Chapter 697: Aura of Dominance

The Jinghun shouted, "From today onwards, we serve Master Hong!"

Ren Kunjing glanced at his companions in shock. "Are you all crazy?!"

The Jinghun shook their heads. "No, we've just finally awoken to the truth. How foolish we used to be! We didn't know how magnificent Master Hong was. Only after we met him did we come to understand the reason why we were born."

Even the scalemen who had sided with the eighth prince were kneeling with one knee on the ground.

Ren Kunjing shouted, "Just what did you bastard do to my kin?!"

Zhang Lie countered, "Just what you've done to everyone else, of course."

Ren Kunjing glanced around him at his companions. Their mannerisms had changed all of a sudden, as though they had turned into controlled beasts all of a sudden—no, it was worse! The beasts that the Jinghun controlled would turn into what were essentially robots, but these Jinghun seemed to retain the ability to think. Only their thoughts had been corrupted.

Ren Kunjing could hardly believe this.

The Jinghun boasted particularly strong reserves of mental energy; how else would they be able to control peak-grade lifeforms? Their high mental resilience meant that it was unthinkable for them to be subject to mental compulsion.

Nevertheless, his companions had all begun to kneel down, and it was evident they were being controlled. Just how strong did Zhang Lie's reserves of mental energy have to be to control even the Jinghun?

The more he thought, the more Ren Kunjing's head began to hurt. Suddenly, he felt a strong compulsion to bow down toward Zhang Lie, to prostrate himself on the ground and to lick his feet. As his consciousness eroded away, Ren Kunjing yelled out madly, condensed a small purple crystal in his hand, and stuck it into his brain.

He laughed out loud. "Haha! If I do this, you won't be able to control me."

Zhang Lie was impressed by Ren Kunjing's resolve. In order to avoid being controlled, he was using his own techniques against himself. "But will it be effective, I wonder?"

Ren Kunjing's companions pounced on him from behind and held him down. Ren Kunjing's consciousness flickered as rainbow light trickled out of his eyelids.

The Jinghun housed their mental energy in those crystal shards and used them to power their mental compulsions, but other Jinghun were able to subvert that energy and use it for their own purposes, as though they were hacking into someone else's mind.

"As long as your companions disrupt your hold over yourself, your resistance will be meaningless."

Ren Kunjing roared in outrage, broke free of his companions' holds, and tried to flee, but Zhang Lie stopped him before he could get away. He pounded Ren Kunjing into the ground.

Ren Kunjing's eyes continued to flash rainbow on and off until, with a muted groan of pain, he finally submitted. When he opened his eyes again, they shone with a rainbow gleam.

"I serve only you, Master Hong!" Ren Kunjing declared.

Thus ended the fight against the Jinghun. The calamitous plan the Jinghun had come up with never came to fruition; Zhang Lie controlled them all before it could.

The ninth prince picked up the jade seal on the stage, but Zhang Lie called out, "I don't advise you to try to proceed with the ceremony unless you want to die!"

The ninth prince fretted, "But the world's in turmoil! After the Jinghun made a mess of the capital, we need a capable leader..."

Zhang Lie asked, "Do you want to die?"

The ninth prince might be stronger than the eighth prince, but not by much."

"Master, do you want me to hand the throne to my eldest brother, then?"

"If you want to take control of the throne from behind the scenes, I won't stop you."

"No, I want to inherit the throne. Despite all that has happened, my will hasn't changed."

"In that case, I have an idea."

After the Jinghun were finally subdued, the crown and ninth princes worked together to clean up the mess. When the Jinghun and the eighth prince took control, the Feng and Wang clans were almost destroyed to the last.

The swordmasters of Jianzu rushed down from their mountain to protect the capital, but the Jinghun boasted significant manpower of their own, as well. None of these swordmasters were able to overcome Ren Kunjing, and all they could do was retreat with the rest of the Wang clan, along with the third prince.

𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The ninth prince sighed in relief. At the very least, not all the princes had perished. The third prince was still alive, as was the seventh.

The Heijie had a particularly strong life-preserving instinct, and they fled from the capital with the seventh prince as soon as they noticed that something was wrong. By the time they returned, however, they noticed that the disturbance had been quelled.

Both the third and seventh princes were shocked.

Zhang Lie had taken down the Jinghun with his disaster-grade mistmeld clam soulshard, and no such terror could strike the capital again.

Meanwhile, the crown and ninth princes successfully handled the restoration efforts together.

After a short discussion, they decided to prioritize the funeral of the king of the realm and of their brothers who had fallen.

In less than a month, the capital was once again in mourning—this time, for the king of the realm and the three fallen princes. A funeral for four members of the royalty, including the king of the realm himself, would be without compare.

The capital was dyed in a holy, sacrosanct white. All businesses had closed up for the day, the buildings shrouded in white cloth. Families hung white banners from their windows as the entire capital observed a day of grieving.

Rows of coffins filled the plaza at the heart of the capital, leading all the way out through the gates of the capital. The major streets were all filled with coffins, a rather sinister sight.

From beyond the city gates, the crown and ninth princes draped in white marched toward the plaza bearing the weight of a coffin between them.

The coffin, ornately decorated with gold and jade, was gilded with gold leaf in floral patterns. The third prince stood at the very front, tossing paper money in front of him, while the seventh prince stood with a portrait of the king of the realm. Behind them were three coffins for the fourth, fifth, and sixth princes. Because the princes were so short-handed, they were unable to carry all the coffins at once.

They had no choice but to have the crown and ninth princes carrying the king of the realm's coffin, while the third and seventh princes observed the funeral rites.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth princes' coffins should have been carried by their relatives, but the Jinghun had killed them all. The crown prince's wife and the queen had been ravaged by the guards in the eighth prince's employ.

The former eighth prince, whose actions were unforgivable, was stricken from the register of royalty. Never would history know of the eighth prince's existence, of the betrayal of the Jinghun, or the assassination of the king of the realm.

The king, it would be written, had perished of natural causes as he was handling the affairs of the realm. He had departed in peace, swiftly followed by four of the princes, devastated by the loss of their father and mentor, over the next few months.

History was written by the victors; few knew how much cruelty and evil these lies covered up...