The road was a river of mud and despair. Shackles bit into the raw flesh of their ankles. The Ye family, once masters of their city, were now less than cattle, prodded along by the merciless steel tips of imperial spears. Old Master Ye, his fine robes replaced with stinking rags, stumbled and fell. “Get up, old dog!” a guard snarled, the lash of his whip cracking the air. He didn't even bother to strike, the sound was enough. Old Master Ye scrambled back to his feet, weeping. “This is your fault!” he hissed at his daughter, his face a mask of pathetic fury. “You and your arrogance! You ruined us all!” Ye Yao didn't hear him. She didn't feel the mud seeping through her torn shoes. She didn't feel the gnawing hunger in her belly. Her world had collapsed into two words, a mantra of insanity repeating endlessly in her skull. Lu Feng. Emperor. The servant she had ordered whipped for spilling tea. The trash she had mocked for his 'powerless' meridians. The dog she had kicked away for a connection to the Hua Shan Sect. He was the Emperor of the entire realm. The sky itself. And she… she had tried to spit at the sky. Laughter, sharp and broken, bubbled in her throat. Her mother slapped her. “Stop it! Do you want them to kill us?” “We’re already dead,” Ye Yao whispered, her eyes vacant. Every memory was a fresh torment. The day she had torn their engagement contract, flinging the pieces in his face. “A worthless orphan like you dares to dream of marrying me? Know your place!” His face had been calm. So calm. He had simply looked at her, his eyes like ancient wells, and said nothing. At the time, she thought it was the silence of a coward. Now she knew. It was the silence of a god watching an ant puff up its chest. The day she paraded the Young Master of Hua Shan before him. “This is a real man,” she had sneered. “Heir to a great Martial Sect. And you? You will spend your life scrubbing our floors.” Lu Feng had been polishing a wooden sword. He hadn’t even looked up. The Young Master of Hua Shan… his head was now on a spike at the capital’s gate. The Hua Shan Sect was a memory, erased from the world by a single decree. By Lu Feng’s decree. “He knew,” she choked out, the realization a physical blow. “All this time, he knew what we were. He was watching us. Like insects in a jar.” Suddenly, the earth began to tremble. A low, rhythmic thunder rolled down the imperial road, growing louder, more powerful. It was the sound of ten thousand iron-shod hooves striking the earth in perfect unison. “DOWN!” the lead guard roared, his voice cracking with fear and awe. “ON YOUR KNEES! THE IMPERIAL PROCESSION! AVERT YOUR GAZE OR SUFFER THE DEATH OF A THOUSAND CUTS!” The guards shoved the slaves to the muddy verges of the road, forcing them to their knees, heads bowed to the dirt. The killing intent that washed over them was a physical force, a tidal wave of disciplined slaughter that stole the air from their lungs. It was the aura of the Emperor’s personal guard, the Black Dragon Legion. Ye Yao’s head was pressed into the filth, the stench of mud and manure filling her senses. But she had to see. She had to look upon the source of her ruin one last time. With trembling arms, she pushed herself up just enough to peer through the forest of legs. First came the vanguard. A thousand cavalrymen in obsidian armor, their faces hidden behind dragon-visored helms. Their Inner Qi pulsed as one, a silent, deadly promise. Banners blotted out the sun, emblazoned with the golden, five-clawed dragon of the empire. Then came the heart of the procession. Carried on the shoulders of eighty-eight Grandmaster-level cultivators, each step perfectly synchronized, was the throne. It wasn’t a throne; it was a miniature golden palace, radiant and blinding. And upon it, he sat. Lu Feng. He wore no crown. His simple black and gold dragon robes were more majestic than any armor. His posture was lazy, almost bored, one hand resting on his knee. He wasn’t looking at the road, or the soldiers, or the kowtowing officials. His gaze was fixed on the woman beside him. Xue Feng. The blind swordswoman. But her eyes were no longer vacant. They were open, and they held the light of stars. Cured. Perfect. She wore the silver and white robes of an Empress, a divine sword resting across her lap. Her beauty was so pure, so celestial, it made Ye Yao’s heart clench with a venomous jealousy that was instantly crushed by despair. This was the woman who sat beside him. A true phoenix to his dragon. As Lu Feng murmured something to her, a faint, gentle smile touched his lips. It was a smile Ye Yao had never seen. A smile that held more warmth than the sun, reserved for one person alone. He was a different man with her. The Sword God who could shatter mountains with a glance was, for his Empress, just a man. The procession began to pass. Xue Feng’s gaze, cool and clear, swept across the kneeling slaves. For a fraction of a second, her eyes met Ye Yao’s. There was no contempt. No triumph. There was only a faint, distant pity, the kind one might feel for a stone on the road. And then she looked away, her attention returning to her Emperor. Nothing. Ye Yao was nothing. A forgotten pebble on a path he had long since left behind. The weight of it all, the sheer, cosmic scale of her mistake, crashed down upon her. She had held the entire world in her hands and, in her arrogance, had ground it into dust. Her meridians, already frayed from stress and malnourishment, snapped. Her Inner Qi dissolved into chaos, tearing through her from the inside. A sound ripped from her throat, a shriek that was not human. It was the sound of a soul shattering into a million pieces. “I WAS WRONG!” Her voice echoed across the silent road, a desperate, mad confession to the empty air where the god had just passed. Ye Yao broke completely—she shrieked her regret in the middle of the road, then collapsed and dies wretchedly amid the cold indifference of the soldiers.

Chapter 18: Karma for the Arrogant