+18 Volume 2 -Interlude One

-Interlude One-



~~~~Ci Zi~~~~

The Ash blanketed the world around me, it's physical presence muffling the screams that have followed me for years.

They were begging for mercy now, mercy my troops were delivering to them.

They are stronger now, the walls of the spider hall I walked through amplifying them for some strange reason. I could never figure out why they did that.

Was it a purposeful design choice? Was it an accident? Were the spiders aware of the effect it had on me?

Was it just a trick of the mind?

I don't know and I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago. I would have to talk with a spider to find that out and the spiders have proven two hundred years ago that they do not care for anything we have to say.

One step after the other I walked through the bare walls, albeit that wasn't quite true.

To the naked mortal eye these walls were barren, but to my own the glowed with the broken remnants of the Protective Formation the Spider Hold used to have. Even now, broken as it was I can feel it trying to slow me down, to attempt to preserve it's masters and grant them but one second more of life.

It too burned behind me, my flames turning what was once pristine into scorched stone.

My feet carried me through the Spider Hall, it's labyrinthine Corridors serving their purpose of slowing down invaders by being annoying to make sense of and wasting the time of any would be invader by being long and windy.

I wasn't in any rush for now. The Spider Hold was surrounded, it's Nascent Soul dying as she tried to break through our encirclement and run, the tunnels were collapsed and all that was left defending the things inside were some Third Tier Warriors my Nascent Souls were busy dissecting the minds of.

A door now barred my path and it too burned, the alchemically enhanced artifact not being made to resist the flames of a Nascent Soul, let alone a Soul Warrior.

I stepped in the room and looked around. It was like all things spider made beautiful. Spider silk sheets and drapes of a hundred colors, deeply textured red woods to serve as furniture with the rare white cushions reserved for the most important of guests. There were three of them, compared to the more normal black cushions which I assume were reserved for the Third Tiers or their favored progeny.

This was a dinning room, and while it's occupants have ran away, their food on one of the tables was still fresh.

"Have the masters returned to continue their meal?" A young female voice asked me, her voice hopeful.

I looked at the source of the voice with pitiless eyes. The last living creature in this room deserve my pity, but I have found that I have none to give anymore.

"No child, they will not finish their meal." I informed the girl which asked that.

She couldn't have been older than ten.

"They shouldn't let the food get cold." Said the spider's food.

I moved closer to the source of the voice, one of the many large plates holding the corpses of human children. They weren't corpses when their feast started, but it seems that they had since bled out.

Each of them had vacant gazes, those few that still had eyes, while I had only their blank faces to figure out what they thought in their last moments. All of them looked vaguely disappointed.

As I came closer to the living girl I could see why she survived. She was bald, missing her eyes, her left foot as cut at the knee and she was missing all of her fingers and toes. She survived because the spiders who were eating her liked to cook their meal fresh and so their tools would cauterize the wounds they caused as they cut pieces of her flesh and bones up and stored them.

I could even see the cutlery piece that has done this to her and it was still sizzling, the human fingers inside of it kept at the temperature and sizzling it's former wielder found most 'delightful'.

Despite her lack of eyes of the girl was still trying to use them to focus on my presence, I could see the way her muscles near her eyes tried to move what wasn't there anymore.

This was one of things the spiders wished to make of my people. Obedient creatures that can only feel what the spiders want them to feel, that do not care for pain, or loss and that are addicted to specific types of Qi.

"Do you not feel pain child?" I asked it, my voice far softer than it had been in centuries.

This isn't the first such feast I've found, but it was the first that still had meals that lived. I sincerely hoped that I did not find another.

"It hurts, but the masters made me feel happy and loyal. I can feel… something… something cold, but I don't want to be cold, I want for the masters to have a warm meal. Are you a master? Can I feed you to be happy before the cold takes me?" She asked me, her tone hopeful.

