The Divine Martial Stars

The woman acclaimed as “the fairest lady in the Northern Steppes” smiled at Li Mu. Her charms were inviting enough — at any rate, she could give Hua Xiangrong, Bi Yan, Ye Wuhen, and the others a run for their money, although the presence and air she exuded were entirely different. The confidence stemming from her superior prowess in cultivation and combat skills was palpably discerning enough.

Confident people have always been perceived as being more attractive, they say, and Dongfang Qinghong was the very embodiment of this dictum.

Lu Chuan however was none too pleased to see how. Puffing with indignation and resentment of what she had done to his junior and the trail of death and destruction that she had caused, Dongfang Qinghong was as foul as scorpions and serpents to him, and having her in his presence was repulsive enough. “Zhiyuan once loved her so much, yet how could she!” he mused quietly.

But Li Zhiyuan no longer existed. It was Li Mu now assuming his identity. Detached from the emotional baggage, he remained calm and serene. “You said you have something important to tell us. Pray tell.”

“Look, I’m sorry for what I had done, Zhiyuan. I was coerced. I need you to understand that,” Dongfang Qinghong croaked as if she was on the verge of breaking into tears, grimacing like a poor innocent girl that could make any man’s heart wrench with sympathy.

Li Mu suppressed the urge to smirk. “Oh, really? Who was that coercing you back then?”

“Feng Bu’er of the Priory of the Four Seas,” Dongfang Qinghong whimpered weakly, “You know how powerful the Priory is. They threatened to put every member of Crescentfrost to the sword unless I did as they told… You know how much I love you, Zhiyuan… You know how doing that pained me… For so many years, I have had no one else but you… Please… Will you forgive me?”

It was all Lu Chuan could do to hold himself back from a tongue-lashing outburst

“What in heaven’s name kind of explanation is that?!

“For whatever sorry excuse of your reasons, you did stab Zhiyuan in the back! You should be on your knees, begging for mercy, not reminiscing about past love and affections!”

“I see,” Li Mu said placidly, “If that’s the case, I forgive you.”

Dongfang Qinghong’s expression froze with disbelief at first, then she cracked into a relieved and no less joyous smile. But deep inside her eyes, nestled within the saturation of happiness, was the hint of smug self-satisfaction. “That’s right, Li Zhiyuan could never resist my charms…

“Men… Aren’t they just so easy to manipulate…” she mused with furtive glee.

“W-Wha… Wait, brother!” Lu Chuan stammered, unable to believe that he had just heard.

“It’s fine, brother,” Li Mu waved off whatever warnings Lu Chuan was about to pelt at him, “I know what I’m doing.” Then he turned back to face Dongfang Qinghong, “Well, if this is the important thing you’ve come here to tell me, it’s settled then. You can go now. What happened back then is all water under the bridge. Just stay away from me from this day onwards.”

Li Mu wasn’t being foolishly merciful. Li Zhiyuan’s memories of her showed how deeply he still loved her despite what happened to him. Even in his despair and gloom, he just couldn’t bear to bring himself to hate her, although this slowly turned into the cancer that ate up his will to live and the misery ultimately killed him.

Knowing well how Li Zhiyuan would never wish vengeance upon Dongfang Qinghong, Li Mu decided to let her go — at least just this once.

“What do you mean by that, Li Zhiyuan?” Dongfang Qinghong’s face turned sour, sounding rather scornful and hurt. “I know, you must be angry still. But we can go back to where we were. We can still be happy just like before! Everything has passed, so why can’t we just make peace and forget about it?”

Li Mu stared dispassionately at her as if her gorgeous and beguiling charms were ineffective towards him. He was beginning to feel tired of the sophistry. “Go. Go now before I change my mind. Or do you honestly think I’m above killing you right here, right now?”

“W-What?” Dongfang Qinghong could not believe that Li Zhiyuan would say something like that to her. Stunned into silence for seconds, she bitterly hissed, “How could you, Li Zhiyuan?! Why can’t you give me a chance and give one to yourself as well? Are your pride and your intransigence so important that you can just forgo the love we shared?”

