Chapter 926: A Strange Bitch, A Strange Guy, A Strange Guy (11)

“Th-th-that... how... how dare... I—how dare I—how could—such blasphemy—th-that traitor—th-that insolent...!”

The eunuch kept vomiting up nothing but words that wouldn’t connect into sentences, like someone who was so dumbfounded—while also having way too much to say—that their whole brain had seized up.

Just like yesterday when she first saw him, he seemed to be the type whose language center short-circuited whenever he got seriously flustered.

Qing stared at the eleven-tier golden pyramid drawing closer, her expression grave.

Something about this felt... really, really bad.

To begin with, blocking the path of a Marriage-Alliance Procession escort force with over a hundred cavalry, out in the open? That meant they believed they could handle it—or more precisely, they were confident they could handle it.

Whether they truly could or not wasn’t something you could know until it happened. But they must have thought it was possible, or they wouldn’t have shown up like that. And that was exactly what confidence was.

“[All units, weapons up!]”

Escort Captain Pori barked in harsh Jurchen. The cavalry moved as one, drawing and gripping their weapons, and a heavy pressure immediately rose.

The killing intent of well-trained cavalry.

Cavalry, by nature, were people meant to charge, smash into the enemy, sink in, and break through—meaning they were meant to throw themselves into death. How could anyone do that with a normal mind?

So the act of raising weapons was like a ritual—like flipping the switch in their heads right before the charge.

In the middle of it, Pori glanced at Qing and the two imperial attendants riding to either side of her, and showed a thin, savage smile.

“It is an unforgivable disgrace that, on our land, we failed to filter out such impure traitors and let them appear before you. We will dispose of them at once, so please wait only a moment, honored guest.”

Then he sucked in a huge breath—

—and blasted out the signal to charge.

“[Eight Banners! Cut those traitor bastards—]”

That was the moment.

Cutting straight through the booming shout, a voice slid into everyone’s earholes and stabbed into the brain like it was being driven in directly.

—Stop.

Qing’s face soured instantly.

A martial artist could lace sound with internal power and deliver their voice secretly to someone. That was Voice Transmission.

Of course, the principle behind it was one of those Murim-flavored pseudo-primitive-era mysteries Qing’s general education could never, ever comprehend—hence why her own Voice Transmission had no volume control and tended to SCREECH right into people’s eardrums.

But when you reached the Transcendent Realm, martial techniques naturally evolved into higher forms—and Voice Transmission evolved along with it.

Namely: delivering your voice through Voice Transmission to everyone within a certain range.

This was one of the final evolved forms of Voice Transmission—an astonishing technique called Sixfold Voice Resonance.

—Did I give you permission to speak?

“G-Gah! Sixfold Voice Resonance!?” “A... an incredible master!”

...Oh my god, they’re reacting again.

Qing let out a long, weary sigh inside her head at the properly trained exclamations from the eunuch on one side and the Golden Guard guardsman on the other.

It was basically the same thing as hearing someone’s sobriquet and immediately counting it off and repeating it back: gasping in admiration at Sixfold Voice Resonance was praise and respect offered to a master of the Transcendent Realm.

Sixfold Voice Resonance sends your voice to everyone in a set range.

But then... why bother with something that difficult and exhausting? If you just shouted, your voice would spread across a range anyway.

If all you had to do was raise your voice a little, there was no need to do something as complicated as unfurling your internal power, occupying space, and loading your voice onto it—an annoying, finicky technique that was also humiliating if you failed.

Even a Transcendent master still had a throat and vocal cords.

And yet, if someone ignored the easy option and deliberately used Sixfold Voice Resonance?

It could be interpreted as: Look, I can do this kind of ridiculous thing too, because I’m an absurdly strong master.

So whenever people heard it, one of Murim’s oldest etiquette rules was to react—so the other person wouldn’t feel awkward.

Of course, it was also the kind of survival etiquette that ranked above “repeat the sobriquet,” because a Transcendent master might genuinely get angry if you didn’t act impressed.

That said, Sixfold Voice Resonance did have unique functions you couldn’t replicate with a raw shout.

First: it looks extremely cool and indirectly shows everyone you’re a master. (It lets you seize the initiative.)