Something broke inside of me the more she spoke, something that I thought was already broken and couldn't be mended, but the spiders continued to prove my opinion of them wrong and they once again managed to break something inside of me.

These creatures and their ancestors used to be human, they used to be kin, they still look like us even, and yet we've learned after many harsh lessons that they are nothing but tools for whatever holds their leash.

I screamed, for the first time in hundreds of years, from a time when I was even younger than the girl before of me, I screamed in pain that transcended the physical and the voices of the damned had one more voice added to its choir.

The world broke and the burning spider hold were replaced by my bedroom.

"Aaaah, ah ahah" I dry heaved as I awoke from the dream.

I was already at the edge of my bed and I was thankful I didn't have anything to puke, because I am sure I would have by now.

I didn't eat before going to sleep specifically to avoid puking from my dreams, lest my servants whine too much about it again. They enjoy doing that and I enjoy laughing at them when they can't easily find something to whine about, but even without that, I would rather not give them more work than I need to.

"Another nightmare your majesty?" My personal maid Tao Dong asked me.

She was already near my bed with a small metal wash bowl filled with cold water on a small cart and towels in hand.

She was wearing a pale pink uniform today for some reason. My mind tried to figure out why, before I remembered. I am having a meeting today and it's protocol for maids to wear more subdued colors when serving strangers.

Just one more of the trends that come and go. I remember when it was the opposite and maids had to wear colors so vibrant they almost glowed whenever serving guests.

I nodded and proceeded to splash some water on my face to calm down. The cold water had Ice Alligned Qi in it for my skin to react to it. I imagine it could freeze mortals solid in seconds, but it was the bare minimum for me to feel anything but the touch of water on my skin.

It didn't take much for all of the Ice Qi in the washbowl to be replaced by fire Qi that caused the water to start boiling.

"The girl, it's back." I said simply.

I took the offered towel and used to dry my face off. The main purpose of the towel wasn't to dry me, my Qi would eventually do the same as well, but the calming reagents imbibed in it servers to calm my raging Qi down.

The Room was bathed in my Qi and if the woman was anything but a mortal she would have been fully subjected to my rampant Qi that would kill any cultivator below the third tier instantly and could do the same to many third tiers in seconds if they did not prepare to being subjected to it.

"The one that gave the ice blooded their name my lady?" She asked me.

"Yes." I answered softly and proceeded to rise from my bed.

My Qi was under control for now, which meant it was time for me to get dressed in my more formal robes.

My sleeping garments fell off me with ease and in minutes Tao Dong managed to dress me in something presentable, the Blue and White robes something that I could actually attend meeting in, as opposed to my white sleeping robe.

"I don't understand why do you even still sleep my lady, you do not need to, no Fourth Tier cultivator needs to either." The servant remarked.

She was correct, I didn't need to and my dreams when I did sleep once a month were always filled with nightmares.

"My dreams tell me things Tao, they tell me what my mind is most focused on, what troubles me that I am not fully aware of and sometimes reveal details I am not even aware trouble me." I told her gently.

It was the same excuse I used with all of her predecessors when they thought to ask me. It was true, but the explanation was incomplete.

Sleep was necessary for mortals, and it served as a way for the mind to refresh itself. There are techniques that claim to be able to do the same thing and have other benefits besides them, but I personally never trusted them. That was why I insisted I sleep at least once a month to make sure that I am not depriving my mind of anything it might need.

My Dao Hearth did not heal my own mind, the one thing it could not fix, and something that I would never reveal.

"It sounds like torture to me your majesty, what does seeing such horrors again and again tell you about yourself?" She asked me.

She was now arranging my robes to ensure nothing was out of line and that everything still fit. I have had the same body for close to seven hundred years, I never understood why all of my personal servants bothered. Of course they will fit and those clothes will remain the same for longer than the women trying to smooth any imaginary wrinkles on them too.

They were made by a spirit weaver of the Third Tier, these robes will last for thousands of years if no fourth tier decided to attack them with everything they have or an alchemist finds a way to melt them.

