Kaede advanced alone towards Kurokawa’s castle with nothing but her sword and her will. Thousands stood between her and her target, and they wouldn’t let her pass without a fight.

“So what’s the plan, darling? Fly over? Try to negotiate? Cut our way through? Oh, I hope it’s the last one!”

Kaede sighed. Leave it to Jianmo to ruin her somber mood.

“I’m not going to win anyone over by slaughtering my way through the country. The entire point of doing this alone is to prevent such wanton destruction.”

“Tsk, you’re no fun! I don’t hate that stuffy attitude of yours, but sometimes a little blood needs to be spilled. What’s the point of bringing an army if you’re not going to use it?”

“I have used it, and I will continue to do so throughout this campaign. But an army is more than just a fighting force. It’s a symbol of my power, of the will of the people I represent. I intend to cultivate that symbol into something so great that by the time I arrive on my father’s doorstep, he’ll have no choice but to acknowledge my methods.”

Jianmo made a strange, tinny whistling noise.

“That’s certainly an impressive idea, but something tells me it’s not going to be so easy.”

“Nothing worth doing ever is.”

Kaede placed a hand on her sword and dashed forward. Kurokawa’s army was already moving to intercept her, and to their credit they had immediately recognized the kind of threat she posed.

Yamato had many weapons against high level cultivators. The first and simplest was the sheer number of martial artists they were able to field. With over half the population awakened to some degree or another, even a xiantian cultivator could be overwhelmed.

This was represented in their tactics. The men and women opposing her moved to surround her, maximizing the number of soldiers that could engage her at once. She knew that they’d be trained to immediately pull fallen fighters away and replace them as quickly as she could cut them down. Simple attrition—lives spent in droves for the sole purpose of wearing her down.

That was if she chose to stand her ground. Since cutting her way through thousands of her own people wasn’t Kaede’s idea of fun, she’d be trying to avoid that scenario.

Flying over wouldn’t be simple either. The archers would be ready for it, and they wouldn’t be using simple suppression like those Jiaguo’s army had faced earlier. These would be elite, dedicated snipers using their most powerful techniques. Kaede could shrug off or avoid most of them, but hundreds? Thousands at a time?

It had been the death of many overconfident cultivators.

The final bulwarks, Kaede didn’t need to concern herself with yet. Channelers were too precious and volatile to waste on common skirmishes, while the ultimate measure was simply so rare that the chances of a lord like Kurokawa having access to it was slim to none.

It had been over a hundred years since they’d seen any use—with Master Ienaga single-handedly deterring the empire from any serious invasions.

Since flying was too dangerous—and Kaede was no good at it anyway—and fighting would be too bloody, that really left her with only one real option.

“Brace yourself, we’re going through.”

“I thought you didn’t want to fight.”

“I don’t.”

Kaede picked up speed as she approached the enemy lines, drawing more and more Gravity essence into her body. With each step, her boots gouged deeper and deeper into the earth, but still she accelerated.

It was an unorthodox use of her technique. Typically, the Weightless Fist was about reducing her weight to move quickly, then increasing it to stand her ground and strike with the weight of a mountain behind her. This time however, she was taking advantage of the overwhelming wellspring of power that she’d gained since her ascension to move swiftly and carry the weight of the earth on her shoulders.

A few of the front line soldiers realized what was happening and raised their shields, pointing ki-reinforced spears in her direction to meet her like charging cavalry.

It was too little, too late. The spears snapped like twigs against Kaede’s armor, and she slammed into their formation with enough force to send those unfortunate enough to be in her path careening through the air.

It was the one thing Yamato’s armies had no training against. Why would they? Xiantian cultivators and mages were difficult to kill, but only because they could survive bodily trauma that would normally be instantly lethal. In terms of physical strength or toughness, they weren’t actually much more sturdy than a mortal.

They had ways of deflecting attacks and preventing injury, but when it came to a straight-up contest of strength, Lee Jia could have probably defeated Qin Zhao in an arm-wrestling match before she’d even awakened.

With magical beasts lacking the intelligence to mount a serious threat to organized armies, fiends being exceptionally rare even along the southern coast, and Ienaga Yumi having famously removed herself from Yamato’s internal conflicts, they simply never had the chance to train for such a scenario.

They were still trained soldiers, however, and they adapted quickly. As Kaede smashed her way deeper into the enemy formation, they began to tighten their formation, trying to slow her down with the sheer weight of their numbers.

Kaede had to credit their bravery. She was like a living avalanche crashing down towards them, and they threw themselves in front of her without hesitation, just in the hopes of slowing her down. As much as she respected that courage, however, it was in vain.

With a final push, she broke through the other side of the formation and released the energy built up within her. The titanic weight she’d been carrying vanished and the world around her seemed to halt as her mind and body were accelerated by a state of perfect weightlessness.

As much as Kaede would have liked to use her Weightless Fist to simply bypass the army entirely, even empowered as she was by her xiantian ascension and the unlimited essence of the Sovereign’s Tear, there was a limit to her technique. Her body could only contain so much essence at a time, and the technique required her to unleash it all at once. It was impossible to maintain the state for long, so it was essential that she get as close as possible before using it.

