The Divine Martial Stars

Ye He was on her way back to their accommodations with her sister Ye Ying. She has questions craving to be answered, yet somehow her voice just mysteriously got lost somewhere up her throat before she could even speak.

“You want to ask about Li Mu, aren’t you, sister?” chuckled a jovial Ye Ying who was in a tremendously good mood.

Ye He shook her head. “It’s a waste of my breath. You clearly know no more than I do. Li Mu’s complicated and I anticipate great trials await him but things are not as superficially simple as what we see right now. Something tells me that the Sons of Lightning have kicked the hornet’s nest.”

“You’re exaggerating, sister. Li Mu might be powerful but there’s no way he can come close to threatening the Sons of Lightning. Their power and influence extend farther and wider than just the domain of Man.”

“I’m not sure…” responded Ye He hesitantly, “It’s just a feeling.”

Jiang Buping’s final response and reaction remained vivid in her mind. The aging Lord Governor of Lauffeuer must know something. Maybe he could be sharing some sort of bond that no one knew about.

“Heh heh heh, sister, you look like you’re curious and interested in Li Mu,” Ye Ying squinted her eyes playfully at her elder sister, “You should be careful… A great many flaming romances start from the tiny embers of curiosity. Hey, don’t give me that look. I’m just telling you what you said to me yourself!”

“Perhaps you were right,” Ye He muttered quietly.

“Ah?!”

“I’m referring to your insistence to head back to the Lord Governor’s court complex. It could be the right move after all.”

“See? I told you.”

“At the very least, Li Mu has exhibited no animosity towards you. That could be a good thing for you and for House Ye.”

“Hey, let’s make this clear; I’m not doing this for House Ye. He’s a friend of mine and that’s all.”

“A friendship formerly forged of convenience.”

“Come on, sister. You know what? I think you and him might be a good match.”

“Hold your tongue.”

“Come on, I’m not kidding. Look, no one has ever caught your eye before. I know how finicky you are. But what about a singular being like him? Surely, you’re curious and you wish to know more about him? He’s not from one of those big houses, so he might agree to marry into House Ye. That would work just fine for you.”

“All right that’s enough.”

“Heh heh, well if you’re not going for him, then I’m going to, sister.”

“I thought I told you enough, you bratty girl.”

“Um, uncle?” Lin Jingxin stole a look at his uncle.

“Speak your mind,” Lin An muttered without so much as a look back at his nephew who was following behind.

“Maybe it’s time I quit being so lazy and lackadaisical. I’ll report to the Phenex Cohort garrison first thing tomorrow,” said Lin Jingxin.

“Good. You’ve finally decided to change your ways,” Lin An halted and regarded his nephew with renewed approval.

On the surface, Lin Jingxin appeared every bit as unremarkable and insignificant as other House Lin youths of his generation who were outshined by those who were talented to be made Prefects or even Tribunes senior enough to command their own cohort. Yet only a handful in House Ye knew what Lin Jingxin was truly capable of. With his gifts and talents, he should be the best of his generation, mused Lin An. “If not for that very incident so long ago that…

“But all is not too late… Has the once-pride-and-joy of House Lin is now beginning to stand up on his feet once more?

“That’s great news.

“Li Mu, huh? What an extraordinary fellow…

“He had done in just a few days what House Lin failed to accomplish after four to five years…”

“Jiang, are you certain of this?!”

Liao Zhi never looked so surprised and elated before. “Are you sure it’s really him?!”

Jiang Buping took Liao Zhi’s hand and led him to the garden enclosure adjoining the rear of the court complex. Struggling to keep his excitement down, he whispered, “I’m certain of it. The weapon destroys even the soul. That must be Godbreaker. The prophecy is coming true; the one we waited for has arrived! Li Mu is the one! For so long we’ve waited for the correct Chosen One and here he is at last!”

They hiked up an inconspicuous manmade promontory, the handiwork of fengshui landscaping, where Jiang Buping groped on a particular rock and squeezed it in a certain manner. Next, he twisted it like he would with a doorknob. A mechanical whirl screeched as a hatched rolled open to reveal a passage leading deep underground.

They stepped into the secret underground chamber.

Inside was a spacious cavern where a square table stood just by a wall. On it was an incense brazier, just below the painting of an elderly sage-like man with long hair and a beard whose broad face was filled with distinctive features. The image depicted him riding a cow.

Jiang Buping and Liao Zhi came to the table and lowered themselves to their knees on the cushion on the floor, and they prostrated themselves reverently before the painting.

Next, Jiang Buping extracted three incense sticks. Each of them gave off a luster of gold—a layer of gold runes imprinted all over the sticks and they looked like they were dancing in the low light conditions.

Jiang Buping channeled his power and flames burst to life in his palm, which he used to set the incense sticks alight before he poked the incense sticks into the brazier.

Fumes billowed from the burning tip of the incense sticks.

The runes wafted into the air, waltzing amid the tendrils of fumes slowly rising up.

“What is it?”

The painting—or rather, the image of the old man—spoke with a voice that sounded like a call from Heaven.

“Third-generation acolytes Jiang Buping and Liao Zhi here to report, Lord Patriarch. Godbreaker has appeared. We found the person wielding it.”

At that, Jiang Buping and Liao Zhi threw themselves to the floor once more, bowing deeply.

The cold in the wilderness was gnawing straight into their bones.

Li Mu found refuge in the midst of a sprawl of rocks nearby a rushing river.