"The time of war comes and I am worried of what that will mean for my people." I admitted tiredly.

The girl always returned whenever my campaign to exterminate the spider clans would shift suddenly in one direction or another.

"You don't need to dream to realize that you majesty, anyone that can see you act and move can see it." She replied promptly.

Her words carried the sort of confidence and trust that bordered on faith. She genuinely believed her words and that it was just that simple.

"The mind is built in layers Tao, the outer layers that guide our actions are easy enough to spot, but the deeper ones can only be made sense out of through dreams, because they do not exist in any language. Even symbolism falls short of explaining what our mind experiences" I told her.

The woman nodded absentmindedly, not understanding a word of what I just said.

Her predecessors sometimes asked me how I know such a thing, but the latest of my personal servant wasn't quite as willing to push boundaries as them, instead she gave my body a critical look.

"The scars are spreading your majesty. We can no longer hide them without make-up." She said flatly as she trailed a nail across the black feather-like scars.

The scars from plucking my own feathers continue to remain and expand the more I do so. They can heal, I know they can, but not even my rejuvenating abilities and my alchemist's elixirs can keep up with them unless I take a break from ripping out my own spirit roots out.

At least it's only scars that are left behind, my Dao heart regenerates back to the way they were before I ripped them out to turn them into reagents for what will hopefully be my greatest weapon against the spiders.

"Once the Era of Blood is over I'll take a break and let them dissipate." I said bluntly.

The young woman wished to say something but she swallowed her words and bowed instead.

"Are you certain a wardrobe change wouldn't work better then? Your War Attire would hide them better, while the blues make the black feathers pop." She asked me, her voice close to trembling at the sight in front of her.

I shook my head at her words. Mortals are far too serious about things that don't matter.

"My skin's markings don't matter as much as the way I am dressed. The White and Blues are for educational and logistical meetings, the Black and Purples are for War. If I were to dress in my War Attire the Sect Leaders would think we're going to war." I chided her gently.

The woman giggled for some reason, despite me being deathly serious.

"They are centuries old veterans my lady, I am sure they won't be driven to blood lust from seeing a black and purple dress." She said sweetly.

That tone of voice suited her well, it was ignorant, but it was sweet. I mirrored her giggle to help soften my words once I realized she thought I was joking.

I keep forgetting how little mortals know of cultivators, my own servants included.

"You would be surprised Tao. The older a cultivator gets, the quirkier they become and I've trained my loyal followers to respond to commands and colors. Show them black and purple and they start barking excitedly, as they think it's time for a battle." I told her in a joking tone.

I was making light of it, but my words were only half a joke. I didn't need to train that response into them, but that response existed after centuries of them following me into battle. Nascent Souls, and to a lesser extent Third Tiers fall into patterns the longer they live and if they associate a specific color or action with fighting, then they'll always grow excited when seeing it.

The woman laughed at my half-joke and suddenly all was well for a little bit.

I looked down at my nails, the red painted nails were now surrounded by the black feathers and gave my arms a somewhat demonic aesthetic that made it look like I had short bloodied claws instead of hands. I was unsure as to whether or not I liked it, but it was certainly intimidating.

I think I'll keep the look even when the feather-scars are gone. I was growing quite fond of it.

"Have the last of my guests arrived?" I asked my personal servant.

"Yes my Lady, The Elders from the Silver Shield and Burning Sword Sect have arrived. They have said that the reason they were delayed were due to some of the formations in their territory being tampered with." She informed me.

The Silver Shield Sect is to the East of the Burning Eye Sect, who is the reason for the current gathering, and the Burning Sword Sect… They were the Sect that occupies the Ash Hills and which was meant to make sure we didn't miss any hidden spider lairs, nor were the accursed things trying to move back.

The spiders continue to make their moves, how annoying.

