for what his people did.”

Tala sniffed and then pulled her sword down off her shoulder. She lightly prodded the tip against Tyan-yu’s side. There was no response from the man.

“How hard did you hit him, Ashley?” Tala asked in a curious tone. “Even my Elegant Self and my… aggressive… tendencies would have been more gentle.”

“He would have killed Chunhua,” Ash said simply with a shrug of his shoulders. “I was angry.”

“Ah, yes, that would make sense,” agreed Na, tilting her head to one side. “Locke was far more impressive than I had believed previously, by the way.

“Will I need to convey that to her later, or will she know this by you knowing this?”

“No need to convey it later,” said Ash with a smirk. “And yes, Locke is… very unique.”

Tala wrinkled her nose at that and lifted her sword back up, putting it up on her shoulder once more. It fit quite well there and she tended to prefer it there.

Forgot to get her new sword and give it to her.

“We have a whole task list of things to complete,” agreed Locke. “By the way, you just admitted to them that I know what’s going on. Including when you sleep with them. Let’s hope they don’t figure that out.”

“I like her, but also don’t like her. I feel like she’s a threat to my Elegant Self,” Tala said with a firm shake of her head. “But I suppose we’re well since past caring about how many women are around or with you.”

“Master Sheng does as he pleases, that includes whoever pleases him,” Na said with a chop of her hand and a glare for Tala. When she looked back to Ash there was clearly a statement in her words that she wouldn’t allow any further conversation. “What… should we do next? With the king dead, as well as Weng, that means Hu is now the king.”

Wait, his name is Hu?

You have no idea how hard it is to not break into a Who’s the king type of routine.

“Childish,” admonished Locke with a click of her tongue.

“The simplest answer is the easiest one,” Ash said while moving his hand across the space in front of himself. “It isn’t our concern. We our cultivators. We defended our relatives and now must step back. This isn’t a situation where we should weigh in on how to proceed.

“This is up to the government. They must decide how to proceed and what to do next. The realm is separated between government and cultivator, we must respect that division and work to keep it.

“As cultivator’s we must uphold government rules, but we’re more beholden to the Realm Lord than the king. There’s a reason for that and we’ll not go against it.”

“That seems very reasonable,” said Tala with a slow head nod. “It removes us from the problem outside of what we allow. It also gives us a chance to step back if need.”

“Indeed,” Na said simply followed by a sharp hand gesture. “I will inform Hu that we have secured the immediate area and inform him that we are awaiting his instructions. He can tell us how he’d like to proceed from there as you’ve stated.”

“Great,” Ash said with gratitude. He didn’t want to deal with the royal family. “I’ll go check over the bodies. See if I can’t figure anything out.

“That attack they killed the king with was fairly incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it if I’m being honest. It was like they were erased where-ever it touched.”

“I will go with you,” stated Tala. “It would be unwise if you were to move about by yourself. On top of that, my Elegant Self is considered a body-guard to you by my own volition. It would be very incorrect for me to not be with you.”

“Right, let’s go then. Na, thank you for handling this. I didn’t really want to,” Ash admitted to the Handmaiden. She nodded her head to him with a small smile.

Ash nodded in return and then started walking off, back toward where the family had met up.

Tala began walking next to him on his right side. Her big sword casually resting on her shoulder as her eyes, and ears really, scanned their surroundings.

“You know, I bought an entire lot at the auction when I visited it. It has a sword in it that I wanted to give to you,” Ash mentioned as they walked along. “I still need to pick it up from the auction house though. Everything kind of went to hell after I bought it. It’s what kicked all this off.”

With a soft snort followed by a chuckle, Tala glanced at him.

“You’re telling me that because you wanted to buy me a sword, you started off a royal family civil war?” asked the large rabbit-eared woman. “You cause waves in every action. If ever there was a person that could be compared to a large boulder being dropped into a still lake, it would be you. You cultivate chaos in your every action.”

Ash raised his eyebrows at that in thought.

“I don’t know about that,” he said after a few seconds. “I just tend to force things into action or inaction, to put them into their proper momentum.”

There was no response from Tala to that.

They continued on in silence for some time.

Eventually, they reached the meeting hall where everything had happened, Ash found there was a number of royal guards inspecting the area. They were slowly combing through the bodies as well as looking very alert and on guard.

They noticed Ash and Tala moving toward them and immediately reacted. Pointing spears and swords at them and clearly contemplating rushing them.

