Title: Transmigrated as the Foolish Maid: My System Feeds the Empire
Chapter 5: The Black Blood Assassins
"Ambush!" Captain Zhao screamed, ignoring his broken arms as he scrambled for cover behind a rock.
From the jagged ridges of the Dead Valley, dozens of figures clad entirely in black leaped down. They didn't wear the ragged clothes of bandits. They moved with terrifying, synchronized precision, landing lightly on the cracked earth. Their faces were hidden behind silver demon masks, and they wielded curved scimitars dripping with dark, lethal poison.
"The Black Blood Assassins..." Ye Chen gasped, his face turning paper-white. He gripped my sleeve desperately. "Ah-Zhu, run! They are the Emperor’s personal shadow guard! They’ve come to finish our family off to silence us!"
Madam Ye and Ye Wan were screaming, huddling together like frightened mice.
The leader of the assassins, a towering man with a golden demon mask, stepped forward. He didn't even glance at Ye Chen or the terrified Madam Ye. His cold, dead eyes locked directly onto me.
"Target acquired," the leader rasped, his voice echoing like grinding stones. "The anomaly is here. The Emperor was right. The Dragon Vein did not die. It hid itself in the body of a fool."
Wait. What?
I frowned, standing up and brushing the duck crumbs off my lap. "Excuse me? Dragon Vein?"
"Kill the Ye family," the leader ordered his men, pointing his scimitar at my heart. "But bring me the girl's head. The Emperor demands her blood to permanently sever the old dynasty's magic!"
My mind raced. The original host was just a foolish maid! Why would the Emperor's elite assassins be after her?
[DING! Hidden Plot Unlocked: The Royal Truth!] [System Data Transferring...]
Suddenly, a flood of sealed memories crashed into my brain.
The original Ah-Zhu wasn't a maid. And she wasn't naturally a fool.
Fifteen years ago, the previous Emperor was overthrown in a bloody coup. The new Emperor—the usurper—slaughtered the royal family. But the infant Princess, the one prophesied to inherit the ancestral "Dragon Vein" magic of the earth, was smuggled out. To hide her, her caretaker fed her a mind-numbing poison, turning her into a drooling idiot, and sold her to the loyalist Ye family as a lowly servant to hide in plain sight.
The three-year famine destroying the empire? It wasn't natural! The usurper Emperor had used dark magic to drain the earth’s life-force, deliberately creating the famine to starve out the remaining loyalists and suppress the Princess's awakening!
I wasn't a cannon fodder maid. I was the true ruler of this empire.
"Well, well, well," I muttered, a dark, thrilled laugh escaping my lips. "No wonder I unlocked a Famine and Supernatural System. This is my land."
"Die, remnant of the old blood!" an assassin roared, launching himself at me with blinding speed, his poisoned blade slashing toward my neck.
[DING! System Detects Lethal Threat! Activating Host's True Bloodline!] [Spend 8,000 Shock Points to unlock: Dragon Qi (Stage 1) - Absolute Elemental Domination?]
Do it.
Time seemed to freeze. As the poisoned blade came within an inch of my throat, a blinding, golden light erupted from my chest. It wasn't the emerald green of the Wood element anymore. This was pure, imperial gold.
ROAR!
The distinct, earth-shattering sound of a dragon’s roar echoed through the canyon, radiating from my very soul.
The assassin was blasted backward by the shockwave, his body shattering against the canyon wall as if hit by a cannonball.
I floated inches off the ground, my ragged servant clothes transforming. The supernatural energy wove itself into a stunning, flowing gown of black and gold silk. My messy hair unbound itself, floating around my face like an ethereal halo. Golden runes of ancient power glowing on my skin.
I raised both hands.
"You drain my earth to starve my people?" I whispered, my voice echoing with the layered resonance of a goddess. "Let me show you the wrath of the true Dragon."
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