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216 - The Divine Emperor in the City of Glittering Petals Pt. 2 [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-04-20 18:47:46 +0000 UTC“Seven hundred years to get that Dragonstone back,” he sneered disdainfully, drinking his dish of baijiu. Shen laughed softly at his response, refilling the dish before emptying his own and doing the same.
“But who else to stoke Kristina’s inner demon into foolish action than Zelsys Newman? That Walking Tribulation…” Xiān Dì sighed, much to Shen’s continued amusement. He, unlike the Ankhezians in antiquity, had never made the foolish choice of warring with Borea. He, unlike those elves, knew better than to try conquering an icebound hellhole whose capital stood a thousand leagues from his own borders. Even with modern machinery, it would be a logistical nightmare with minimal returns. That land had no worth to anyone but Boreans and the few cultivators adapted to thrive in the ice, and even the cultivation resources of Oaseby had possessed little value to Xiān Dì under the Cultivation Suppression Edict.
“Truly, those northern lands are a hellscape, and their people may as well be monsters born from the ice itself. By comparison, those Ikesian snow devils are a preferable foe. At least they’re not warriors to a man like the Boreans,” Shen said. Another dish of baijiu was emptied. The Lord of Lingering Smoke continued: “The hard land grows hard plants, hard animals, hard people. As unyielding as the glacier, as fierce as the brambleback, such are Boreans. We are fortunate that those of them born outside Borea grow weaker with each generation until they become like any other human. They cannot be conquered, but in turn, they cannot expand, unless the world itself becomes just as harsh as their homeland.”
Another round of drink. It was a truly magical experience; as Xiān Dì drank, poisons of different natures took effect in different ways and at different times. Simultaneously, his physique constantly broke them down, even though he willfully suppressed his own immune system to better enjoy the drink. In this way, not only was the oncoming intoxication evershifting, but so was the flavour, as his tongue and nose were both numbed in different manners by the poison. The baijiu remained the same, but his perception of the taste continued to change. It never once for a moment became anything less than scorchingly acrid.
“Indeed, ensuring that they remain bound to their homeland was one of my reasons to suppress cultivation all across the continent,” he said to Shen. “With opponents sufficient to challenge them, they would have spread like a plague, as they had done when Ikesia was an Ankhezian province. The records in my personal library show that the Ikesians of that era were nearly as strong as Boreans. The Revenant King is of an inscrutable spirit, and though I do not believe that he is conquest-minded, I believe that should the correct leaders of his people choose conquest, he would provide his backing. I went to such a length to forestall the continent from being vulnerable to conquest from the north, and now, all that work must be undone lest we be overtaken in cultivation by the so-called Free Cities Alliance.”
“What of the Sanger and Black Horse Sects? Or the other minor sects in the country, or the noble families which practice cultivation, be it Virtuous or Demonic. Those fools with stones in their heads still possess strength, even if they are doomed to never reach a phase in which they could become a threat. When a thousand ants come together, they can still smother a man; one mantis cannot stop a chariot, but ten thousand will tip it over with the mass of their corpses.”
“They are not a source of concern. I permitted them to exist because they are a perfect image of impotence; they are too bound up by internal politics and tradition to evolve. It may seem as though I am a hypocrite, for the sects of Pateiria, too, are traditionalist and bound by internal politics, but this was intentional. After all, I need only give the word and the elders of even the most traditional sect in my empire will comprehend the Dao in a new way, and decide that, after all, the true way to preserve tradition is to continuously evolve it. An absolute ruler is, indeed, not a luxury which Ikesia can claim. I have made sure of that. The puppet which I made of their government shall make no resolute decree; they shall lead the country into a Managed Decline… So was my intent, at least. The Federal Government may very well lose control of half the country within a few years if we do not intervene.”
“You have not been this talkative in two centuries… Ah, make that three,” Shen grinned, waving his sleeve. Six dishes fell out, and in the same motion, he filled them all. With another wave of his sleeve he threw six more dishes over to Xiān Dì’s side of the table. Then, he set the gourd back down with a thud, and raising a filled dish with his left hand spoke again: “I must wonder what, or perhaps who, it was that returned this human warmth to you, Feng. You loved the World of Cultivation so much, I cannot help but think that perhaps that Manufactured Paragon, Zelsys Newman, dragged you from the morass of apathy by resurrecting cultivation in your homeland.”
Shen kicked back his drink, hissing as his eyes rolled every-which way, projecting rays of light and thus casting a ridiculous lightshow through the room. It was a petty parlor trick which Shen had performed so often while drinking to entertain Xiān Dì’s Divine Dragon Sect that it had become an unwilling tic when he got truly drunk. Fortunately for his reputation, it took exceedingly rare brews for Shen to become truly drunk, brews of the sort he would only drink in private or with Xiān Dì. He whacked the side of his head and his eyes returned to normal; at first look, a simple palm-heel strike, but Xiān Dì knew it acted upon a specific pressure point.
“Your campaign worked, and look where it got us,” Shen said. “Perhaps, if you had been less heavy-handed, Ikesia might have never turned away from cultivation. The War of Fog would have never gone out of control, for it would have never taken place to begin with.”
