Gong Zui sighed, a faint wisp of annoyance curling from his lips. His gaze, which had made the fabric of existence itself buckle, now softened fractionally as he spotted a spare trowel wedged beneath a loose rock where his outhouse used to stand. He stooped, a movement so effortless it defied the gravity that had buckled under his presence moments prior, and retrieved the tool. It was slightly rusty, chipped at the edge, but serviceable.
He turned, the unassuming length of dull metal held loosely in his grasp, and flicked his wrist. It was not a gesture of aggression, nor a move of grand technique, but a simple, dismissive flick, as if swatting a particularly bothersome fly.
Above, the colossal Heaven-Smiting Array, which had glowed with the compressed might of a thousand elders and the aggregated will of the Tribunal, shivered with a sudden, impossible fragility. The intricate glyphs that had burned with annihilating light sputtered like damp wicks. The immense beam, still poised to descend, fractured. It did not explode, nor dissipate in a violent burst. Instead, it unraveled, each shard of concentrated ether peeling away from its core, losing cohesion. They cascaded downwards, not as lethal bolts, but as glittering grit settling harmlessly across the courtyard.
The air cleared, revealing a sky of pristine blue, devoid of the golden death warrant or the hovering runic spires that had dominated it. The thousands of Tribunal warriors, poised for battle, lowered their weapons in confusion. The Heaven-Smiting Array, their ultimate weapon, was gone.
“Ah, there it is!” Shen Yimo exclaimed, pointing at the glittering motes of light drifting down. “Master Gong, look! The ‘Dusting and Finishing Technique’! It’s even prettier than I imagined! Did we just finish the renovation?”
Gong Zui ignored him, his eyes fixed on the elders in their floating litters, their faces turned the shade of curdled goat milk. Chief Grandmaster Jiao Wei, his usually regal bearing utterly collapsed, stared at the scraping blade in Gong Zui’s hand as if it were an executioner's cleaver. His aged mind grappled with an impossible truth: the array had crumbled, the fundamental laws of ether casually disregarded without so much as a grunt. It wasn’t a destruction. It was a deconstruction, pulling apart the threads of reality through sheer mechanical understanding.
“The… Primordial Dao of Physical Sanctification…” Jiao Wei whispered, his voice catching in his throat, a sound heard only by the other senior Grandmasters who were equally paralyzed. “The art of absolute command over the material plane, beyond mere Qi manipulation… It’s said to be lost for three thousand years…”
Another Grandmaster, his face pale as funerary jade, stammered, “Only one… only one being ever wielded it to such a degree… The Apex Sovereign… Zhongli Que.”
The name, once spoken, hung in the air like a knell. The Grandmasters, who had come to enforce judgment upon a perceived heretic, choked on the realization of their own blasphemy. The figure before them, the grumpy handyman they had dismissed, was the very architect of their civilization, the founder of the Ocher Expanse’s current order, the myth whispered in their oldest scrolls.
Gong Zui sighed again, a sound of profound world-weariness. “Honestly, your form is atrocious.” His voice, though no louder than a casual remark, resonated with an authority that shook the cedar foundations of the litters. “That Heaven-Smiting Array… It’s meant to be a precision tool, not a blunt instrument. You’re over-compressing the etheric resonance in the fifth layer, leading to unstable oscillatory patterns. It’s like trying to hammer in a nail with a wrecking ball when a finishing hammer would do. Wasteful. Unprofessional.”
He tapped the tool against a speck of mortar on his sleeve. “And your power draw! Goodness me. All that Qi, channeled into such an inefficient configuration. It’s like leaving a faucet running while you’re trying to patch a leaky pipe. You’re letting half your steam dribble out before it even reaches the point of application. Did none of you learn basic conservation? I covered this in the ‘Foundational Principles of Qi Application’ manual I wrote. Page 37, diagram B, the one with the little squirrel showing proper circulation.”
The Grandmasters, beings who commanded entire legions and could reshape mountains with a thought, looked as though they had been slapped by an invisible hand. Chief Grandmaster Jiao Wei, his face etched with utter mortification, felt a hot flush crawl up his neck. To be lectured on foundational principles, on basic efficiency, by the very person who wrote the foundational canon was a humiliation beyond reckoning. Especially when presented with the casual dismissiveness of a seasoned foreman scolding green apprentices.
“And you,” Gong Zui pointed the flat of the blade at an elderly woman with hair like spun silver, Grandmaster Feng Alian, revered for her command over celestial arrays. “Your harmonic convergence was off by nearly three full degrees. That’s why your array destabilized so easily. It’s like trying to install a door frame when the wall isn’t plumb. Everything will be crooked. Sloppy work. I expected better from the sect that oversees the Sky-Thread Loom Arrays.”
Grandmaster Feng Alian bowed her head so low her silver hair brushed the cedar slats of her litter, her pupils pinned in breathless awe. The words weren't just a critique; they were a fundamental re-ordering of her entire understanding of the Dao. The sheer clarity, the casual precision in his assessment, confirmed beyond doubt that this was indeed Zhongli Que.
“Sovereign… Lord Zhongli Que…” Jiao Wei choked out, his voice hoarse with reverence. He slid from his carriage, a figure of immense power now reduced to a supplicant, and crashed to his knees on the pulverized earth. The other elders followed suit, their gilded carriages descending rapidly as they prostrated themselves, foreheads pressed against the soil, robes mingling with gravel and debris.
“We… we humbly beg forgiveness, Sovereign!” Jiao Wei pleaded, his voice cracking. “We were blind! Ignorant! We dared to raise arms against your sacred person! We are but unworthy ants before your divine wisdom!”
“Please, Sovereign, return to your rightful throne!” Feng Alian cried, her voice echoing the desperation of her peers. “The Ocher Expanse languishes without your guidance! The Tribunal has strayed from your original vision! We beg you to reclaim your dominion and set the world aright!”
Shen Yimo, looking down at the prostrate Grandmasters, blinked. “Master Gong, are they practicing the ‘Reverent Floor Polishing’ technique you mentioned? They seem to be really dedicated. Very good posture for scraping grime.”
Gong Zui let out a long, weary sigh, ignoring his disciple’s observations. He glanced at the ruined outhouse, then at the kneeling elders, and finally at the humble tool in his hand. “Return to my throne?” he muttered, squinting in annoyance. He pointed the rusted edge at the splintered remains of the latrine. “First, someone’s going to explain how they plan to rebuild my privy, on a handyman’s wages.”
His voice, though flat and tired, carried the force of an unchallengeable edict. The Grandmasters, still prostrate, exchanged terrified glances. Rebuild a privy? For the Apex Sovereign? Their minds reeled, unable to comprehend the mundane demand from the most powerful being in existence.
“And make sure you reinforce the spiritual plumbing this time,” Gong Zui added, a glint of steel in his gaze. “I don’t want any more leaks.”