Chương 64: Chapter 27 Part 2

Crown Prince Theron froze, his polished leather boots halting on the cold stone of the subterranean corridor. The heavy, exhausted silence of the Spire seemed to press in around them. He stared at the Heavenly Demon, his brow furrowing in deep, defensive confusion.

"Not sick?" Theron repeated, his voice tight.

"Lady Ming, with all due respect, my father has been evaluated by the Grand Clerics of the Silver Order and the High Apothecaries of the Royal Guild. They have exhausted every restorative elixir in the kingdom. They diagnosed it as a highly aggressive, incurable rot of the lungs. I have watched him waste away for two years."

"Then your clerics are blind, and your apothecaries are incompetent," Xuan Ji replied, her voice entirely devoid of sympathy or hesitation. She didn't wait for the Prince's permission. She turned on her heel and strode purposefully down the dimly lit, heavily quarantined hallway leading toward the Royal Bedchamber. Evanthe immediately fell into step behind her, her hand resting instinctively on the sungold hilt of her sword, while Theron scrambled to catch up, his mind racing.

As they approached the heavy, double oak doors of the King's chambers, two Royal Guards in heavy silver plate crossed their halberds, blocking the path.

"Halt," one of the guards commanded, his voice muffled behind his visor.

"By order of the Royal Physicians, this wing is strictly quarantined. No one is permitted, " Xuan Ji didn't even slow her pace. She didn't draw a weapon, nor did she speak a word. She simply allowed a fraction of her absolute, suffocating Yang aura to bleed outward. The air pressure in the hallway instantly plummeted. The two elite Royal Guards suddenly felt as though a solid anvil had been dropped directly onto their chests.

Their knees violently buckled under the sheer, localized gravitational weight of her presence, and they collapsed against the stone walls, gasping for breath, their halberds clattering uselessly to the floor. Xuan Ji pushed the heavy oak doors open and stepped into the Royal Bedchamber. The room was massive, opulent, and utterly suffocating. The tall windows were heavily draped with thick velvet curtains, blocking out the afternoon sun.

The air was stiflingly hot, completely saturated with the pungent, stinging scent of burning myrrh, sterile alchemical herbs, and the undeniable, underlying stench of necrotic decay. In the center of the room, resting atop a massive, four-poster bed, was King Aldous of Zareth. He looked like a corpse that had forgotten to stop breathing. His skin was a pallid, translucent gray, stretched tightly over his skeletal frame.

His chest barely rose and fell, his breathing marked by a wet, sickening rattle that echoed in the quiet room. Three elderly Royal Physicians were hovering over him, desperately trying to cycle weak, restorative water-mana into his chest.

"What is the meaning of this?!" the lead physician barked, turning around with a furious scowl.

"Prince Theron, you know the protocols! The King's immune system is completely compromised! Remove these guests at once!" Xuan Ji ignored the screaming physician entirely. She walked straight up to the edge of the royal bed and looked down at the dying monarch. To the naked eye, the King was simply a man succumbing to a horrific biological failure. But Xuan Ji was not looking with a naked eye. She closed her eyes, centering her Qi.

When her dark obsidian eyelids snapped open, a brilliant, intricate mandala of glowing golden light had ignited within her irises. She had unsealed the Divine Eye, a supreme sensory technique capable of perceiving the fundamental, unadulterated flow of mana and karma in the mortal realm. The opulent bedroom immediately faded away. The walls, the physicians, and the physical flesh of the King melted into a translucent, schematic overlay of glowing meridians and ambient energy currents.

Xuan Ji narrowed her glowing eyes.

"There it is," she whispered, her voice cold and analytical. Anchored directly into the center of King Aldous's Dantian was a colossal, parasitic leech composed of pure, writhing dark magic. It wasn't a biological infection; it was a highly complex, meticulously crafted magical tether. A thick, pulsating line of deep crimson blood-magic extended from the King's core, phasing straight up through the stone ceiling and stretching out toward the eastern wing of the Spire.

With every agonizing heartbeat the King took, the tether violently pulsed, actively siphoning away his pure, golden lifeforce and directly replacing it with a toxic, necrotic miasma. Xuan Ji blinked, deactivating her Divine Eye. The golden mandalas faded, and the physical world rushed back into focus. She turned to Crown Prince Theron, who was standing by the door, watching her with a mixture of terror and desperate hope.

