Chapter 473 - The Emperor's Death, Wandering the Jianghu, Twisted Imperial Capital, Heaven Soul Second Stage – Part 1

Deep in the wild, untamed mountains, where no trace of man could be found, bolts of lightning poured from the heavens like an endless torrent of rain, striking down on a crimson blade embryo made of blood crystal marrow.

Even within the imperial palace, gathering nearly 500 kg of this material would have been nearly impossible.

Had Li Yuan not been the Emperor, he never could’ve laid hands on so many precious resources.

The young man gripped a jet-black ghost hammer, as if clutching a pair of long, blackened limbs. With every swing, he slammed the hammer down onto the blood crystal marrow with brutal force.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With each thunderous strike, centuries—millennia—of lifespan were poured out along with his sweat, hammered directly into the forging.

The depletion of lifespan disturbed the balance of Yin and Yang, drawing both earth fog and heavenly thunder.

Lightning pounded down, threads of it seeping into the blood crystal marrow, and into Li Yuan’s body, scouring his flesh clean.

Seizing the opportunity, Li Yuan activated the ancestral seal and withered flame.

Sheng'er had once told him that injecting Yang into Yin gave birth to the Earth Soul; injecting Yin into Yang birthed the Heaven Soul; and when Yin and Yang harmonized, the Human Soul emerged.

The Human Soul was the true cultivation path of the shadow blood system’s third rank.

It demanded perfect balance between Yin and Yang.

If Li Yuan succeeded, he would be able to project his thoughts into the domain of Yin-Yang manifestation, allowing him to form a domain around himself, just like Qing Hancheng or Lu Xuanxian. Within that domain, anything inside would act as if moved directly by his hand.

In simple terms, Li Yuan could unleash hundreds or thousands of attacks simultaneously, each as powerful and precise as if he had done it himself.

Terrifying, wasn't it?

Right now, Li Yuan could feel himself stepping into the Heaven Soul Realm. But to truly wield the power of this sub-realm, there was still a

delay

.

This delay came from the time it took to marshal all the power of his body.

Compared to the Human Soul, he felt that this level still fell short.

At that moment, the 3,880 petals of his ancestral seal and the withered flame suddenly began to stir.

They twisted awkwardly, jarring and out of sync.

Each bolt of lightning that entered seemed to nudge them gently, barely enough to get them moving, let alone harmonize them.

Li Yuan frowned slightly and began channeling even more lifespan.

The heavenly thunder summoned by burning 2,000 years of life force far exceeded what a mere 1,000 could summon.

He slammed the hammer down once more, and the surrounding thunderfield instantly expanded.

Behind the iron-grey thunderclouds above, more molten lightning began to brew.

And then—

Crack! Cracke!

A sound like shattering glass rang out in waves.

Li Yuan looked down and saw that under his relentless pounding and constant infusion of lifespan, the blood crystal marrow had begun to crack, spiderweb fractures spreading across its surface.

A heartbeat later—

BOOM!

The heavy blade embryo exploded.

Black earth fog and white lightning collided in midair, producing a sizzling hiss as they fused, then collapsed inward like a crumbling ball of light, vanishing into nothing.

The thunderclouds above, robbed of their target, could no longer hold themselves together. The storm they had built up began to crash down randomly.

A sudden downpour began, drumming violently against the earth.

Li Yuan felt the thunder within his body rapidly dissipate, without leaving the faintest trace behind.

“It failed. Not only did I fail to find a path to Human Soul cultivation, I can’t even break into the fourth rank at all. In the past, my balance of Yin and Yang was weak. Summoning heavenly thunder by burning a thousand years of lifespan was enough to push me through. But now, even that doesn’t work. And the best material I know, blood crystal marrow, can only take me this far.”

Li Yuan opened his Heavenly Eye and watched as the Yang energy of the thunder quickly faded within him. He let out a silent sigh, then pulled out White Serpent.

The short blade shimmered with electric light as he channeled the energy within it. But the result was barely better than before.

Clearly, this level of stimulation could no longer stir the Yin-Yang energy within him.

“Forget it...I’ll have to find another way.”

Li Yuan sheathed White Serpent. A flash of flame surged from his body, and the rain soaking him evaporated instantly into a swirl of white mist.

With a thought, he returned to the imperial palace.

This time, he didn’t even need to focus. He could hear the noise from all directions.

Like a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing endlessly in his ears, voices echoed through the palace, layered and chaotic. He could make out words like

Demon Empress

,

natural disaster

, and

bane of the nation

.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

After a moment’s thought, Li Yuan intended to find Xie Wei. But sensing her location, he realized that she was still at court.

There she was, seated on the dragon throne, her four-year-old son, the crown prince, in her arms. A confrontation was unfolding between her and the officials, one that was spiraling into deeper political struggle—dragging in more people, more factions, and invoking more disasters.

The world outside was buckling under floods of unprecedented scale, and with them came waves of rumors.

The ones in the Jade Capital were mild in comparison; elsewhere, people had even turned

The Demon Empress and the Great Flood

into a nursery rhyme sung in every corner of the Great Zhou.

But Li Yuan knew the real cause of the flooding.

The Grand Union of Yin and Yang had raised the temperature of the Nine Flames in the Western Extremes, causing the ancient glaciers to melt.

The waters were a natural result.

And they had absolutely nothing to do with the Empress.

As for the recent earthquakes in the capital, was it also her fault? Utter nonsense.

Li Yuan couldn’t help but think back to a month ago, when two fifth rank martial artists had infiltrated the palace in secret. He’d followed them, only to sense an even more mysterious force lurking in the shadows.