Ash held his hands up in front of himself, making sure to look like he meant no harm. There was the very real likelihood that these guards were loyal to the king, and therefore his son.

“I’m Ashley Sheng, married to Ju Langye,” Ash said coming to a stop ten feet away from the guards. “I was there when Hou killed the king and his uncle. My people were able to rescue Ju and Hu. They’re safely secured nearby.”

Relief flashed over the faces of the guards, their weapons lowering fractionally. They clearly didn’t want to fight Ash and were quite happy to hear his words.

“They’re secured in a warehouse,” Ash said, pointing back the way they’d come. “Just a few minutes walk that way. My people are still guarding them even as we speak.”

Next to him, Tala shook her head and let out a sigh. There was something wrong with his words that she really didn’t like.

“I will… lead you to them,” Tala said to the guards. “You’ll need to begin protecting your new king after all and without myself or Ashley there, you would be suspected as being a traitor. I’ve already killed a number of royal guards who dared to raise their weapons to the new king or his sister.”

Ah, that’s a good point. There’s a lot more going on here.

I keep forgetting.

“Yes. Yes you do. That’s alright. You have people like Na, Jia, and Mei around you for that,” Locke assured him.

Not you?

“Most definitely not me. I have my own troubles and issues dealing with you, your abilities, and the Hall. My plates quite full, thank you my Chosen One.”

“— thank you,” said the guard to Tala. The man’s helmeted head turned to someone else and he made a hand signal.

In very short order all the guards that’d been guarding the hall and the bodies inside rounded themselves up. They formed themselves into a column that looked ready to march or immediately break into a fight at a moment’s notice.

“Please, take us to our king,” said the guard at the front. It was obvious he was some type of leader of the group in front of them, though Ash couldn’t distinguish any difference in them from the others.

“I’ll have Locke assist me,” Ash murmured, catching Tala’s eyes with his own.

There was immediate relief visible in Tala at those words. She didn’t respond to his comment but instead started walking back the way they came from.

The guards trooped past Ash, following Tala as she led them.

Dismissing them all from his thoughts, Ash went to the meeting hall and entered.

Looking to the room, it looked nothing like how he remembered. He began to slowly walk around the room, taking stock of everything that he could see.

He only spent a few minutes doing it, but he felt better for it. There was more to see, and yet less as well. He couldn’t really see anything immediately of the ordinary.

“Such a mess,” whispered Ash to himself.

In the next instant, Locke appeared beside him.

“I was a bit rough with the room, I admit,” she said with a shrug of her right shoulder while putting her left hand on her hip. “So far as I can tell… nothing’s changed since I finished up here.”

“Mm, I’m not really concerned. That’s more of the royal family’s issue than mine,” Ash said, walking over to where the corpse of the king was.

His upper half was face down in the ground in front of his own boots. The lower half had remained seated as if nothing were the matter at all.

Getting down in a crouch, Ash fingered the clothes out of the way and looked to the wound that’d been made.

It was a strange thing to Ash as he looked at it.

The flesh looked like it’d been hit by a laser, to him. With edges that were clearly seared and burnt but made in a very neat and clean line.

“While I have no experience with a ‘laser’, its looks like this was made by a very hot fire that was directed into a small area. A lot light focusing light through a magnifying glass,” said Locke, standing over Ash.

“Similar enough,” muttered Ash and shook his head. “This was that Life-Qi, wasn’t it? He used that as fuel to power this attack.”

“Yes. He tried to use it on me several times, but as I was expecting him to attack me, I deflected it easily. You could do the same with your condensed Qi alone, as you already demonstrated,” Locke explained. “Realistically, this is more useful as a surprise attack than anything else. Not so much in an actual fight.”

Ash grunted at that and then ran a finger along the wood of the chair the king had been sitting in. Poking at it with his fingertip.

It crumbled away like ash or charcoal at the slightest touch. Though the wood underneath didn’t seem to have any problems whatsoever.

He could clearly see the wood grain and it looked completely intact and without problem. As if it hadn’t been struck at all.

“Right, we’ll have to figure out some way to warn our people about this… Life-Qi,” mumbled Ash as he turned to look to Locke. “While anyone could of course attempt a surprise attack, this one seemed particularly powerful.

“A touch was all it took to absolutely destroy anything it landed upon. That’s a very dangerous thing that could be launched at any time.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult but I have no answer for you at this time,” Locke said, giving him a dashing smile. “I’ll work on it since I have test subjects I can utilize as well.

