The Serpent's Last Sacrifice
The private chamber of Jaseondang.
While the Prince's Guard soldiers stood watch like an iron fortress, Ouyang Qiangang had reached the final stage of the surgery.
The moment the thread-thin sword qi rising from his fingertips touched the surface of the foreign object embedded in the Crown Prince's heart—
Keeeeee—
the object shuddered violently with a sickening shriek of splitting resonance.
"Doctor! The object's demonic qi is amplifying and spiraling out of control. It appears another blood ritual is being performed somewhere right now."
Dark crimson demonic qi spewed out like blood from a severed vein, threatening to corrupt the Crown Prince's heart. And Ouyang Qiangang's sword qi, repelled as if iron filings shoved back by the opposite pole of a magnet, could not advance another inch.
"Nngh...!"
As the deadlock stretched on, a low groan tore itself from his throat.
The extreme drain of his internal energy gave the frigid qi of his Nine Yin Severed Meridians its long-awaited opening. It surged backward through his channels, driving nails of agony into his meridians as though they were being torn apart. His face went pale and clammy under a sheen of cold sweat, and the fingertips controlling his sword qi began to tremble like fine threads in the wind.
"Doctor, your internal energy reserves have fallen below ten percent. Your pulse is climbing rapidly. If this continues, you will collapse before the patient does."
I have to hold on...!
Ouyang Qiangang clenched his teeth. If he gave up, the Crown Prince died.
Together with Akasha, he gathered every last scrap of remaining internal energy and desperately crushed down the runaway demonic qi of the foreign object. And at last, his sword qi succeeded in carving the blood fragment free of the heart.
Thuk—
With the soft sound of the blood-colored object dropping away, Ouyang Qiangang felt his body begin to tip sideways. He was exhausted. His nerves were frayed to nothing.
I can't fall now. There's still work left to do...
Every joint in his body seemed to scream in protest, yet his spine did not so much as sway, rooted to the ground like an ancient tree that had grown deep into the earth.
"Doctor, your internal energy is nearly depleted. Unless you begin breathing cultivation immediately, your meridians may suffer permanent, irreparable damage."
Ouyang Qiangang drew a supreme-grade Yang Dragon Pill glowing with a resplendent golden light from his robe and placed it in his mouth without hesitation. The instant the elixir dissolved, a searing heat flooded his dantian like molten lava, flowing through his parched meridians and spreading out to every corner of his body.
Squeezing out the last of his mental strength, he began to circulate the Chaoyeon Musang Divine Art. One of its greatest advantages was that it allowed him to carry on with ordinary actions even while cycling his energy. In the space of a breath, the internal energy consumed by the surgery recovered to roughly thirty percent — somewhere around forty to fifty years' worth of cultivated power.
Steadying his ragged breathing, Ouyang Qiangang looked down at the Crown Prince's open chest. The cool, blue-tinted Pure Yin energy that had been enveloping his fingertips faded away, and in its place surged forth a golden Pure Yang energy, hot and radiant as the noonday sun.
With that hand, he gently swept the wound. Szzt— with a faint hiss, the split flesh and muscle seared together and closed. In plain terms, he was cauterizing the wound shut. A scar would remain, but it was the best he could manage under the circumstances.
Ouyang Qiangang's eyes sank deep with thought.
Akasha — what in the world is their ultimate objective? Kill the Crown Prince, and put the Second Prince on the throne?
"No, Doctor. Simulating the Empire's power succession structure, that scenario does not guarantee optimal benefit to the Dark Serpent."
"The optimal scenario is the Crown Prince's death, the Second Prince's neutralization amid the ensuing chaos — and the sudden death of the Emperor. In that case, the Empress ascends to the position of Regent."
Ouyang Qiangang clenched his jaw. He remembered the Crown Prince's eyes, sunken as deep as a bottomless pit, that he had seen in the imperial prison.
"Because the Empire is in danger."
The Crown Prince's words came back to him, and Ouyang Qiangang let out an involuntary sigh. What the Crown Prince had said back then — and the manner in which he had said it — had never been a matter of duty to the Empire. It had been a blood-choking scream from a son who could not bring himself to denounce his own mother.
In an age where loyalty and filial piety were the highest of virtues, the Crown Prince had been dying alone, cradling the monstrous truth that his own mother had tried to kill him.
The master of the Dark Serpent, hidden in the darkness of the imperial house — it was the Empress all along...
"I simply did not say so, but I arrived at the same conclusion some time ago, Doctor."
At Akasha's level answer, Ouyang Qiangang found himself at a loss for words. Complicated feelings churned in his chest — gratitude, and something close to frustration — toward the woman who had weighed even his emotions before choosing silence.
He gave a wry smile. You should have just told me.
"Because it was still at the hypothesis stage — a 68 percent probability. I feared that if I spoke too hastily without evidence, you might act on emotion and place yourself in greater danger. The Empress is a dangerous opponent."
Her answer drew another wry smile from him. Then from now on, share it with me even at the hypothesis stage. I'm not as emotional as you think I am.
A short while earlier, inside Gyotaejeon, the residence of the Empress.
Expensive aloeswood incense hung thick in the air, but the atmosphere itself was suffocating. The instant the kneeling figure in the shadows finished reporting, a heavy silence fell.
The Retainer's Plan had failed, and Ouyang Qiangang was inside the Crown Prince's palace.
Crash—!
The teacup in the Empress's hand shattered into powder and scattered. Her hypocrisy peeled away from her beautiful face like a serpent shedding its skin, and her delicately painted lips twisted in something like a spasm.
Failure meant ruin. The moment the Crown Prince opened his eyes and Ouyang Qiangang opened his mouth, everything she had piled up over thirty years of blood and betrayal would dissolve into foam.
All because of one green-faced quack of a physician.