Second: you can deliver a manufactured, dignified voice without screaming like a lunatic.

Third: you can conceal the direction of the voice, whispering from afar without exposing your location.

Fourth: when the scene is so loud normal speech won’t carry, you can jam the voice clearly into someone’s ear.

This time, it was for reasons one, two, and three—so the battle-lust of the Eight Banners cavalry that had been gearing up to charge went cold, like a bucket of icy water had been dumped over it.

Then, a calm yet severe voice drilled into everyone’s ears.

—Kneel, insolent wretches. Your emperor stands before you—how dare you keep your knees unbent?

Groans burst out all over the place.

“Ugh.” “[Th-th. What a lunatic.]” “[He’s lost it.]” “[What the—]” “[Did he go insane training martial arts?]”

Well, obviously.

People feared and respected a Transcendent master, sure—but they didn’t just accept senile babbling like “I’m the emperor” on demand.

And “emperor,” of all things?

“Emperor” wasn’t actually an expression people used that often. “August” and “Divine” were, in practice, titles that meant the heavens themselves—an almost godlike existence—an honorific even higher than “Son of Heaven.”

Of course, plenty of ministers and historians would still say “His Imperial Majesty” out loud out of loyalty—meaning, to display loyalty—but that was flattery, a social technique.

So everyone’s reaction could only be: A thoroughly insane bastard—an insane master, at that—has shown up.

—Insolent trash! Do you want to die!

The Voice Transmission came again, thick with anger.

Like this wasn’t the reaction he expected.

Because even if a Transcendent master said, “I’m the emperor—play along if you don’t want to die,” was anyone really going to wail, “Oh, forgive us, we failed to recognize Your Majesty,” and slam their foreheads into the ground?

If you put the Heavenless Emperor himself on that seat, you’d get the same reaction.

Because the authority of the Son of Heaven didn’t come from one person’s level of martial strength.

So that anger—coming after an entirely predictable response—felt oddly... prepared in advance.

...Yeah, this is starting to look like he laid the groundwork to start a riot on purpose. But even so, dealing with a Transcendent master is bad enough—now there are a bunch of guys carrying a palanquin, too. Qing let out a heavy sigh, then raised her voice with that brilliant projection of hers.

“Ah—um. Then... where is His Majesty headed? We were rude because we didn’t recognize him. We’ll step aside and let him pass.”

“What—what are you saying!?” “Royal Censor, what are you talking about!”

The Golden Guard guardsman and Pori shouted at the same time.

But Qing only lowered her voice.

“Wouldn’t it be better to avoid spilling needless blood on a wedding day? If anything comes of it later, I’ll take responsibility. I’m concerned that if blood is shed during a Marriage-Alliance Procession, it might bring ill fortune.”

“A-Ah! Yes—yes, n-no, let’s do exactly as the Royal Censor says. I’ll vouch for it!”

The eunuch’s face brightened as he threw his support behind Qing.

It was, frankly, a brilliant move.

Normally, if you saw someone impersonating the emperor and not only failed to execute them but actually yielded to them, you could be slapped with a grave crime—at minimum losing your own head, at maximum getting up to three entire generations wiped out.

But in a situation where the other side had a Transcendent master and a mass of subordinates carrying a golden palanquin, crashing into them recklessly could cause unknown damage—worst of all, you couldn’t even guarantee the safety of the princess in the Marriage-Alliance Procession.

However—what if the real princess, as direct imperial blood, yielded to the fake?

Then it became the real thing mocking the fake and “letting it go once,” and the justification—avoiding bloodshed to avert ill fortune before the marriage alliance—was excellent.

No wonder the eunuch was awed and took her side. As expected of the true child of heaven! So merciful, hesitating to let the lowly spill blood!

Of course, Qing hadn’t calculated any of that.

She was just thinking, If they say I’m a princess, what can anyone even say to me?—and trying to avoid a dangerously self-confident, ominously swaggering Transcendent lunatic.

All that talk about ill fortune was basically just: You think I’m avoiding this because I’m scared? No, I’m avoiding it because it’s filthy.

“You’re vouching for it? Hm.”

“Are you certain? If later—”

“Come on. Enough. Move aside, quickly.”

The escort force was °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° in the same bind, too.

