Immortal Paladin

301 War Room

[POV: Nongmin]

It felt like a very, very long dream. A dream without beginning or end, where time folded in on itself until even memory became fluid.

When Nongmin came to himself, he realized he was not standing in the present but wandering through the tapestry of his own memory. He looked down and saw cobblestones glistening under morning light. Around him rose the familiar grandeur of the Imperial Capital. The air was alive with voices, merchants crying wares, and banners fluttering like the heartbeat of an empire that once seemed eternal.

Walking at his side was a beautiful woman whose hand enclosed his own.

"Mother," he whispered, his voice trembling with the innocence of a child. "How are you here?"

Xin Yune smiled, the same warm, gentle smile that had once meant safety. She did not answer at first, only squeezed his small hand. When her lips finally parted, her voice was serene but distant.

"I am not her."

The words struck him odd. She let go.

Nongmin stared down at his hands and realized they were small and delicate. It was the hands of a boy, not the scarred and calloused ones he remembered. When he blinked, his mother was gone.

In her place stood an older version of himself.

The Emperor of the Grand Ascension Empire. His hair had grayed, though it was still full, and his frame was cloaked in ornate robes dark as midnight, embroidered with golden dragons that coiled and twisted as if alive. His eyes were not mortal eyes, but divine. It was cold, unfeeling, and piercing through flesh and spirit alike.

The older Nongmin spoke with a voice that was neither accusation nor comfort. "You are mistaken. I am neither your heart demon, a reflection of yourself, nor a hallucination."

Nongmin blinked again. This time, the Emperor was gone, and before him stood Da Wei.

The man wore his usual casual grin, but his eyes carried the weight of countless battles. "Almost," Da Wei said, shaking his head, "but I'd say you got a 'pass.' Still, man… they screwed you up."

Nongmin exhaled slowly, the words tumbling out of him like confession. "They lacerated my soul, keeping my true self buried in a labyrinth of memories. All the while, they puppeted my body in ways that even I wouldn't recognize it wasn't me. It was a mockery of existence, turning me into a marionette dangling on invisible strings. They really had it in me, huh?" His expression softened then, touched by a rare sincerity. "I have to thank you, Da Wei. Your Human Soul protected me from losing all of my will."

Da Wei tilted his head, thoughtful. "Hmmm… Makes sense… So that was how you were able to warn us. Through Xue Xin. You gave her those cryptic messages."

Nongmin smiled faintly, a glimmer of mischief cutting through the shadows. "Yet you came."

"Of course I did." Da Wei's grin sharpened, his tone shifting into that familiar cadence of power. "Let's fix you up… Divine Word: Life."

The syllables rang like thunder made holy, vibrating through the marrow of the dream, through the shackles that bound Nongmin's soul. The labyrinth cracked, walls falling inward, corridors collapsing into nothingness. Light poured in where there had only been shadow.

Nongmin gasped as the dream shattered. He opened his eyes. Golden light flared within them, bright and sovereign. He was back to himself. And as his consciousness anchored fully into flesh, his first sight was devastation. The courtyard around him was split, and fissured like a battlefield scoured by titans. Stone cracked in jagged patterns, as though the world itself had convulsed.

Strewn across the ruin, lay limbs.

Nongmin stared at the pink-haired woman. Alice. Her mouth was slick with blood, and the corners of her lips were dark and obscene. Her eyes were not human now; they burned with a simple, clean hunger that made his skin prickle. She inhaled as if tasting the air of the courtyard, and the motion was serene, almost bored, as if she had only paused mid-hunt to admire the scenery.

A shadow slid free from the rim of shattered stone. It was Da Wei stepping out as if from behind a curtain. He looked absurdly unruffled for a man whose presence had just detonated a slaughter. He blinked once, took in the ruin, and commented, "Bai Rong and Lu Wang managed to flee. But not so much for these two…"

Nongmin's gaze tracked where Da Wei pointed. Xun Li's body lay ragged and betrayed, split clean down the torso. His entrails had spilled like a grotesque exclamation mark across the flagstones; his face was frozen in a last, empty surprise. There was no light in his eyes. Instead, there was only the cold, dull absence of a life ended without ceremony.

