Tantra was told to stand.

  So many people gather in front of her, all looking up at them with a kind of reverence she doesn’t have the presence of mind to understand. Synthia is saying something, quite loudly in fact, but it all slips from Tantra’s mind like water from a stream flowing past a stone. She can understand snippets at times, something about fighting.

  Fight what?

  Cultivators silly, what else?

  Are they why everything feels so fuzzy right now?

  Probably, she was just fighting them wasn’t she? Memory gets a little weird at a certain point but that sounds about right. Damn she fought a lot of cultivators, killed a lot too, more than she expected from herself honestly.

  She doesn’t remember the exact number, but it’s well into the double digits for sure, and isn’t that a wonder? Who would’ve thought the silly little merchant girl would grow to be someone who could kill tens of cultivators…that’s pretty insane honestly, isn’t there some sort of rule about numbers triumphing over individual strength?

  Apparently it can be circumvented to a certain point because good gods did she kill a lot of people.

  Like a lot of people.

  Brutally too, spilled their brains all over the cobble, she wonders how many of them were actually cultivators, like past foundation realm kind of cultivators? A good number of them looked distressingly young now that she thinks about it, why didn’t she notice that in the moment?

  Guess all the chaos overruled her decency.

  Fuck, she killed children, or were they just really young adults?

  Kind of a stupid question, all cultivators look like young adults, except for the really unsuccessful ones. She wonders if one could achieve at least eternal youth by pushing their roots deep enough?

  Perhaps, perhaps not.

  Half her vision isn’t there, why is that? She’s always seen from two eyes, is she missing one? She hopes not, depth perception is pretty important to combat, just ask Kisrin. Took him a while to adjust, she doesn’t want that, that would be a pain.

  Fuck, Synthia’s saying so many words, and these damned people keep cheering at certain points and it’s all giving her a fierce headache. Why is she here again? She doesn’t know, she was just told to stand, so stand she does, because surely her friends would have a reason to have her be up on this carriage, surely all these people and all this talking is important for something.

  She just doesn’t know what.

  Ahhh fuck, her head, it feels like a hand has her brain in its palm and is squeezing. Time passes and it just gets worse, is it all the talking? It must be all the talking, what else could it be?

  She wants to grab at her head but something is telling her that’s a bad idea, the part that remembers why they're here, it’s too much of a bitch to share why though. But Tantra listens, because that little voice is the wise part of her, the one piece of sanity floating in an ocean of disoriented confusion.

  She has the presence of mind to know something is wrong, just not what specifically, and isn’t that just infuriating?

  She doesn’t like being ignorant, to be ignorant is to not know, and Tantra likes knowing, it’s like her whole thing.

  Shouldn’t she be more-

  Enormous pain, as the hundreds gathered all explode with noise. It’s like a spear to her mind, digging and digging and never stopping. It hurts, it hurts so so bad, her vision is filled with water as she falls to her knees, holding onto her kanabō as her only solace.

  A hand goes up to her face-

  It does not touch skin, it touches roots.

  What?

  The roots have barbs.

  They shouldn’t be there in the first place.

  Someone shakes by the shoulders and calls her name but she’s not listening, she’s focusing on the roots in her face. She grabs one of them, barbs sinking deep into her palm and she hears an exclamation that sounds something like a plea.

  Then Tantra pulls.

  -

  Necessity can lead a person to do terrible things.

  It’s a simple truth, one she’s more than familiar with, considering her time spent in noble circles. Most don’t really care about the consequences of their actions, but the Farlaghs do, they always have, it’s why she assumes Doman has a self assured reason beyond a lust for power.

  She’ll still kill him if she gets the chance though, even if his justifications seem reasonable, because what could justify everything she’s seen? He’s just a boy in the end, a boy who can’t properly measure consequence, and so he made a stupid decision that led to so much pointless suffering.

  All to be a puppet of the Sols.

  Truly, she envies his ignorance, how easy would this be if she were some bright eyed idealist?

  But she’s an adult, and she’s well versed in juggling the politics while maintaining the prosperity of the city, so when she causes suffering there isn’t a convenient excuse to blanket herself with.

  What kinds of decisions did her father have to make? Which ones were out of necessity and which ones were compromises with vanity? How can a person measure something so nebulous? How can you trust yourself with that kind of distinction? When a person holds so much power there is consequence to every action, it’s so easy to cause suffering, whether intentional or not.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  She’s never had to carry this burden before, considering her position as an auditor of the noble cast, her job wasn’t easy considering how much her work her father placed on her shoulders hoping to crush her ambitions, but she did it with the grace of a swan.

  Now the weight of a whole city is on her shoulders, and it is so heavy.

  Synthia has done something terrible, all for the sake of a seat of power she doubts she truly deserves, but who else could take it?

  Her brother?

  As mentioned before, he’s just a puppet to a beast that cannot be allowed control over Ralth, lest the populace fall in the face of a titan’s greed. So what she did was a necessity, she tells herself this over and over as she looks down at Tantra’s still form.

  She’s still breathing, but there is blood coming out of her ears and face where the woman pulled so hard on the cursed roots digging their way into her skull. What would this wonderful woman who’s done so much for Synthia think of being used so blatantly? What would she think of all the souls she’s condemned?

  All because of a speech.

  It was her first time doing one so publicly, but she thinks it went pretty well, if the resounding cheers were any indication. So, she was successful, and in her success hundreds of thousands will die, convinced to fight beings beyond them for the image of a woman who doesn’t exist.

  Perhaps Tantra could fulfil that role, but life isn’t so convenient as that, and Synthia doubts the woman would willingly lead a revolution. She’s not sure Tantra could carry that kind of weight.

  Can she?

