The Weak Prince Is A Cultivation God

Lan's eyes were still on the horizon, where the flames marked the edges of his conquest.

"Winter," he said softly, "will be the least of their worries."

The fires crackled. Somewhere in the city, a bell tolled — hollow, mournful.

--------

The stench of scorched wheat and charred flesh drifted on the wind, seeping into Westerloch's empty streets. Even here, in the province's heart, the silence felt unnatural — as though the city was waiting.

The Duke's blood still stained the cobbles in front of the keep, a dark, stubborn smear that the hurried efforts of the men hadn't erased.

Miller's boots thudded against the flagstones as he strode into the audience hall, his frame shadowing the man he dragged in tow.

The man's knees buckled as Miller shoved him forward, forcing him into a kneel before Lan. His clothes were noble yet dirt-streaked, but the faded crest on his shoulder was unmistakable.

"Loyal," Miller said. It wasn't a guess.

The man trembled, but when his head lifted, there was no groveling in his gaze — only a weary defiance. "I served Ranevia in the years before the Solaris crown bled her dry," he said. "I'll serve again."

Lan studied him for a long, still heartbeat. The man didn't flinch under that pale, unblinking stare. Finally, Lan's chin dipped in the faintest nod. "Then you will serve as Westerloch's governor… under my command."

The words landed like a decree.

Miller turned to the waiting guards. "Soulbrand him. Sworn in before sunset."

The man was hauled away, already caught between relief and dread.

---

Outside, Venom was already reshaping the city the way a butcher works a carcass — cutting deep, stripping clean, discarding nothing useful. Grain stores were tallied, sealed, and marked. Carts were lined in rigid order, wheels creaking under the weight of heavy burlap sacks.

Men moved like ants under Venom's barked orders. "No delays," he growled to a foreman fumbling with a cart hitch. "Every grain of this province belongs to Ranevia now."

Farther down the avenue, Garran's work was quieter but no less brutal. He'd gathered Westerloch's surviving street gangs — the young, the desperate, the predators that survived the fall — and given them one choice.

"You work the watch posts, or you work a grave," he told them in his calm, unblinking way.

By midday, the gangs were stripped of their old rags and armed with spears. Black armbands stitched with Lan's sigil marked them as part of the city guard. They marched along the walls now, not with discipline yet, but with the wariness of men who knew death was closer than freedom.

---

The Duke's head came out of the keep before dusk.

Lan stood at the city's main crossroads as Miller and two Vipers hammered the grisly trophy into place — nailed to a thick plank, the wood freshly painted with stark, simple words:

'This is mercy.'

Passersby slowed, staring.

Some froze in horror, others whispered behind their hands. A mother pulled her son behind her skirts, shielding his eyes, but the boy still peeked out, small fingers clutching fabric as if he already knew he would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

Lan didn't spare them a glance. The message wasn't for these streets — it was for every city that would hear about it by nightfall.

And hear they would. By the time the sun slid beneath the horizon, messengers were already on the road. Some fled south, others east, carrying frantic words that would spread like plague:

The god of the north has returned.

Westerloch fell in one night.

The Duke's head hangs in the street.

In the Solaris capital, those whispers would slip beneath noble doors. Court councilors would speak them in corridors, generals would shuffle maps at war tables, and one prince would sit in a quiet room and wonder if he should wait… or strike first.

Lan wanted them to wonder. To calculate. To burn time and breath on strategies that meant nothing.

---

The war council gathered in the keep's map room that evening. The walls still smelled faintly of the Duke's perfume and candle wax, but the table no longer bore his delicate ledgers or hunting invitations. Now it was buried beneath Lan's maps, their corners pinned by daggers.

Lan stood at the head of the table, one finger tracing the parchment until it stopped against the southern coast.

"Ironwater Coast," he said. "Their naval jewel. Ships, docks, shipwrights. We take it, and Solaris loses its spine at sea."

Venom leaned forward, the lamplight catching the edge of his scar. "They'll see us coming. Harbor defenses will be ready."

"They will," Lan said. "But they'll be watching for an army, not a knife."

Halmer stepped in, his leg dragging faintly against the floor. "The coast isn't one wall. It's rocks, coves, tidal flats. Here—" He jabbed a scarred finger at a shaded strip on the map's edge. "—an old smuggler's approach. Shallow water, reefs that'll gut a ship. Worthless for a fleet… perfect for small craft."

Lan's gaze stayed on the map. "And the defenses?"

"Concentrated at the main harbor," Halmer said. "Patrols are light along the coves. If we land there, we'll be in the city before they know we're not ghosts."

Miller, silent until now, looked only at Lan. "When?"

Lan's answer was a single word, low and certain. "Soon."

---

That night, the wind was gentler than the north's biting gales, carrying the tang of the sea even this far inland.

Lan stood on Westerloch's southern wall, looking out past the city's black roofs and empty fields. The moon hung full and white, spilling silver across the distant horizon where the land gave way to the ocean.

Beyond that glimmering line lay the Ironwater Coast — the next piece of the kingdom he would take.

Behind him, in the crossroads, the Duke's head still hung from its plank, swaying in the night wind. The faint creak of the wood was the only sound in the dark.

The god of the north had taken his first province.

And he would not stop.