Nearer, where the earth had torn and buckled like a living thing, Tian Meng crawled. Her torso dragged along the ground, wrists useless where limbs once had been; she made a sound that was half howl and half prayer. Tears blurred the soot and blood on her cheeks as she swore under her breath. "I will leave," she rasped, voice shredded to match her body. "I will leave and I will come back—"

Alice drew a breath and turned, slow and composed, confronting Da Wei. "Never," she said, each syllable a knife. "Never have your Asura Soul near me ever again."

Da Wei's smile flickered into something apologetic and amused. "Yeah… copy that," he said. "It won't happen again."

Nongmin felt the echoes of what had just transpired as if they were distant strikes against a drum: he remembered tugging on the Diminution Spiral with his techniques while Da Wei's Human Soul lent the fragile scaffolding of support. He remembered the way the ward had cracked, not all at once, but like ice under repeated stress, and how a combination of cunning and more than a bit of luck had turned the trap against its makers. He saw flashes: Bai Rong's circle unspooling, Lu Wang's staff snapping like a tree, Xun Li's pilgrim blade misfed into a blade of shadow that simply refused to die.

Da Wei's voice pulled him back to the courtyard. "Man, we sure got lucky sending you, Alice… I'd probably have suffered a lot if they'd managed to spring that array on me."

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"We should leave," Nongmin said. "This has remains to be hostile territory."

Da Wei shook his head slowly as he provided. "We still need to help the prisoners and the refugees mixed in this to find their bearings," he said. "We make a plan for our next steps. It won't hurt to stay a while… gather a convoy, scour for resources, patch people up. The others should be done dealing with whatever experts posted here. They have an Ascended Soul with them, but they're stretched thin."

"We can't leave any survivors, well, I am not that cruel, but we don't want any runners." The words were quiet but absolute. "So, I hope you don't mind me asking this of you, but we need to move, and ensure no one leaves the city."

"It's a sound plan," Nongmin said at last. "I understand that you don't want unnecessary casualties, but I suggest against taking prisoners. It's better we deal with them swiftly."

"Nah… We'll manage…"

Da Wei shifted his gaze and pointed at the crawling figure of Tian Meng with his chin. "What about her? Suggestions?"

"We keep her as prisoner," Nongmin answered. "She'll be more useful, alive than dead."

A couple of days had passed since they seized the Imperial Capital. The courtyards no longer rang with screams or steel, only with the clatter of wagons and the constant movement of men dismantling what once had been the heart of the empire. Yet the light in Nongmin's eyes had dulled. Even after Da Wei's spontaneous, miraculous healing, his ruined vision refused to mend. His gaze now carried a haze, as though always staring past the present.

"Your Majesty, is it fine for you to overwork yourself so much?" Zhu Shin asked, voice carrying the weary patience of a man who had repeated this question more than once.

It was only dawn, and already his general was fussing. The office was nothing but a servant's quarter refurbished into a command chamber, its walls hung with scrolls and maps, a desk drowned in ledgers. Nongmin sat at the center, quill scratching calmly, as if the weight of empire could be settled with ink and patience.

"I am not crippled, General," Nongmin replied evenly, not looking up. "And please do remember… I am still a Tenth Realm expert. Paperwork is nothing to me."

His hands moved without pause, cataloguing supplies, reviewing names of families placed into the convoys, and shifting sigils of arrays yet to be activated to correspond certain functions. Every detail mattered. Retaking the capital had required Da Wei's hand, but holding it, and then abandoning it, was a quieter war that fell to him alone. Assigning forces, rationing dwindling resources, preparing a grand array beneath the streets that, when triggered, would collapse and bury the Imperial Capital forever.

The evacuation was nearly complete. Soon, nothing would remain here but ashes and stone.

Nongmin set down the quill for a moment, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Any signs of the rebels' movement?"

"Nothing, Your Majesty," Zhu Shin answered crisply. "But according to the Shadow Clan cultivators, word has already spread of the death of three Clan Heads. The remaining forces are preparing to move on Riverfall. It seems they have no intent to recover the Capital."

Nongmin grew quiet, letting the words settle. His fingers tapped once against the desk. His eyes, dimmed though they were, carried the weight of thought too heavy for speech.

Zhu Shin hesitated, then said carefully, "Your Majesty, forgive me if this question is intrusive… but is it truly the right choice to abandon the Capital?"

The silence stretched.

No, it was not. The city was the heart of the empire, its jewel and its cage. To relinquish it was to admit an ending, and to give up the myth that had held the empire together. But it was his choice. It was time for a new era, one that would welcome a ruler who no longer clung to the ruins of the past. Someone, who could look bravely ahead to the future, regardless of how dark it might become

Before Nongmin could answer, a voice came from the doorway.