  She doesn’t know, but that ship has long sailed, the speech is over and so many are in a fervent frenzy to join the violence. There are millions in the slums, if even a fraction banded together then the sects would surely be put on the backfoot, especially if their immortals don’t aid them.

  Things are about to get so much worse, all because of one simple speech.

  How would Tantra feel about being her little puppet?

  She didn’t have to be there, she could have stayed and healed, and Jill might have found a way to safely extract the roots growing out of her face.

  Instead she was put up on a carriage and presented to hundreds of people, all to capitalise on her newly acquired reputation, and even in spite of the ending, it worked beautifully. So many bodies ready to throw themselves into the war.

  Etra…isn’t talking to her, neither is Erick and Synthia thinks that’s fair enough.

  -

  Yu Mei is having the time of her life.

  She slashes open a cultivator from The Forest Of Vines sect, spilling guts unto cobble as he stumbles away from the shock, another tries to take the opportunity to run her though with a jian, and she almost lets them because of how funny that is.

  What kind of self respecting cultivator aims to strike at someone's back? It’s almost like they're admitting that they’re weaker than her, and therefore need to resort to such banal tactics.

  One of the basics of group combat is to always enhance your senses, so that you can keep track of your opponents with more than just your eyes, and clearly these chucklefucks don’t expect her to be so advanced.

  Oh how little do they know.

  She twists and dodges the thrust, reciprocating his violence with her own, bringing down her macuahuilt deep into his shoulder.

  Then she pulls and lets blood flow freely from the wound. She doesn’t even have the time to revel in it as club and rapier come at her flanks in the hopes that one of them hits her, this time she actually does laugh as she contorts to dodge both the silly weapons.

  They should’ve been smart like Yu Mei and gotten a macuahuilt, this beautiful thing of ornate wood and sharp obsidian is the envy of all blades everywhere.

  Perhaps she should give a demonstration?

  In a diagonal slash Yu Mei amputates the club wielder’s right arm, she grabs the appendage and throws it at the rapier lady, confusing her for just a moment, which is enough to dig a furrow into her chest.

  The man with his guts spilled admirably intervenes as she goes to slash the woman again, blocking with a buckler and swiping at her with a scimitar.

  Yu Mei’s smile widens.

  “Yes!” She says joyfully, “defy me! Struggle against me! Writhe and whimper and-“

  A guandao taps the man’s neck.

  “She’s just playing” Yorin sighs, “take it from me, it’s best if you all just left, or you’ll be her toy for hours”

  “Jubokko!” Yu Mei exclaims, “you dare to ruin my fun?!?”

  “Oh please,” Yorin rolls his eyes, “don’t ‘you dare’ me, I’ve been done with my fight long enough to interrupt yours, so If you’re not gonna kill the poor fools at least let them go.”

  “I will not be seen a coward!” The man with a scimitar says.

  “Nor will I!” says another one.

  “Nor I!” another says.

  Yorin just sighs exasperated and-

  His guandao decapitates the man as he moves forward to the woman with a rapier, she tries to block his advance but he just digs his blade in her hand then runs her through, gripping the shaft if his weapon and slicing upwards, opening her organs to the world as he turns-

  And finds the final two already cut down by Yu Mei.

  “Honestly,” she pouts, “you can’t let me have one satisfying fight.”

  “You could always fight me,” he says dryly.

  “Tempting,” Yu Mei taps her chin, “but I’d rather fuck you.”

  “Aaand that’s not happening”

  “C’mon! Don’t be such a prude, we’re cultivators, fucking freely is a sacred privelege.”

  “We’re in a warzone,” he says exasperated, “and more importantly, we’re protecting civilians, I’m not gonna get distracted by something so stupid.”

  “Oh?” She says, “so if the war ends the prospect wouldn’t be out of the question?”

  The heat that travels up his face is quite the cute thing indeed.

  “How’d I get stuck with you?” Yorin grumbles

  “Mandate of the heavens,” Yu Mei chirps, “who are we to question fate friend?”

  “Friend?” Yorin says, “you tried to kill me when we first met!”

  “Oh please, that was ages ago.”

  “It’s been two weeks!”

  Yu Mei giggles and Yorin huffs exasperated, he’s so cute when she’s teasing him, his reactions are just so precious! Honestly, she’s never met such an innocent cultivator before, he practically acts like a mortal!

  A mortal with strength that could rival hers, which is more than a little impressive.

  Sure she only anchored about…a month before the war? So she hasn’t had time to supercharge the first two realms with a sea of soul Qi, but still, she has more than enough to overwhelm a purification fool.

  Yet his proficiency with the guandao puts him as her equal.

  Yorin grumbles as he walks over to the small group of civilians they’ve been protecting. Well, he’s been protecting, Yu Mei’s not about to take credit for something she wouldn’t normally do, that’s just dishonest, and of all her vices dishonesty is not one of them.

  She chuckles as she walks behind-

  A spear of purple tendrils pierces through her back and bursts from her chest, Yorin turns eyes wide at the sound of her choked cough. She pushes so much Qi into her body, turning it into a bonfire and pushing away the bastard that snuck up on her.

  The spear is dislodged from her body and she refuses to fall, turning to face a man in robes that match Yorin’s. He’s pale, unnaturally so, a scar over his eye and an indent to his skull ooze some kind of gunk as veins glow purple, his one eye is a kaleidoscope of colors as he stares her down with little to no emotion.

  His guts are hanging freely.

  Yu Mei growls and-

  A spear in front of her, aimed for her guts, she barely blocks with her macuahuitl and is sent stumbling back at the sheer force.

  He goes to stab her again-

  And stops as Yorin blocks the spears path.

  “Kisrin?”