She could wait no longer. Her gaze slid toward her palace maids waiting outside, beyond the firmly closed doors. There was no time to find another offering.
"A loyal servant... gladly offers up her own body for her master's great design."
The Empress's voice was cold enough to chill the marrow in a man's bones. Through the shadows, she issued her secret command for the final blood sacrifice.
"Seize every maid in Gyotaejeon. Tonight, their blood and their souls shall become the offering for our great design."
"As you command, Grand Ceremonial Master."
The offerings this time would be the very maids who had served at her side. Using their screams and despair as nourishment, the Empress intended to drive the God-Sealing Blood Bone Fragment embedded in the Crown Prince's heart into a full frenzy, no matter what it took.
This was her final gambit.
Feigning the act of stitching the Crown Prince's chest, Ouyang Qiangang drew in a long, deep breath. His internal energy was at rock bottom and his mental strength had reached its limit, but his eyes burned with a ferocity that was almost frightening.
Because right now was the only chance he would ever get to strike off the head of the serpent that had deceived the imperial house for decades.
Pressing his fingers to the Crown Prince's pulse, Ouyang Qiangang spoke to Chief Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch Sang On, who had drawn near at his side, his voice transmitted directly into the old man's mind.
Sang On's mouth fell open, and his eyes widened as though they would tear at the corners. But true to a man who had served the Emperor for decades, not a single word escaped his lips.
Ouyang Qiangang continued.
Puzzled, but in no position to ask questions, Sang On could only nod. He gazed for a moment at the Crown Prince's peaceful sleeping face — then, his expression hardened into resolve, he nodded again.
The Empress's residence — Gyotaejeon.
To speak that name aloud to Sang On even now was dangerous. Even if he was the Emperor's most loyal servant, could he truly bear the weight of being told that a blade would be turned against the Nation's Mother? Until he had proof in hand, this secret's burden belonged to Ouyang Qiangang alone.
Face set with determination, Sang On left the palace chamber. Then, after ordering the Prince's Guard soldiers stationed outside the closed doors that no one whatsoever was to be allowed entry or exit, he hurried without a moment's delay to where the Emperor was.
Having confirmed it, Ouyang Qiangang silently pried open the ceiling beam. The Crown Prince's faint breathing tickled at his ears, but without a trace of hesitation he flung his body skyward.
Unfurling the Heavenly Meteor Divine Movement, his silhouette crossed the rooftop without a sound, like a streaking meteor. Whoooosh—
His target was Gyotaejeon, the Empress's residence, some two hundred zhang away.
Beneath the moonlight, Gyotaejeon lay serene and beautiful as a painted scroll. Its delicate dancheong coloring and the graceful curves of its roof exuded all the majesty befitting the dwelling of the Nation's Mother.
But within that perfect beauty, Ouyang Qiangang sensed something namelessly wrong. At the tail end of the flower fragrance, faint but unmistakable, hung a coppery tang of blood — and an unnatural stillness that swallowed every sound.
Akasha — sweep the interior of Gyotaejeon.
"Understood, Doctor. Deploying nanobots to scan the interior structure and personnel positioning."
"This is strange. The full scan of Gyotaejeon shows no anomalies. However, I am detecting a weak spatial distortion phenomenon at a specific point. The area is shielded so that its interior cannot be observed by conventional means. Switching to pursuit mode. I will track the vanishing life signs."
Holding his breath, Ouyang Qiangang waited for Akasha's next report. Before long, a voice cold enough to stop his heart rang through his mind.
> ...Hidden underground chamber detected behind Gyotaejeon. Scanning interior... one humanoid biological signal in rapid vital decline. Cardiac arrest. ...Life response, fully extinguished. Judgment: deceased.
Fierce, godlike light blazed in Ouyang Qiangang's eyes.
He did not hesitate. The roughly thirty percent of internal energy he had recovered had already been spent at full power racing here, dwindling to a mere trickle by the time he arrived.
But he still had one trump card left. The object freshly excised from the Crown Prince's heart pulsed with ominous throbs inside his robe.
Your wicked power... let me borrow it. Just for a moment.
He forcibly wrenched out the vast demonic qi contained within the object, purified it through the Chaoyeon Musang Divine Art, and condensed it into his right hand. His meridians howled in agony, but he did not stop.
Akasha — find me a building I can bring down in a single strike.
"Doctor — the northern upper-story main beam of the hall at three o'clock. That point is the critical support bearing the building's full load. Strike it, and the entire structure can be brought down with minimal force."
Hurling his silhouette toward the spot Akasha had marked, Ouyang Qiangang raised every last drop of his twelve-fold cultivated power and unleashed the Explosive Flame King Strike.
Twelve stages of cultivated power, condensed into a single annihilating blow.
KWAAAAAH—!
BOOM!
With a cataclysmic roar, the upper-story beam of the hall shattered to pieces, and the great building lost its balance and began to collapse.
Crash! Crash! CRASH—!
It was a thunderclap that no one within a dozen li could have failed to hear even in broad daylight — and it was night, when sound carried even farther. The entire imperial palace awoke at once; torches flared up on every side, and in an instant the darkness turned bright as noon.
Thousands of elite Prince's Guard soldiers converged on the source of the sound with a war cry. As if the Emperor's order had already been given, the troops moved on a massive scale — swift, disciplined, and seamless.
Gyotaejeon was thrown into utter chaos as well. Fifty-some eunuchs and palace maids lined up in formation before the hall of Gyotaejeon, as if bracing for an assault.
And in the very eye of that confusion, Ouyang Qiangang unfurled the Heavenly Meteor Divine Movement and slipped into the rear of Gyotaejeon like a shadow. Striking the west while the east rang with noise — the classic stratagem of thunder in the east, attack in the west.