Why can't they just wait silently to be slaughtered? It would save me so much time and stress, which I suppose it's the point. The abominations never made anything but hating them easy.

"Has the Stellar Blade Sect sent it's normal letter at my demand that they repent for their stupidity?" I asked absentmindedly.

The fools there did not see their actions like a Rebellion, instead in their stupid little minds they saw it as them having a spat with my bureaucracy and proving to me that their methods work, despite me ordering them to cease being morons.

At least they're fighting the spiders and paying taxes, which is why the fortresses at their border are only meant to prevent them from moving past them, as opposed to serving as a spring board for an invasion.

I should have never allowed the fools to retain their identity and so many of their traditions, but they possessed the only human fortification left in the south that wasn't manned by spiders or subordinated to Ming. I needed them to join me as soon as possible, and now that decision is biting me in the ass centuries later.

"They sent a representative, Elder Yao Gao, to the meeting." Tao admitted which surprised me.

"Yao Gao, Yao Gao… oh I remember him. Always had a sense for justice, he is the grandson of Yu Gao, my first Minister of Law." I remarked fondly.

I think I helped his mother change his diapers once, either him or his brother's, when I came to visit their clan home on a cordial visit. His grandfather was my first Minister of Law before the spiders Assassinated him and a dear friend. A pity he decided to remain with those fools in his sect.

I doubt his grandfather or parents would have allowed it were they still alive, but unfortunately his parents didn't want to become cultivators and I couldn't rely on them for beating some sense into his thick head anymore.

I miss them, all of the people that I knew and cherished over the centuries and there's so many of them I've met over my one thousand and seven hundred years of life.

"That's what the shadows confirmed my lady." She admitted.

I sighed tiredly. The Stellar Blade Sect is an issue I am willing to put at the bottom of my priorities for now. With any luck, they'll be destroyed in the collateral of the Era of Blood or by the Super-weapon and I won't have to deal with them myself.

"Good, he can join us then. Please inform my shadows to ensure that he will return unharmed back to his sect." I confirmed.

"I will inform the shadows escorting him my lady." She replied.

Excellent, that's one issue solved, a thousand more left to tackle. I put my indoor slippers on and left my chambers. I trusted Tao to carry forth her duties without me looking over her shoulder.

The mortal woman was capable and swift on her feet for a mortal, or she wouldn't have gotten her position as my personal assistant, I trusted her to handle such things swiftly and discreetly.

I walked through my normal winding route through the palace. Around me, priceless ceramics, war trophies and masterwork art pieces were displayed as 'proofs' of my wealth and status.

With the exception of the war trophies I couldn't care less for the things displayed, I just let my servants decorate the hallways to keep them happy and vetoed whatever I felt was too tacky.

My walk was not the fastest, the route a chose not the most expedient, but it served to relax my palace when they saw me following my normal routine. It also allowed my squabbling guests to settle their disputes before I arrived by setting a timer to my approach.

They could sense it, as my Inner Palace only had mortals and Nascent in it after all, excluding my guests that is. With the exception of the Arrays protecting the mortals from mind altering techniques and keeping the building from being damaged by our enhanced strength, there were no Arrays that blocked the senses or techniques. This allowed us to fully relax here without fear of harming the delicate world we found ourselves in and allowed any third or fourth tier cultivator to snoop around as much as they wished while inside.

Not like there was anything important to learn here, the Inner Palace is for me to relax in after all, the administrative documents and secrets are in the outer palace.

The Inner Palace continued being quiet, with only the sound of animals being easily audible near my location.

I scratched the chin of a small sleeping cat without stopping and continued my walk. Shortly after, I was in front of the Hall of Deliberations.

The massive stone doors separating the inside of the hall from the outside opened silently and I entered without a word.

Inside the large hall, the forty-four guests waited for me silently.

Seven Tier Fours, thirty seven Tier Threes and a floating pile or organs that used to be a Tier Three.

Some of the Elders had cuts on them and their robes from what I assume to have been the duels they ended just before I entered.