"It is a parasitic tether," Xuan Ji declared, crossing her arms.

"A blood-curse. Something is actively, continuously siphoning his Dantian and pumping necrotic miasma into his lungs to mask the theft as a biological illness." The lead physician scoffed loudly.

"Preposterous! We have run countless diagnostic arrays! There is no magical signature present in the King's body!"

"Because the curse is woven from his own genetic code, you quack," Xuan Ji snapped, her patience for low-level NPCs instantly evaporating. Her dark eyes locked onto Theron.

"A blood-curse of this magnitude and stability requires two things to bypass the Spire's internal Aegis wards. First, it requires physical proximity. The caster must be living within the walls of this palace to maintain the tether. Second, it requires a direct, undeniable bloodline connection to the victim." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Theron's face went completely white.

"Bloodline connection..." Theron whispered, his mind racing a hundred miles an hour as the horrific political puzzle pieces finally, violently slammed into place.

"Who fits the criteria, Theron?" Xuan Ji prompted coldly.

"Who shares his blood, lives in the Spire, and possesses the political power to benefit from a slow, agonizing regime change?" Theron's fists clenched so tightly his leather gloves audibly creaked. His eyes, normally carrying the measured calm of a diplomat, flooded with pure, unadulterated rage.

"Archduke Cassian," Theron breathed, the name tasting like poison on his tongue.

"My father's younger brother. He... he is the Master of the Coin. He manages the Kingdom's internal treasury disbursements. He was the one who personally advocated for Duke Morvant to be given control of the Blackwater Docks." Evanthe, standing quietly behind her master, let out a soft gasp. The conspiracy hadn't started with the Duke in the lower rings. The rot went all the way to the top of the royal family.

The Archduke had poisoned the King, funded the Cult through Morvant, and positioned himself to take the throne once the chaos settled.

"A classic palace betrayal," Xuan Ji sighed, rolling her shoulders.

"Highly unoriginal. But mechanically sound."

"I will kill him," Theron snarled, ripping his ceremonial longsword from its scabbard. His exhaustion was entirely eclipsed by a blinding, furious adrenaline.

"I will march the Royal Vanguard into the East Wing, drag him from his solar by his hair, and execute him in the courtyard!" Theron turned to storm out of the bedroom.

"Stop," Xuan Ji commanded. The word wasn't loud, but it carried a heavy, concussive weight that physically anchored Theron to the floorboards. The Crown Prince froze, looking back at the Heavenly Demon with wild, furious eyes.

"Arrests are messy, Theron," Xuan Ji lectured, her tone shifting into the practical, hyper-efficient logic of a raid leader optimizing a boss fight.

"If you march guards across the castle, you give him time to react. If he realizes he is caught, he can manually sever the blood-tether. The resulting magical backlash will instantly shred your father's remaining Dantian, killing him before you even breach the Archduke's door. Furthermore, executing royal blood requires a trial, which gives his political loyalists time to rally." Theron's sword hand trembled. He knew she was right. But the thought of letting the traitor breathe for another second was agonizing.

"Then what do we do? We have to cut the tether!" Xuan Ji smiled. It was a slow, deeply terrifying expression that didn't reach her dark eyes.

"We are going to cut the tether, Your Highness," Xuan Ji said smoothly, turning back to the dying King.

"But I prefer a much more direct approach." Xuan Ji stepped up to the edge of the royal bed. The three royal physicians, finally realizing the sheer, unfathomable presence of the woman standing before them, wisely scrambled backward, pressing themselves against the velvet curtains. Xuan Ji raised her right hand, hovering it a few inches above the King's sunken chest. She didn't chant an incantation. She didn't draw a runic circle. She simply closed her eyes and reached into the unseen fabric of the mana stream.

Her slender fingers curled inward, physically gripping the invisible, incorporeal tether of dark magic that was hooked into the King's soul. To Theron and Evanthe, it looked as though she was gripping empty air. But as Xuan Ji tightened her fist, the ambient temperature in the stifling bedroom instantly skyrocketed.

"Blood magic is a fascinating mechanic," Xuan Ji murmured casually, keeping her eyes closed.