“Those two I captured… well, I left their Life-Qi with them. I didn’t want to utilize it in the Hall or for myself. Nor did I want to just disperse it since I wasn’t sure of our need.

“I can just test on them while torturing them for information. I mean, we do need to learn more about them after all.”

Ash felt queasy at the idea of torturing people, but then realizing he was being stupid. That realistically, while they were people, they were his enemy.

They deserved none of his morality and in this veil, at this time, morals were a weakness he couldn’t afford.

The dead could preserve their morals, he could buy his way out of hell and soothe his conscience at a later time. Something to worry about in his free time and not trying to simply survive.

“Great, do that,” Ash confirmed with a nod of his head. “Did you manage to get any good loot out of them? Or the leader?

“I imagine you took his body as well since I don’t see it. He was rather powerful, I can’t imagine he didn’t have a storage ring on his person.”

“He did. I’m still sorting through it’s contents honestly when I have time. I’ve been rather busy and there’s only one of me,” apologize Locke with a flip of one hand that ended with her fingers pointing at herself. Ash couldn’t deny it looked cute. “Besides, the world can only handle one of me.

“Let alone you. You can barely handle any of me, can’t you, Ashley Sheng, my Chosen one?”

Locke took a step toward him with her final words and halved their distance. He was suddenly reminded of just how beautiful she was.

“Indeed,” he said and then cleared his throat. “So, nothing so far from his storage ring? Or the others?”

“No, not yet. I’ll work on it, don’t you worry. Just busy,” Locke murmured, her eyes holding tight to his own.

Then she made a soft noise that sounded a lot like a sigh. She turned her head and looked off toward a doorway.

“We’ll be joined shortly by what feels like a royal guard. I sense no killing intent or hostility from them. I’ll go back to the Hall and get to work for now,” said Locke, who simply vanished.

Putting his hands behind his back, Ash turned to the door and then waited quietly. He saw no reason not to make it known that he knew this person was coming.

Ten seconds passed and a royal guard came through the doorway. He was dressed exactly as Ash had seen most of them and nothing out of the ordinary stood out to him.

The helmeted head was entirely focused on Ash.

“Honorable family-member to Langye,” said the guard who then gave him a salute with his left hand pressed to his chest in a fist. “I have been tasked to request your presence and that if you’re available, to please join the royal family.

“The esteemed king Hu Langye will be holding court in the main family room of the royal mansion and has asked that you please attend him and provide him with your experience and expertise.”

In other words, make sure that he remains safe while working to shore up whatever the problem is with his court and council.

That doesn’t seem like much of a problem.

“Of course. Though I would ask, where are my companions? Did they travel with my brother-in-law? Are they with my wife?” Ash asked, tilting his head to one side.

While the request was reasonable and he saw no reason to decline it, he certainly wouldn’t be going there without everyone else.

“They did indeed travel with his majesty to the royal mansion,” confirmed the guard, with a short nod of his head. “Your wife asked that they remain with them until they at least arrived to their current location.

“She was very concerned that the… the traitors inside the royal guard itself would attack them. Which I cannot say I fault her for.”

“Very well, I’ll of course join Hu at the royal manse shortly,” said Ash. “Though, may I ask if he’s given any instructions to the royal guard yet? His council? Has he dispatched any messengers?”

“Only one, honorable family-member. A missive to the Realm Lord stating that there would be a period of unrest while the government reconsolidates around him due to his father’s unexpected death,” explained the guard.

Hm.

That’s a good point and rightfully the first letter that should be sent. Letting the other part of the governing body of this realm know that there is currently a change-over in progress.

I hadn’t even considered it but it makes perfect sense.

“Go, I’ll catch up shortly. I know the way,” lied Ash. He’d be relying on Locke to help him find the way. He just didn’t want the guard tagging along with him if he decided to move faster than a normal citizen could keep up with.

“Of course, thank you, I will relay your intent to his majesty,” said the guard who then fled. Leaving Ash alone with corpses and a broken room.

Taking in a slow breath, Ash then let it out, taking a final look around the room.

For some reason, he felt like this was more than just a change in government.

That this was far more insidious and was a much greater problem than he currently could grasp. More was waiting for him, so to speak, just around the bend.

Lying in wait for him.

“Remember this moment, Ashley Sheng, because this is probably where it all goes to shit,” Ash said to himself, then shook his head and left.