Chapter 10: Blood on the Rice
BOOM!
I slammed my palms together.
The earth in front of the city gates didn't just shake—it liquefied. A massive, gaping chasm, two hundred feet wide, tore open beneath the charging cavalry. But it wasn't an empty void.
Thousands of massive, iron-hard, blood-red vines erupted from the abyss like the tentacles of a kraken. They surged forward with blinding speed, wrapping around the screaming horses and heavily armored soldiers.
Crunch. SNAP. Squeeelch.
The sound of five hundred steel breastplates being crushed simultaneously sounded like a metallic explosion. The vines constricted with millions of pounds of force. Elite soldiers and warhorses were instantly pulverized, their blood spraying into the air like a macabre fountain, raining down upon the dirt right at the threshold of my pristine mountain of food.
In less than ten seconds, the City Lord's entire vanguard was utterly annihilated. Only twisted scraps of metal and crushed bone remained, slowly being pulled down into the earth to fertilize the soil.
The refugees stopped eating. They stared in absolute, paralyzing awe.
I floated over the chasm, moving directly toward the wall where City Lord Pang stood. He dropped his golden sword. The weapon clattered against the stone. He wet his silk trousers, sinking to his knees, his massive body quivering like jelly.
"F-Forgive me..." Pang blubbered, slamming his forehead against the stone parapet. "Goddess... Dragon Empress... I was blind! Take the city! Take my wealth! Spare my worthless life!"
I landed gracefully on the parapet right in front of him. I looked down at him with eyes as cold as a glacier.
"You offered water in exchange for butchering a child," I said quietly, the words slicing through the air like blades. "There is no mercy for you. Only harvest."
I tapped my bare foot against the stone.
A single, razor-sharp green vine shot up from the cracks in the masonry. It wrapped around Pang's thick neck like a garrote. With a flick of my wrist, the vine yanked him off his feet, lifting his massive, thrashing body into the air over the side of the wall.
"Look at the people you starved," I commanded as he choked, his face turning purple.
I let the vine drop.
Pang plummeted eighty feet, crashing face-first into the muddy, bloody dirt outside the gates with a sickening thud. He didn't move again.
The surviving soldiers on the wall immediately threw down their weapons, falling to their knees. "We surrender! All hail the Dragon Empress!"
Below, the tens of thousands of refugees followed suit. It was a wave of humanity dropping to the earth, kowtowing so hard the ground vibrated.
"All hail the Dragon Empress! The savior of the wasteland!"
[DING! Total Subjugation Achieved! Ironwood City Conquered! +100,000 Shock Points!]
I exhaled, the golden aura slowly retracting back into my skin. I floated back down to the ground, my bare feet landing softly on the plush ruby carpet my golems had rolled out from the palanquin.
I walked past Madam Ye. She was on her hands and knees in the mud. Her arrogance was completely shattered. She was frantically scooping up a handful of white rice that had fallen into the dirt, shoving it into her mouth while sobbing uncontrollably.
"Eat carefully, Madam Ye," I mocked softly as I walked past her. "Wouldn't want you to choke on the dirt."
She didn't even look up, just wept as she chewed the muddy grains. Face-slapping her wasn't even fun anymore; she was utterly broken.
Ye Chen stepped out of the palanquin, rushing to my side. He held a leather-bound tube in his hands, his beautiful face tight with anxiety. He had looted it from the body of a dead messenger near the gate.
"Princess," Ye Chen said, his voice trembling as he handed me the scroll. "I found this. It's a priority missive from the Capital."
I unrolled the parchment. My eyes scanned the bloody wax seal, and a cold, murderous thrill shot down my spine.
"It seems," I said, a dark smile playing on my lips, "that the Usurper Emperor knows his assassins failed. He has deployed the Imperial Blood Cavalry to wipe out this entire province to ensure I am dead."
Ye Chen swallowed hard. "Who... who is leading them?"
I looked up, meeting his terrified eyes. "The Crown Prince. The man who ordered your legs broken. The man who originally poisoned me."
I crushed the scroll in my hand, my Dragon Qi flaring so hot it instantly incinerated the parchment into white ash.
"Perfect," I whispered. "I was just wondering who I should feed to my vines next."
Comments