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Each victim he discarded added fuel to the fire already burning in Vijaya's heart. Whispers spread from market ruins to the slums, from soldier's barracks to temple courtyards. "They eat while we starve." "They feast on our suffering." "The gods have turned away."
Po Kandar's words, shouted from beyond the walls by the Champa Auxiliaries, began to sound less like enemy propaganda and more like simple, undeniable truth. "Lay down your arms! The Hengyuan bring justice and full bellies! The king feasts while your children starve!"
Each day, these declarations found more fertile ground. A guardsman on the wall, his stomach growling, would look toward the palace and see the smoke from the royal kitchens.
A veteran, his hands still shaking from having to disperse a bread riot, would hear the story of a girl ruined and cast out by Darsaka. The crack in the foundation of Rudravarman's rule, which Shi Xin had so astutely identified, was widening into a chasm.
On the sixth day of the tightening siege, the chasm swallowed its first high profile victim.
Darsaka was in his commandeered post, a place that now smelled more of stale wine and sweat than of military strategy. He was, as had become his routine, "entertaining" a new group of women, their faces hollow with hunger and fear.
The lieutenant who had borne witness to his gloating had made himself scarce, his disgust having finally overridden his sense of duty. Inside, Darsaka's booming, lewd laughter echoed off the walls, a sound that had become the soundtrack to the city's despair. He was deep in his cups, his hands roaming over a terrified young woman who stared past him with the blank eyes of a corpse.
What he failed to notice was the shift in the room's atmosphere. The fear was still there, a thick, cloying presence, but it had been joined by something else: a simmering, collective resolve. These women were not just the latest victims, they were sisters in suffering, bound by shared humiliation and the gnawing agony of hunger.
They had heard the empty promises, endured the groping hands, and seen the lavish food that was dangled before them only to be withdrawn. As Darsaka's laughter reached a crescendo, one of the women, a tall, fierce looking girl whose brother had been killed in the first suppression, caught the eye of another. It was a silent, desperate communication. Then another woman nodded, her jaw set.
It happened with the sudden, brutal efficiency of despair. As Darsaka leaned back to take a swig of wine, the fierce young woman lunged, not with a weapon, but with her hands, grabbing a heavy silver candlestick from a low table. She brought it down on the back of his head with a sickening crack.
Darsaka roared in surprise and pain, stumbling forward. That was all the opening the others needed. They fell upon him, a whirlwind of pent up fury. They used the very tools of his decadence, a broken wine bottle, a sharp edged serving platter, a stolen dagger from Darsaka's own belt, a hairpin, anything that could pierce flesh.
There was no skill to it, only a raw, vengeful chaos. They stabbed, they slashed, they beat him long after the fight had left his body, their sobs and cries of rage mingling with the wet, ugly sounds of the attack.
When the lieutenant alongside a group of guards, summoned by the noise, finally forced the door open, the scene that greeted them was one of horrific carnage. Darsaka's body was a mess of wounds, almost unrecognizable.
The women stood around him, breathing heavily, their clothes splattered with blood, their eyes now blazing with a terrifying, liberated fire. They made no attempt to flee. They had done what they felt the entire city had been too afraid to do.
The guards and the lieutenant hesitated. None dared move. And soon word spread like wildfire. By dawn, every alleyway in Vijaya was alive with the news, that Darsaka is dead. The monster has fallen.
The news raced through Vijaya like a lightning strike. It reached the royal palace where King Rudravarman IV was, as usual, enjoying the distractions of his harem. Silk draped across his shoulders, he was drunk on palm wine, half asleep in a haze of perfume and pleasure.
Then came the knock, frantic, insistent. He rose, red faced, and barked for the messenger to enter.
The messenger, pale and trembling, delivered the news, and the king shot to his feet, his face purpling with a rage that was entirely self centered. His favorite general, his boorish talisman, was dead? Killed by women? The insult to his own authority felt greater than the loss of the man.
"Dead? Darsaka? Slain by, women?" He trembled, almost slipping on spilled wine. "By those gutter born whores he fed and clothed?"
He smashed the cup in his hand, shards flying.
"Execute them!" he screamed, his voice shrill, spittle flying from his lips. "Round up every one of those bitches and execute them publicly! I want their heads on pikes by sundown! Let the city see what happens to those who touch my chosen!"