I was surprised to see master Fu Jian here, the Blazing Fist Sect was nowhere near the areas that would be the center of our discussions and thus the sect master didn't, strictly speaking, need to attend. It was a good opportunity to talk face to face with the man on our future plans, but that would have to wait.

"We will dispense with the formalities, sit and be silent unless you have something important to add or you are addressed." I instructed the gathered century old killing machines.

The door closed with a soft click behind me and the entire Hall shuddered as the Formations came alive and sealed this building so tightly not even a Fourth Tier with the Clear Sky Physique could sense what happens inside.

I placed myself in the throne at the far end of the room from where I entered from. Sitting on it allowed me to look down upon all other lesser thrones present. Each of the elders or sect masters stood on a throne specially prepared for their sect, with their own banners held up into the air behind them to make it easy to tell who is the speaker and what sect do they represent.

All thrones were arranged in such a way that none needed to worry about not seeing past the banners in front of them, but we might need to change things if the number of sects ever grows too much. That is however, a problem for the far future.

"Huoiyan Lao report your findings." I ordered.

The Master of the Burning Eye Sect was a man that looked to be in his mid fifties, his salt and pepper hair and tanned wrinkly skin and immaculate red robes making him look like some Ancient Bonechewer's dream of the ideal scholar. He looked like an educated man that built as much as he designed and spent the days out into the sun bringing his dreams to life. His tone was strangely neutral as he spoke, but I thought little of it, it wasn't too far outside his normal mannerisms.

What we were talking about was stressful enough.

"The Sack of Organs in front of you is, or better said used to be known as Yin Yi, a third tier cultivator and scout. Her official rank would be 'Expert of Infiltration of the Empire of the Twin Moons' if we were to translate it into our language. She is here to serve as a scout for her Empire's expansion into our world." The elderly man said, his voice flowing smoothly like wine, despite sounding like that of a man twice as old as he presented himself as.

"What have you been able to acquire from eating her bones Huoiyan? Please skip over her private life, none of us here cares for it." I asked him.

The man was a Nascent Soul Bonechewer, his ability to gather information from what he ate allowed him to remember the life of his victims if he ate enough of their flesh and bones. It was especially useful, as rummaging through the mind of others did not translate the knowledge they knew into our language if they were native to another.

I wasn't interested in the life of the pile of flesh that dared Enthrall an entire city, a city that even with our best elixirs had seen most of the people in it left without any memories. I wanted to know how she reached this world and how to break the means by which she did so.

"She doesn't know where the gate is, apparently Natural Gates do not have a fixed exit point, but we now have reduced the radius of the area to look over to twenty-five kilometers." He replied.

I and many others in the hall cussed at that. We have searched every single atom of the entire Prefecture the Burning Eye Sect defends and we weren't able to find it no matter what we tried. Being able to reduce the radius we needed to watch over meant little when we can't detect it.

"What do we know of this Empire of the Twin Moons?" I asked him and the rest of those gathered.

All of them had knowledge of other worlds from the reincarnators that have settled in their lands. I asked them to re-read everything for even a drop of knowledge that could help us and see if what Huoiyan's knowledge was reliable, as his ability wasn't perfect and could be fed wrong knowledge, as the spiders have learned to do with their Jiangshi.

"I have received reports regarding it." Fu Jian answered promptly.

"Explain." I demanded.

The attention of everyone turned towards the master of the Blazing Fist Sect.

"One of the Reincarnators in my Province, a man by the name of Yang An Xie now, has joined the Xie Wolf Clan in Orange Prefecture. In his past life he was a disciple of a sect called the Endless Plains Sect, which one hundred thousand years ago had its Soul Warrior killed by one of the twin emperors of said Empire or an Empire with the exact same name." He answered.

My brow furrowed in concentration, that didn't fit what I knew of Soul Warriors, as we didn't live that long and abilities like my own are apparently incredibly rare, if not unheard of, from what the reincarnators have revealed to us of what went on in other worlds.