So even the provincial military governors have backers now... The politics of the capital are getting murkier by the day,

he thought.

It was time. Li Yuan began to consider leaving.

Too many unknowns had entered the game. Mysterious powers were moving behind the scenes, forces he couldn’t yet see clearly.

But before he left, there was still one person he needed to speak with, Xie Wei.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

That night.

The Emperor and Empress shared a bed once again.

After their long-overdue intimacy, the Empress let out a soft sigh of satisfaction, arms loosely draped around Li Yuan’s neck. But her eyes had lost their usual brilliance. They were drowsy now, heavy with fatigue.

In their wild entanglement, she had vented the emotions that had been building inside her. Now, all she needed was sleep.

Li Yuan, however, had no intention of sleeping. He held her tightly in his arms.

Without opening her eyes, she murmured, “Already? Again?”

But Li Yuan suddenly said, “Let’s move the capital.”

Her body went stiff.

Her eyes slowly opened. The drowsiness vanished, replaced by a sharp, sobering clarity.

In the flickering candlelight, her gaze met his—calm, steady, and unreadable.

Her red lips parted slightly, and she slowly repeated his words, “Relocate the Jade Capital?”

Li Yuan caught the chill in her tone and softened his voice. “You’re no Demon Empress. But this place has become a prison, one that turns everything against you. As long as you remain here, wave after wave of slander and accusation will drown out your voice.”

“Hu’er is with you, which means legitimacy is with you. Go back to Bright Moon Prefecture. Return to your stronghold. No one could have governed better than you have, but this city is the wrong battlefield. Even with a thousand strategies, what use are they if the ground beneath your feet betrays you?”

The Empress was quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, she let out a soft laugh. “And how does Your Majesty know I’m out of tricks?”

Li Yuan replied, “Xie Feng’s 30,000 cavalry, and Gao Kaiping’s 8,000...they’re like warhammers. Too heavy, too obvious. They’re not suited for the kind of fast, surgical strikes needed in the chaos of the capital.”

The Empress said, “What His Majesty means is. Here in the capital, it’s not about armies. It’s about assassins. Am I right?”

Li Yuan nodded. “You could say that.”

Again, she smiled. “And how does Your Majesty know I don’t have assassins?”

Li Yuan glanced down at her. It was clear she wasn’t talking about palace guards or secret agents.

A moment of silence passed between them.

Then the Empress called out, “Xiao Yu.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, a narrow crack opened in the window of Phoenix Cry Hall. A shadow slipped through like a ribbon of black silk, landing silently in front of Li Yuan.

Only then could he make out the figure clearly, a boy.

He was young, with a tightly tied topknot, dressed in striking red. In his small hand, he held a gleaming dagger. His expression was blank, his eyes cold, but there was a faint gleam of excitement in them.

A child's face. A killer’s gaze.

The Empress spoke, “The loyal soul within the Small Bridge Tunnel of Silkfloss Province, Fish Guts. His name won’t appear in official historical records, but you’ll know him from the

Chronicles of the Strange

.

“This one earned his title more than 2,000 years ago as the Heart-Digging Devil. In those strange tales, many great figures met bizarre, unexplained ends. Their hearts, every single one of them, ended up on display in this child’s home.”

Li Yuan looked at the little assassin in red. The boy was staring directly at his chest, unblinking, as if already picturing where the blade would go.

Floating beside the boy 3k~149k.

Li Yuan narrowed his eyes. It appeared his

System

had auto-formatted the values for readability.

He glanced at his own display 14k~220k. Rounded up nicely.

But the boy’s

149k

meant his upper limit was nearly 150,000.

His baseline strength was lower than Lu Xuanxian or Gao Kaiping, but his peak combat power was monstrous. Li Yuan guessed he had some kind of high burst, low sustain combat ability, perfect for assassination.

Li Yuan looked away.

The Empress shifted slightly in his arms, resting her head against him with a smile. “Well? Is it enough?”

Li Yuan answered calmly, “Not yet.”

The little killer in red licked his lips, looking more and more eager, his eyes still locked on Li Yuan’s chest like a predator sizing up prey.

“Xiao Yu, that’s enough,” the Empress said.

Without a word, the boy blurred into motion. His figure dissolved into black mist and slipped silently back out the window crack.

Even Li Yuan couldn’t fully grasp what he’d just witnessed. That method, the way the ancient assassin moved, appeared, vanished...it wasn’t something he could parse. It must be one of those strange skills developed after this infamous killer from two thousand years ago had turned into a ghost servant.

Explosive Yang, creeping Yin.

Definitely a Yin-based skill.

Li Yuan reined in his thoughts and turned his attention back to the woman in his arms. He looked her in the eyes and said quietly, “Sister-in-law...don’t you get it? The Dragon Vein is clearly weakened. And yet, even in its damaged state, it still sent you a

second

loyal soul. That’s never happened in history, has it? Doesn’t that tell you something?”

Right, he’s Yu’er’s man too...

Xie Wei’s body trembled. A tingling warmth surged through her, and she clung more tightly to him, her breathing turning shallow and fast.

“But, Your Majesty,” she whispered, forcing herself back into formal speech, “my strength...doesn’t end there.”

It was only after she bit back the intimacy in her address that her mind and body seemed to steady.

“Do you know of the Mountain Hall?” she asked.

Li Yuan replied, “I do. It’s just a puppet controlled by the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain.”

“...” Xie Wei blinked. After a long pause, she muttered, “Your Majesty...would you care to explain that properly? Why is the Mountain Hall a puppet? And what exactly is the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain?”