The mangled spirit of the bald elderly stranger sat on the ground. Kept restrained by magical bonds clearly wasn’t amusing at all to him for he glared at Li Mu with venom.

“Even champions feel cold in these winds…” Li Mu commented dryly, “Looks like winter in this world is far stronger than I expect.” The spine-chilling cold really was getting unbearable.

He was literally feeling the waves of chill trying to turn him into an icicle.

His body should be impervious to cold by now.

With ten more days to the first snow, Li Mu could feel not only the temperature swiftly plummeting, but even the physical laws of nature in this world were beginning to shift, which was something bizarre enough for Li Mu.

The difference between the warm and cold seasons in the Chaos Battlefield clearly extends more than just temperature.

“Speak. What is all about these omens from the Oracle Disk thing?” Li Mu asserted calmly. “And don’t you believe for one second that I’ll fall for that I-don’t-know-anything cock-and-bull story?”

...

Li Mu waved a hand. A part of the magical restraints that were over Master Ming’s mouth vanished.

“You mongrel—” the spectral figure of the bald elderly man lashed out furiously.

Whoosh!

A gleam of steel.

A golden flash of light sliced off Master Ming’s ear.

“Answer my question, I’m warning you,” Li Mu muttered as he leaned back on a rock, his careless mood unnervingly serene as if he was more interested in anything else but this.

“ARGGHH!” Master Ming grunted in pain.

Damage to one’s spirit is far more excruciating than that of a physical wound.

“You’re going to pay for this, you mongrel pup! You’re not getting any answers from me!” he spat despite his pain, his eyes livid. “Not everyone fears death! You’re no more than a kid who still shits green when the name of Ming Yu itself could strike fear into every man that walks the street! Kill me if you dare! Do it and you’ll know the wrath of the Sons of Lightning!”

“Wrong answer,” Li Mu narrowed his eyes at him.

Whoosh!

...

Another golden flash of light.

Master Ming’s other ear plopped to the ground.

He groaned with more pain, the rage and rancor blazing in his eyes intensifying as he forced a vile grin as if to provoke Li Mu.

“Refuse to answer and I’ll cut you down stroke by stroke like a cook slicing his carrots,” Li Mu uttered nonchalantly, although the steel in his voice—the threat—was evident enough.

“Why don’t you guess where have I been? I wasn’t with Lei Cang earlier, so where could I be?” Master Ming twisted into a malicious and no less maniacal smile.

Li Mu sat up very slowly, the pupils in his eyes contracting with disbelief.

A foreboding dread swelled in him.

“You’ve guessed it, innit, you mongrel pup. You’re a smart one so there’s no way you’ll miss it. Hahahahah! You might be the smartest, most audacious, and most dangerous person of the younger generation. But you’re not omnipotent and nor are you omniscient! I’d love to see you repairing this, haha haha!”

Master Ming burst into a peal of frenzied laughter, his voice echoing with malice.

Li Mu stood up, his face now contorting with a fury never before felt even by himself. With a glare that threatened to cleave through his captive with the keenness of a blade, he hissed, “If anything happens to the people of Oststern… I’ll not only destroy you… I’ll make sure that the Sons of Lightning are a thing of the past…”

“Anything happens?” the elderly Master Ming cackled like a raving madman, “I daresay you’ll find no one alive in Oststern by this time… No… Maybe there is still one… But she’s almost there… ‘Thing of the past’, eh? As if the likes of you could—”

Whoosh!

Another golden flash cut short Master Ming’s sentence.

His head came rolling off his shoulders.

Li Mu’s shoulders shook with uncontrollable rage sweeping all over him.

By his will, his golden saber reduced the spectral remains of Master Ming into mere dregs that dissolved into the air.

Without any hesitation, he soared into the air and shot away like a golden comet, racing as quickly as he could for Oststern.

At the Sanctuary of Lightning

The Hall of Valor is where all acolytes who had achieved godhood have their Lamps of Aliveness placed. On the third row of all the lamps, the third of the twenty-one lamps from the left flickered before it sputtered and extinguished with only one tiny tendril of fume fluttering upwards into the air.

The acolyte on duty was sweeping the floors when what he just witnessed left him aghast. He dropped his broom and hurried out of the Hall.

Minutes later, an elderly person whose ends of his flowing white hair were brushing his shoulders stepped into the Hall. He peered at the extinguished lamp. Seconds ticked by in silence.

“Godbreaker really has appeared. It would seem that Lei Cang was right.”

His gaze flickered uncertainly, a flame struggling to stay alight in the pupils of his eyes as his fingers performed calculations. All the while, his face contorted, growing from rosy red to pallid white. The veins on his neck bulged and he spasmed. His visage turned red like a tomato. All of a sudden—

“Hmm!”

He spewed a mouthful of blood, dyeing the floors of the Hall of Valor red.

“His auguries are unreadable… I expect no less from the possessor of Godbreaker… With Ming Yu’s death, there is no doubt that news of Godbreaker’s appearance will spread. They will realize the truth soon enough. It’s no longer feasible to expect any success in assassinating Li Mu anymore.”

He spun around after his lengthy monologue and muttered to his manservant, another elderly man almost his age, saying, “Dispose of that lamp. Get my carriage ready. I need to see the Master.”

“Yes, sir,” responded the manservant.

A mountain goat dragged an ornate carriage out of the Sanctuary of Lightning courtyard. The beast of burden’s slow pace belied its great speed, for in the blink of an eye, it shot up to the sky and vanished like a star.