"That is ten Soul Warrior Lifetimes Fu Jian, are you certain of it?" I asked him.

"That is what I was told. From what the report I received said, the Endless Plain's Emperor 'died in a single hit, his remaining lifespan drained in less than a second'. Those were the exact words used, so we might be dealing with a Dao Heart that drains the lifespan of whoever its wielder touches and adds it to the wielder or whoever they wish." He answered.

After the Burning Eye Sect found three individuals from another world that attacked one of my cities, all of my generals, Masters, clan leaders and other individuals with even a smidgen of knowledge of other worlds was asked to provide all of their knowledge to me, because the three individuals could be nothing but the vanguard for an invading force.

The Lord Protector of the city managed to kill two of them, as they thought to attack her in her laboratory and were melted into sludge for their troubles.

I gave a look to Huoiyan who nodded to confirm that yes, the Soul Warrior the pile of flesh knew of, was most likely the same individual. So, at least that part of his knowledge was reliable.

My features hardened at the confirmation. That ability was the exact counter to my own and could do the same I could to lesser extent on top of it too. I imagine it's wielder could drain the life of anything, most likely at a significant loss of efficiency, and transfer it to another. This was probably what allowed him to then keep another Soul Warrior loyal.

Granting someone immortality was a quick way to guarantee loyalty, and even with a massive loss in efficiency of what was most likely one hundred to one, foreign worlds, more often than not, had obscenely large populations. Even if killing a single mortal child gave him only one year of life, he could afford to kill a few thousands and it would grant him a thousand years of life with ease.

And there will always be millions more where those came from.

"Are they as Monstrous as all of the other worlds we have knowledge of?" I asked the two men.

"Yes/ Worse than most." Fu and Huoiyan said respectively.

The two looked at one another then sighed, something which most of those in attendance quickly mirrored.

That left exactly three worlds, out of one hundred and thirty six we were aware of that weren't obscenely monstrous in their practices: Diqiu, Yazi and Shamo.

Diqiu was a world without Qi that seems to operate on rotating waves of madness that spread through it's population like wildfire before one of them is burned in war, only for the survivors to be split into another round of competing ideologies and begin the cycle anew. We had three individuals reincarnated from that world in one thousand years, each of them a sharp mind best kept under observation, lest whatever Madness their minds contained spread from one world to another.

The latest of those thinkers, a young man called Tai Su, was terrifying my scholars without having even met any, his mind quickly seizing on a weakness in the way they thought and abusing it to cause a massive internal purge among them over a minor slight some years ago. The previous two individuals had a similar ability to find weaknesses of the mind in others and exploit them too, even if they have long since died of old age by now.

I don't want to find out what they'd do if they actually met. In my letters to each of them, they were hostile to any and all ways of thought that weren't their own from their old world, and the more similar it was the more hostile they were to it.

Yazi was a world of roving tribes that refused to settle, or even could settle anywhere, the human population forced to move from place to place to survive the dragons that preyed on them. According to those men and women that used to call it home, the tribes were friendly, each it's own civilization and willing to defend their own people whenever possible.

They were a pleasure to talk to, even if they called me crazy to my face for allowing people to settle down when there were still dragons on my world. As if my source for leather boots had any chance of harming my settlements and living to tell the tale. They didn't have mountains to keep them safe from my wrath.

The people of Yazi were the main reason I had so many roving clans and tribes in my land to annoy my bureaucrats, even if they were useful from time to time.

Shamo was a desert world where civilization existed only around a single great river, the kingdoms in it fighting for access to it's life giving water and the rare oasis, as people tried their best to live their lives.

They were a curiosity more than anything, they had cultivation, but the highest known cultivator was a second tier and those that were reborn from there had little good to say of their lives there even as it was paradise to what most other worlds I knew of could claim.