"War room."

Da Wei leaned against the frame.

"Chop, chop," playfully said Da Wei. "We have stuff to do…

Nongmin rose without hesitation, Zhu Shin following suit.

They followed just behind Da Wei, his emerald robes catching faint light from the shattered lanterns. His voice, casual but sharp, broke the silence.

"Nongmin, you sure got a shitshow going on. Almost every noble under you rebelled. Honestly, it's truly stupid of you to make a big spectacle of Ren Xun's and Lin Lim's wedding."

The streets they passed were empty, haunted by silence. Shattered banners clung to walls, and the smell of burned wood still lingered in the air. Rubble blocked alleys where skirmishes had spilled over. The wounds of civil war remained fresh, not only on stone but in the air itself.

"That's 'Your Majesty' to you, Da Wei!" Zhu Shin barked, offended on his lord's behalf.

Nongmin did not slow his stride. His expression, though half-veiled by his dulled eyes, remained calm as he answered, "It had to happen. I might no longer wield the Heavenly Eye, but the things I saw had been real. Ren Xun will prove useful to you in the wars ahead. The boy needed to grow up, David."

Da Wei tilted his head back and gave a short laugh. "Is that what you're going to tell him? We both know that isn't the entire story. I learned firsthand how fickle and unstoppable destiny is…" His gaze flicked toward Nongmin, sharp as glass. "I imagine the wedding caused a whole string of butterfly effects that would've otherwise birthed more troublesome things you'd rather not happen. I lived your life, remember? I saw your visions the same way you did."

He wrinkled his nose slightly, as if catching a bitter taste. "Also, if you don't mind, can you not call me David? Gives me shivers…"

Nongmin's mouth twitched faintly. "I am more comfortable calling you Da Wei, anyway." His tone softened a fraction, touched with private amusement. "Alice still giving you the cold shoulder?"

Da Wei's expression soured, his lips pulling to the side. "Yeah… It seems she hates my Asura Soul to the bone."

At last, the three of them reached the war room.

The war room smelled of ink, sweat, and the faint copper of old blood. Maps lay splayed like the entrails of some great beast, pins and threads marking lines of retreat and advance. At the long table sat strangers, barring Alice. Hei Ximei represented the Shadow Clan. Alice occupied a battered chair, her posture unreadable beneath the sheen of blood and conquest. Da Ji, Da Wei's sister, sat with a listless, watchful patience that belonged to someone used to observing.

Zhu Shin announced their arrival with the ritual the world still demanded. "Salutations to His Majesty—"

"Please," Nongmin cut him off gently, "take your seat. You too, General."

Da Wei moved toward the corner seat as if habit and mischief both guided him. Nongmin's hand closed on his sleeve. "That's not your seat," he said. "And you know what I mean."

Da Wei flashed a grin. "You are the Emperor, so of course you will take the big seat—"

Nongmin did not smile. "No. We don't have time to argue." His words were small and fatal. "We must finish quickly. Jia Sen is on his way here, and you know that."

Da Wei sighed, and Nongmin continued.

"How long did it take him to travel from here to Ashpeak?" Nongmin asked, more of a prompt than a question. "At least a week, I assume. I would prefer we held this on a flying vessel, more secure, more room for contingency, but we are stretched thin. Most of our vessels are busy evacuating refugees to lords still loyal to me. We cannot risk a protracted meeting here."

He paused, letting the practical images thread through their shared mind: wagons carving through ruined streets, refugees covered in cloaks, wind carrying rumors faster than any messenger. "Da Ji kept the prisoners in our custody behaving, but that wouldn't be enough. They've been held with discipline and threats; they will snap sooner than later. If they break while Jia Sen's forces are en route, we will face panic, uprisings, and a collapse that even we will struggle to contain. We are small in numbers, and our only redeeming quality is our individual might, but it doesn't mean we can't be organized. Thus, I propose to put someone at the head, and that is not going to be me."

Da Wei opened his mouth to protest and then closed it as Alice glared at him.

Nongmin continued. "The earlier we leave the city, the more advantage we gain. Time gives the enemy opportunity. We cannot gift them that." He looked at Da Wei directly. "So I suggest you cooperate, Da Wei. Take the big seat."

"Oh, come on," cried Da Wei.

"Grow a pair, sissy," said Alice. "Let's get on with the show, please."