“Wow.”

Li Mu looked at her blankly like he had just seen an insane lunatic.

“Talk about a scheming harlot with a black heart,” Li Mu mused testily.

“The old Li Zhiyuan is no more,” Li Mu said cryptically, “You should go.”

“No, that’s impossible! This must be a lie! I know you still love me, Li Zhiyuan! You’ll regret sending me away! You…”

“BEGONE.”

The two-syllable word rumbled like a thunderclap that caused even the ground beneath them to shake.

Anger and shame instantly embedded themselves inside Dongfang Qinghong. She got up at once, so infuriated that she was biting her own teeth and the beauty of her face faded away, giving way to a grotesque visage of rage and disgust.

“How could you, Li Zhiyuan! How could you be so cruel!” she growled through gritted teeth, “You’ll regret this! I swear it! You’ll regret making this decision!”

Reeling in a delirium of emotions, she staggered unsteadily away.

“Wait,” Li Mu called all of a sudden.

“Yes?” Dongfang Qinghong asked with a sliver of hope swelling like a sapling breaking free of the soil.

“Do nothing to stand against the Creed of Divinity,” said Li Mu with frost and steel in his voice, “Do that and I’ll make you pay.”

“How… Very well, Li Zhiyuan. Every word that you’ve said today, I shall make sure that they will be remembered,” the Vestal of the White Lotus uttered word after word with deliberate slowness. Then she spun around and stormed away.

Li Mu stared at her leaving with stoic silence.

“Pretentious and smug… Pitiful,” he thought.

“Thank Heavens you know what you’re doing, brother,” Lu Chuan said, exhaling heavily with relief. “I was so afraid that you might…”

“Might go soft on her and succumb to her womanly allures and allow myself to be consumed by fantasies of getting back with her again?” Li Mu smirked playfully. “But I wasn’t joking nor was I talking irrationally because of anger. The old Li Zhiyuan is no more. My sole focus from this day hence is only my study of warriorship and my saber. Romance no longer means anything to me.”

Lu Chuan was astounded by that maxim.

“Romance no longer means anything?

Are you sure that’s a good thing, brother?”

…

At the foot of the Summit of Divinity.

Dongfang Qinghong was descending the slopes of the mountain with two of her handmaidens, stomping her way down the mountain path with acrimonious apoplexy.

The leaves of the rose mallow trees that mottled the slopes of the Summit of Divinity often fell into a pond just below the mountain. The fiery-red leaves floating on the surface of the pond’s azure-green waters looked just like a dazzling display of fireworks suspended in still frame, hence the pond’s name Fernfyl Water.

A burgundy horse carriage was stopped just right by its banks like it was expecting someone.

But in place of where the horses should be were chimeric beasts bred from mixing stallions and carnivorous monsters, combining both equine with bestial properties – fyresteeds — horse-like monstrosities that have flame-like appendages festooned their hooves. These strong and magnificent animals could travel more than five thousand miles a day and they were especially rare and intelligent. A few of their harnesses have been undone, allowing these fyresteeds more freedom to bend their heads down to graze on the grasses in peace.

But Dongfang Qinghong’s face immediately contorted with horror as soon as she caught sight of it.

“How fares your mission?”

A disembodied voice as cold as steel pierced the silence in the thin woods, coming straight from inside the coach.

Dongfang Qinghong obediently scurried over like a meek little mouse and responded with brimming politeness, “L-Li Zhiyuan sent me away, my lord. He seems completely different, being very distant and aloof as if he no longer has any affection for me. M-My deepest apologies, lord.”

“I see. Could the rumors be true then? That Li Zhiyuan rediscovered success after his fall? That his fall wasn’t just a fall, but rather a fortunate opportunity that was in fact a blessing in disguise?” croaked the voice with a tinge of skepticism. “We should have been more careful back then. Who would have known that a cripple whose path of warriorship should be dead has now risen from his own ashes to haunt us?”