Out of more than one hundred worlds, those are the only worlds where the average man did not livea life that made the slavery seem like paradise: a world of contagious madness, a world that considers settlements to be a foolishness, and a world of desert and wars over water of all things.

"When will the Invasion be?" Elder Yao Gao asked.

The eye of everyone in attendance narrowed at the rebel's words. I nodded to Huoiyan who looked at me to ask if he should answer, I wished to hear the answer myself. Now wasn't the time to hide knowledge, everyone here would only report to their Sect Master's, assuming they weren't one themselves.

"The scout did not know, apparently it's report would have been one of the considerations taken to decide on this matter once it's superior came to collect it, as he would have had the means to find the gate and could return home easily." Huoiyan answered.

My mind immediately seized on what his words meant, they had the means to find the gate, we can end this swiftly and then focus back on the spiders.

"What do you need to guarantee the success of that ambush?" I asked sharply.

If we could capture that man and feed his bones to Huoiyan, or another one of the three Nascent Soul Bonechewers in my service, we could get ourselves rid of this problem entirely and focus on the spiders and the upcoming Era of Blood.

Last they knew the woman's mission continued and she was awaiting relief, despite her partners being dead. We could easily restore her body back to normal and use her as a trap, then close the gate with the knowledge extracted from her superior.

The man shook his head at my words.

"It's impossible. They have a system similar to the Gu signals we use, which catch the soul of those attuned to a specific Soul Candle. When those attuned to such a candle die, their souls are captured to be interrogated before their fate is decided. If they were useful in life and died loyal they are granted a new life of leisure and power. If they weren't or died foolishly or like cowards, they are reborn as a slave.

The woman had split a small fragment of her soul while I was in the process of capturing her. There she reported that she was being captured and all she knew was now in enemy hands, which makes me doubt her superior is coming or won't be expecting an ambush. She already knew we wished to destroy the gate if we found it and sent that back too." He explained.

My handstand cracked, the arrays meant to keep it whole in should a Nascent Soul hit it with a powerful attack shattering under my touch. The sound of it caused some winces, but nobody commented on it.

If the foreigners knew we wished to destroy the portal, then they knew of the upcoming Era of Blood and what it meant as well, which meant they will attack at the worst time for me,

I looked down on the piece charred wood that used to be my handstand as it turned to ash in my hand. My mind churned for solutions to this issues, but first I need to clean the house.

I threw the ash down to the floor and my gaze turned towards Yao Gao and gave him my full and undivided attention.

"Yao Gao, your rebellion is officially over, you will inform the morons you call peers that I am sick of their nonsense. I don't care for the stupidity you call an ideology, you will serve humanity and Me again or you will die. You have a month to bend the knee again or I will come and burn your Ziggurat down myself." I informed him, my gaze hiding nothing of what I will do when the time comes.

"Yes your majesty." The man replied, his stone-like face doing a good job of hiding his thoughts from me.

"Huoiyan, you have made copies of your findings and the culture of this… Empire of the Twin Moons?" I asked the man.

"Yes your Majesty, one for each sect of the Empire, sans the Stellar Blade Sect, one for the Lao, the Fox Clans and the Naga each and another for Emperor Ming." The man replied with a nod, his voice as and blunt as when we started this meeting.

Excellent, hardworking subordinates are always a balm on my nerves.

"Perfect, your Garrison is increased to fifty thousand bannermen effective now and the entirety of the Armory is open to you. You are free to take whatever you need from it, be they relics or experimental designs, that you think are necessary to hold for at least five months, while I burn one of the Spider Clans down and Ming wastes the Lead resources of the Eastern Spider Clans."

The plan was already forming in my mind.

Use the super-weapon to boil most of the Western Spider Clan and reduce the resources needed to envelop the entire area, use the Stellar Blade Sect and the foxes to exterminate the remnants, put most of the banners and sects to deal with the Central Spider Clans while the rest of my forces and those of Ming deal with the Eastern Spider Clans.