And someone was offering to take responsibility?

So Pori, acting like he couldn’t help it, swallowed the sigh of relief he was desperate to let out.

“[What are you doing? Clear the road at once! Keep the bridal palanquin steady and move it aside! Plain Blue Banner, take charge of the bridal palanquin!]”

The “bridal palanquin” meant, literally, a flower palanquin—the vehicle the bride rode in.

And so, warriors in the Plain Yellow Banner—yellow-striped blue armor—dismounted and swarmed around the bridal palanquin in a flurry.

The rest of the Eight Banners started riding to either side of the road, clearing space.

And then—

—the self-proclaimed emperor panicked instead.

This wasn’t right. They weren’t supposed to move aside.

—W-What are you doing! Didn’t I tell you to kneel!

“How could we dare block the emperor’s path? We’ll step aside first, and then kneel—so please pass through.”

—That’s not it! I came out personally to punish you insolent wretches!

“You’re saying we’re insolent? If you tell us which part, we’ll correct it.”

—Did you not block my way!

“So we’re moving aside.”

—That’s not it—I told you to kneel!

“Uh. If that’s the priority, then sure.”

With that, Qing dropped down—

THUD.

Because Qing’s knees were very light. Especially in front of the strong. Under the law of “strong to the strong, weak to the weak,” her knees were always ready to stick to the ground in front of a Transcendent master.

“Hhk. How...”

Behind her, the eunuch bit down so hard on his own lips that blood ran—thin and bright—but no matter how all-encompassing her Awakening technique’s sensing was, it didn’t support detection that fine-grained.

Qing hit the dirt first, and the eunuch—biting his lip with gratitude and fury—followed after her.

The Golden Guard guardsman went down too, wearing the expression of someone asking, Is this really correct?

Pori scowled like he’d swallowed something rotten, then gave up and imitated a bow.

The Eight Banners dismounted as well, taking the posture of resting beside their horses.

After a brief stretch of silence—

“Your Majesty? Should we kneel more?”

—.......

The self-proclaimed emperor said nothing.

Then—

—Ha. Spineless wretches. Are you that afraid of death? Fine. Even a tame dog can be kept. Hand over the princess and get lost. Then you can preserve your pathetic little lives.

Qing’s expression turned rotten.

She stood, dusted off her knees, and muttered in a loud voice that everyone could plainly hear.

“Damn it. If the princess was what you wanted, you could’ve just said so from the start—‘Hand over the princess.’ Why make it confusing with all this kneel-this, kneel-that? Some crazy bastard was impersonating the emperor, so I was going to play along and send him on his way, but no—turns out he’s actually completely out of his mind.”

—W-What?

“And what, being in the Transcendent Realm means you’re automatically special? You drop your voice, whisper into everyone’s ears with Sixfold Voice Resonance, and you think you look cool? Seriously—any dog or cow can hit the Transcendent Realm now. It’s the end times. The end times. What is it with these days—are we in some kind of triple calamity? Everywhere I go, I keep running into some freak bastard.”

—I... you...!

Far away, atop the massive golden pyramid, the self-proclaimed emperor’s face visibly flushed red even from this distance.

In fact, once someone reached the Transcendent Realm, their resistance to insult often devolved.

Because at that level, you simply stopped getting insulted. People were so afraid of those keen Transcendent ears that they didn’t even dare gossip behind your back.

You might think, Would a Transcendent master really get scratched up and angry over a few words?

But a Transcendent master is still a person.

All that talk about martial arts being “spiritual cultivation” and “self-discipline”—that’s ancient, classic bullshit.

Sure, a tiny number of seekers exist—orthodox Buddhist paths, orthodox Daoist paths—who truly treat self-denial and training as one and build genuine mental discipline.

But martial artists, fundamentally, are people who cultivate martial power—build their own force—and then use that well-built force to impose their will.

If you compress it into a single line?

They’re the kind of creatures whose fists move before their mouths.

Which is why, honestly, the higher a martial artist’s realm, the more inevitably sensitive they become to insults.

And now—

—the greatest insult genius under heaven, the terror-mouth, the owner of that mind-destroying Formless Poison...

...started to loosen that wicked tongue, slowly, one syllable at a time.