Though time appeared to have halted for her, she only had a few short seconds of subjective time to close the remaining distance and break into the castle.

Without fear of retaliation from archers, Kaede leapt with all her might to scale the fortress walls in a single bound. Once within the inner walls, she only had a moment to make her way to the front gate. In her haste, she ended up smashing right through them just as the natural laws began to reassert themselves upon her.

From the outside, it would appear as though she’d smashed her way through the army, only to suddenly vanish and reappear in a cloud of splinters that was once the castle gate.

The guards posted within stumbled backwards from her sudden appearance, and though it wasn’t quite the entrance she’d intended, Kaede didn’t break stride.

“Where is Lord Kurokawa?”

The guards blinked.

“Eh?! I um...he—”

“I’m right here, girl.”

The deep, rough voice came from Kaede’s right, where the grizzled form of Lord Kurokawa emerged from the halls. He was a stocky old man—not short, but unusually broad-shouldered for his height. Under his red armor, his skin was rough and tanned, his scarred face twisted into a furious scowl. Despite the expression, his gravelly voice remained level as he addressed her.

“Figured you’d be pulling something like this.”

Kaede cocked her head.

“You did? And here I thought I was doing something novel.”

“Oh, you are. But just ‘cause it’s new don’t mean it’s unpredictable. Come on—let’s take this outside.”

He brushed past her fearlessly, seemingly unconcerned with her sudden appearance. Kaede followed behind him—she wasn’t worried about being led into a trap, Lord Kurokawa wasn’t that sort of man.

“It’s been a long time since we last met, Lord Kurokawa. I’m sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances.”

“Tsk! I always figured you for a daddy’s girl. Never imagined you’d be the one to lead a rebellion like this.”

Kaede pursed her lips—he had always been an uncomfortably direct man.

“A lot can change in ten years.”

“So it can. I also would have thought that if you did lead a rebellion, you’d start by offing the Shogun, but here you are on the wrong side of the country for that.”

He came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard, waving off some nearby servants who were more than happy to flee the scene with all haste. Kurokawa turned to face Kaede and crossed his arms.

“So what’s all this about, anyway? First he says you’re dead, then suddenly you’re knocking down my doorstep like the second coming of Ienaga Yumi. Family squabble?”

Kaede sighed and shook her head.

“I honestly don’t know anymore. My father stopped telling me anything long before I left the country, and I’m starting to think he never intended for me to return. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I won’t let him destroy this country to fuel his selfish ambitions.”

“Hmph! What would you know? The Shogun’s done right by us, and he’s kept the empire off our backs. You’d have us getting right into bed with them.”

“And you don’t have any qualms about the innocent soldiers he had silenced? Or the fact that he’s keeping our greatest defender locked up on false charges?”

The old lord scoffed.

“You’ve been away too long, girl. That’s war. We don’t concern ourselves with the petty bureaucracy of the youkai or the empire’s insufferable politics. Shogun Hayakawa rules because nobody else is strong enough to oppose him.”

“Our people deserve better than tyranny. My father clings to his strength at the cost of everything else. It will lead this nation to ruin.”

“Pretty words might convince soft idiots like Noguchi, but righteousness is nothing without the strength to enforce it. If you’re better than the shogun, prove it.”

Lord Kurokawa drew his sword, and Kaede’s eyes widened. It was a brilliant masterwork of a weapon, with an intricate pattern etched into the side of the blade and powerful ki running through it. She’d never seen one in person, but she recognized it immediately—one of the kamikiri. A god slaying sword.

They were rare and taboo weapons designed to destroy spirits, and before Ienaga Yumi’s time, they were the last and greatest defense against the empire’s incursions. Weapons that could cut into the very essence of a cultivator and deal lasting harm beyond the merely physical.

Not even Master Ienaga used one—though her Soul Severing techniques were based on the same principle.

The entire reason Kaede had been confident in waving off Jin Hu’s concerns was the fact that they were so rare. How could she have anticipated that a lord so far from the capital would be armed with one of the nation’s greatest treasures?

“Where did you get that?”

The old lord grinned impishly.

“A gift from your father—or maybe a curse. Wouldn’t be much of a fight if I couldn’t fight back, would it? As I said, girl, just because what you’re doing is new, doesn’t mean it’s hard to predict. My lands are the quickest way to reach Ienaga, and who else are you going to turn to for your little tantrum? You’ve been outplayed, child. The shogun knows you’re coming, and he’s ready for you.”

Kaede drew her own sword.

“Jianmo, keep your essence restrained within the blade. I don’t want to risk you getting hurt.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet, darling. I don’t hate that merciful attitude, but I don’t think you should hold back here.”

“I don’t intend to.”

She leveled her gaze on the man before her.

“Do you think that weapon will be enough to defeat me?”

The lord shrugged.

“I doubt it, but I’m a Lord of Yamato. I’ll fight until my last breath.”

Kaede took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. This was what she’d come here to do. There was no turning back, now.

“So be it.”