The Naga, Lao and the troops to the West would then proceed to try to hold on for a few months, while I finish burning down the Western Clans, march the foxes north, then go and reunite with Ming and push back the spiders should they have made any breakthroughs.

It will be risky, especially as I had no solution yet for the Shu or that foreign Emperor and the spiders are always up to new tricks to mess with my efforts, but it was the best solution that came to mind.

I'll have to discuss with my strategists if we had any other options, but for now, it would serve as a framework for our plans.

"That is, I'm afraid to say, going to be impossible your majesty." The elderly looking man replied.

My second handstand threatened to share the same fate as the first one as my anger started to rise. Was he defying me as well?

I just dealt with one problem, I didn't need another.

"Why?" I asked the elderly looking sect master, my voice as cold as ice.

Even if the foreigners come in armies of a million or two as they seem to think of numbers as bodies to be spent away, the Burning Eye Sect and the Naga and Lao should survive for a few months.

The Lao could provide some thirty thousand soldiers, and the Naga had an army half the size of mine and several Nascent Souls.

"The Empire of the Twin Moons has prepared an army of seventy million mortal slaves, one million Tier One cultivators, seventy thousand Tier Two Cultivators, two hundred Tier Three Cultivators and Five Tier Four Cultivators to invade our world when they believed we had no Nascent Soul available. They will no doubt increase those numbers now that they know there is one on this world and one of the Emperors might directly come here themselves. This is especially worrying, as the other has the ability to decay any man-made object from a distance, which will destroy our defensive advantage." The man informed us, his voice as cold as grave.

My thoughts stopped for a moment as I considered the absurdity of what I'd just heard and judging by the looks I could see on the faces of the other people gathered here, I was not alone.

"Why was this not on the report I received?" I asked him, my thoughts far too numb to put any of the anger I meant to apply to them.

Dealing with one Emperor would have been easy, especially if they underestimates us, but this? This army was greater than the population of my realm.

How are they feeding this many people? How will they feed them once they come through the gate? Why are there so few Nascent Souls?

The man nodded at my words as if he expected them.

"I tried to write them down, my hand refused, I tried to speak them out loud and my voice failed me, no matter how much I wanted to speak them out. My mind still refuses to comprehend that which it has collected from them woman in front of us and I barely managed to do so while here." Huoiyan said, his voice now turned to a flat monotone.

I nodded at those words. That made a twisted amount of sense, even my mind refused to acknowledge it, and just classified the number of troops I had to deal with as 'More than I have civilians to look after' instead of any hard number.

It was probably worse for him, as his mind was forced to experience what it is meant to live the life of the woman he learned this from, which was probably of a similar age if not older to him.

Foreigners had far less access to resources than even the smallest sect in my realm, which meant that most individuals of a given tier are almost always close to the end of their natural lifespan when undertaking dangerous missions. It wasn't a hard rule but from what we've managed to collate of cultivators of other worlds, dangerous mission are only undertaken when the individuals quite literally have no choice but to try it to attempt and acquire the resources they need for a breakthrough.

A Third Tier cultivator would only attempt scout through another world that they knew nothing about if she was truly desperate to try and Ascend to the next tier.

"Someone verify his mind for any foreign interference and contamination and verify that the knowledge inside of him did not corrupt his own memories. If you can, extract them, then delete the foreign memories from his mind. If you can't, then delete them anyway." I ordered.

The man's mind was compromised, an issue that the Bonechewers can suffer from when they eat the bones of others to gather information. They can learn the skills of another, the ability to alter their perspective to that of their last meal and even do the same techniques as them. This comes with a cost however, as all of the most useful physiques always do, and that is that their minds risk contamination, as the loyalties, prejudices and sensibilities of their meals had a great risk of being transferred as well.

There were a few among those gathered here that would be able to accomplish this, I trusted them to be able to handle the details of the operation among themselves. I needed to think how to deal with this apocalypse.

This was going to be a long decade, won't it?