"It utilizes a two-way conductive link. The caster siphons the target's life, and in return, the tether remains open, constantly flowing back to the host to deposit the energy. It is a highly efficient supply line." Xuan Ji opened her eyes. They were completely, terrifyingly black.

"But a supply line," she whispered, "can be hijacked." Xuan Ji unsealed her True Fire Samadhi. She didn't unleash a massive, destructive explosion. Instead, she channeled the absolute, supreme Yang Qi directly into her fingertips. A brilliant, blinding spark of pure, golden fire ignited in the palm of her hand. It was the ultimate purifying flame, a primordial energy that fundamentally eradicated anything corrupted, necrotic, or unnatural.

Xuan Ji violently shoved the golden fire directly into the invisible blood-tether. The reaction was instantaneous and apocalyptic. The True Fire Samadhi didn't just burn the tether; it used the dark magic as a highly conductive fuse. A blinding, terrifying streak of golden fire materialized in the air, tracing the exact path of the blood-curse. The flame shot upward from Xuan Ji's hand, completely ignoring the physical laws of the mortal realm.

It phased flawlessly through the heavy stone ceiling of the bedroom, tearing through the Spire's floors at a hypersonic speed, tracking the magical signature directly back to its source. For a span of three seconds, the bedroom was completely silent. And then, somewhere deep in the opulent, heavily guarded upper echelons of the East Wing, a massive, muffled THUMP echoed through the Spire. The sheer concussive force of the localized explosion rattled the crystal chandeliers in the King's bedroom.

A faint, distant scream was abruptly, violently cut short. Xuan Ji slowly lowered her hand, the golden fire fading from her fingertips. The oppressive, suffocating temperature in the room instantly normalized. The invisible tether was gone. On the bed, King Aldous's back violently arched off the mattress. He let out a loud, shuddering, desperate gasp, his mouth opening wide as he dragged a massive volume of clean, uncorrupted air into his lungs. The sickening, wet rattle was completely gone.

As Theron watched in paralyzed shock, the sickly, translucent gray pallor of his father's skin began to rapidly recede, instantly replaced by the warm, flush color of naturally circulating blood. The King collapsed back onto the silk pillows, his chest rising and falling in deep, steady, powerful rhythms. He was still incredibly weak, his muscles atrophied from two years of bedrest, but the suffocating shadow of death had been entirely, cleanly eradicated. Theron dropped his longsword.

It clattered loudly against the stone floor. The Crown Prince fell to his knees beside the bed, his hands trembling violently as he gripped his father's warm hand. Tears of relief streamed freely down Theron's face, washing away the crushing, unbearable weight he had carried for the last two years.

"Father," Theron choked out, pressing his forehead against the King's knuckles.

"Father..." The royal physicians stood trembling in the corner, their mouths hanging open in sheer, terrified disbelief. They had just watched a woman cure an incurable biological rot by apparently detonating an unseen explosive on the other side of the castle. Evanthe watched her master with wide, luminous red eyes. She had seen Xuan Ji shatter a dragon's breath, and she had seen her burn away the Cult's assassins. But this was different. This wasn't brute force.

This was a manipulation of the world's fundamental laws. Xuan Ji hadn't just executed a traitor; she had casually, effortlessly rewritten the political landscape of an entire kingdom without even drawing a weapon. Xuan Ji casually dusted off her hands, entirely unbothered by the magnitude of what she had just accomplished.

"The curse is cleansed," Xuan Ji announced, addressing the stunned physicians in a crisp, authoritative tone.

"His Dantian is completely empty, and his muscles are atrophied. Give him high-grade regenerative elixirs, easily digestible proteins, and keep him hydrated. If you try to feed him more of that useless water-mana, I will throw you out the window." The physicians nodded frantically, terrified into compliance. Xuan Ji turned her back on the emotional reunion taking place by the bed. She looked at Evanthe, a small, highly satisfied smirk playing on her lips.

Her boredom had been thoroughly cured, and her inventory was heavier.

"Come along, Evanthe," Xuan Ji said lightly, walking past the kneeling Crown Prince toward the heavy oak doors.

"We've done enough side-quests for today. Go get some rest tonight. Tomorrow, you have a dungeon to dive."