“I feel that Li Zhiyuan is more dangerous than he once was, lord,” revealed Dongfang Qinghong, “He will grow further if we allow him, sir. I suggest we do something fast before this gets out of hand.”

“Heh heh heh heh, as if I require the likes of you to tell me the obvious,” hissed the cynical voice with undisguised contempt and

“I mean no disrespect, lord,” Dongfang Qinghong added hastily.

“You failed your charge. Are you prepared to face the consequences of that failure?” the voice from inside the coach echoed again.

Dongfang Qinghong looked like she could crumble, her entire self trembling with absolute terror. “B-But, my lord… Please… I beg of your forgiveness…”

“Heh heh heh heh, the fairest lady in the Northern Steppes, eh? When he first recruited you, it was intended that you would use your womanly allure to greater efficacy to further our cause. Suffice it to say that we are disappointed in your reluctance to carry out your duty by entertaining our targets with the only reason that still makes you one of us. Tell me, why should we still keep you then?” said the voice from inside the coach whose cruel presence could make even the entire woods feel like being in a freezing tundra.

What color on Dongfang Qinghong’s face was receding fast. Suppressing a frightful stammer, she muttered, “Please, my lord. I beg for your mercy.”

Hardly anyone could ever imagine that this could be true. That the fairest lady of the Northern Steppes, the woman of so many a young man’s dreams, could allow herself to be stripped of her freedom and manipulated like a pawn.

“Mercy? The Heavens have been merciful enough to bestow you such beauty. That is all you’re good for and all you’re worth, so I might not kill you just yet… If you can convince me not to, if you get what I mean…” the voice turned suddenly insidious. “Strip and get inside.”

“What?!” Dongfang Qinghong gasped, her face now as pale as chalk.

“You will do as I say if you wish to see the sun rise again come the morning. You swore an oath yet you still cling to the futile values and pride of your sickening humanity. No more. I will disintegrate what reluctance and shame you still hold on to. I will cast you off the precipice of your humanity so that you will fall into the abyss of decadence. That way, you shall be able to serve him with all your heart, your soul, and your body.”

The voice from inside the cabin of the carriage sounded like the hellish call from the farthest and darkest depths of a chasm that led straight into the Underworld.

Dongfang Qinghong shook so violently that she was going to have a seizure.

She knew from the start that selling her soul to the devil would become a decision that would come back to haunt her. Yet now that the moment of reckoning has arrived, she felt only terror and misery — the same cry of refusal that all maidens embodied against something so mortifying and degrading.

“Hmm?”

Patience was beginning to ebb away from the voice from inside the horse carriage.

Dongfang Qinghong let loose a long and somber exhalation before she finally relented, “As you command, lord.”

With the slender and graceful hands that had sent men all across the Five Regions of Molderad swooning, she undid the cords that held her robes and tunic and began to strip herself.

All of a sudden, a third voice swept through the woods like a cold breeze.

“I must say, I’m rather curious as to what compelled you into submitting yourself to such nefarious figures.”

A man, tall and lean, approached them from outside the woods, his white robes billowing so gently as he drifted nearer and nearer.

“You?!”

Dongfang Qinghong uttered, reeling with astonishment.

Never in her wildest dreams would she expect Li Zhiyuan to make such a sudden entry!

Li Mu peered at Dongfang Qinghong, shaking his head. There was no sympathy or no compassion. She was only just reaping what she sowed although she clearly didn’t like the outcome.

“What wretched filth you are, Dongfang Qinghong,” hissed the voice more sinisterly despite how deathly calm it sounded, “It would appear that you’re more pathetic than I expected.”

Dongfang Qinghong’s face looked just like a corpse’s as she dreaded the fate that would be visited upon her after this.

Li Mu paced towards the burgundy horse carriage slowly. “Foul creatures that lurk in the shadows unseen. I loathe and I abhor your existence, scum! Show yourself! Let me see how you look!”

“Heh heh heh heh heh,” cackled the voice with frost like the demonic peals of laughter from the depths of the Underworld. “Do you really think you’ll triumph against me, Li Zhiyuan?”