Chapter 16: The March of the Jade Dragon
[DING! System Shop Level 3 Accessed.] [Host’s Current Shock Points: 350,000.] [Recommend Purchase: 'Mythical Divine Beast Mount: The Jade Earth-Dragon'. Cost: 200,000 Shock Points. Description: A colossal, floating manifestation of the world's pure Wood and Earth essence. Invulnerable to mortal weapons. Capable of mass-scale terraforming.]
Purchase.
The morning sun had barely crested over the horizon when the earth outside Ironwood City let out a deafening, primordial groan. The tens of thousands of refugees, now well-fed and glowing with vitality, fell to their knees in sheer awe as the ground split open to reveal a creature of absolute myth.
It was a dragon, easily three hundred feet long, its scales crafted from flawless, translucent green jade. Thick, glowing golden vines wove through its crystalline body like veins of divine blood. It didn't walk; it hovered fifty feet in the air, radiating a dense, intoxicating aura of blooming lotuses and fresh rain. On its massive, horned head rested a palanquin of pure white gold, draped in crimson silk.
I stood on the dragon’s snout, my black and gold imperial gown snapping in the wind. Ye Chen stood faithfully a half-step behind me, a gleaming silver sword strapped to his waist. Behind us, tied securely to the dragon's tail by heavy vines, were the wailing Madam Ye and the disgraced, crippled Crown Prince Xiao Tian. They were going to have front-row seats to the end of their dynasty.
"To the Capital," I commanded softly.
The Jade Dragon let out a roar that shattered the clouds. We didn't march; we soared.
The journey that took the Ye family three torturous months of exile took us exactly one day. As we flew over the drought-stricken provinces, the Jade Dragon's aura passively terraformed the land beneath us. Where its shadow fell, dead rivers instantly filled with rushing, crystal-clear water. Barren fields violently erupted into fully matured crops of golden wheat and heavy rice. Starving villagers rushed out of their homes, weeping and kowtowing to the sky as the "Goddess of Life" passed overhead.
By the time the massive, towering obsidian walls of the Imperial Capital came into view, my Shock Points had skyrocketed past a million. I was no longer just a system user. I was a walking, breathing deity.
The Capital, however, was a stark contrast to the miracles I had left in my wake. Outside its walls, millions of peasants were huddled in a sea of filth and death, locked out while the nobility hoarded the remaining food inside.
Atop the towering obsidian gates stood the grand army of the Usurper: one hundred thousand Imperial Guards, armed to the teeth, their crossbows aimed at the sky. And standing on a raised golden dais on the battlements, surrounded by trembling, silk-clad courtiers, was the Usurper Emperor himself, Xiao Zheng.
He wore the ancestral Nine-Dragon Imperial Robe. In his right hand, he clutched a glowing, pitch-black orb—the corrupted "Dragon Vein Core" he had stolen from my ancestors.
"Halt!" Emperor Xiao Zheng bellowed, his voice amplified by dark, life-draining magic. He glared up at my floating Jade Dragon, his face twisted in a mask of rage and fear. "Demon witch! You dare assault the Heavens? I am the Son of Heaven! I possess the Dragon Core! You are nothing but a phantom of a dead bloodline!"
I looked down at the hundred thousand soldiers, then at the arrogant Emperor, and finally at the millions of starving citizens trapped outside his gates.
I smiled, my golden eyes flashing. "Let's see if your Heavens can save you from my earth."
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