This decree was the final, catastrophic spark. The order to execute the women who had slain the most hated man in Vijaya was not seen as justice, it was seen as the ultimate act of tyranny, a king spitting on the graves of his own people.
The simmering riot exploded into a full blown, city wide coup. It was no longer a disorganized mob. It was a tidal wave of humanity, commoners, joined now by entire companies of royal guards and veterans who had finally snapped. The cry was no longer for bread, but for blood, royal blood.
They surged through the streets, not as a random crowd, but with a clear, brutal purpose. They overwhelmed the loyalist checkpoints, not with weapons, for they had few, but with sheer, furious numbers. They took over the walls and the gates, slaughtering any officer who tried to stop them. Then, with a great, groaning shudder, the massive gates of Vijaya were thrown open.
The sight that greeted the Shi Clan Army was one of utter astonishment. One moment, they were manning their siege lines, watching the smoky, restless city. The next, the gates were open, and a tide of people was pouring out, not to attack, but to wave them in, their voices a cacophony of desperate cheers and pleas.
Po Kandar, who had been observing from the front lines, didn't hesitate. He spurred his horse forward, riding to meet the crowd. The story tumbled out from a dozen bleeding, exultant mouths, Darsaka's death, the king's order, the uprising. Po Kandar's heart hammered in his chest.
This was it. The moment of liberation, born not from their siege engines, but from the people's own breaking point. For a moment, Po Kandar just stared toward the city, wind whipping his cloak. Then he seized his horse's reins and vaulted into the saddle.
"Form up the Auxiliaries!" he shouted. "We ride now!"
He turned to a Shi Clan scout who understood the Champa language, his words urgent.
"Ride to Generals Shi! Tell them the city has opened its own veins! The people have risen against the tyrant! I am taking the Auxiliaries in now. Request, no, beg, that the entire Shi Clan Army march in to support the coup! We must secure the city and ensure the king falls!"
Without waiting for a reply, he drew his sword, turned to his unit, his men, whose families were in that maelstrom, and gave a single, roared command. "For Champa! For your families! Forward!" Behind him, the Champa Auxiliaries Unit, with a unified cry of vengeance and hope, streamed through the gates and into the chaos of their own capital.
When the scout reached the command tent, breathless, and relayed every detail of Po Kandar's messages, from Darsaka's death, the executions, the uprising, the gates unbarred. The reaction from the Shi brothers was one of stunned, then exultant, triumph.
Shi Xin's usually calm face broke into a fierce grin. "It worked," he said, his voice thick with satisfaction. "The people have chosen their own fate. We are now not conquerors, but allies."
He turned to his brothers. "Shi Zhi, sound the commanders to advance. All units, into the city! Our orders are to support the rebels, secure key points, and protect the populace. Show them we are here as liberators. Shi Hui, take the guard battalion and make for the palace. We must take the king alive, if possible."
The order went out, and the siege army transformed in an instant into an army of order. Columns of disciplined Hengyuan soldiers marched through the open gates, their arrival met not with defiance, but with tearful gratitude. They moved to secure arsenals, granaries, and major intersections, not to fight the people, but to help them stabilize their own revolution.
Inside, Vijaya was a vision of unfiltered chaos. The coup was racing toward the royal palace at lightning speed, a flood of righteous anger washing away the last vestiges of loyalty.
In the opulent council hall, King Rudravarman IV, who had been dragged from his chambers wearing little more than his undergarments, was a portrait of unraveling sanity. He paced before what remained of his cowering advisors and sycophant generals, his eyes wild.
"Stop them!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "You have to stop these traitors! I am your king! The gods appointed me! Use the guard! Use magic! I don't care, just END THIS!" He swung his gaze from one terrified face to another. "Riches! I will give you riches beyond your dreams! Women! The pick of the entire kingdom! Just save me!"
The advisors and generals could only stare at the floor, their minds a blank map of terror. They were courtiers, masters of flattery and political maneuvering, not battlefield commanders or talented strategist. They had no answer for the hurricane of popular fury beating against the palace doors. The silence that met his promises was more damning than any shouted insult.
King Rudravarman IV stared at them, his promises of reward dying in the stagnant air. The reality of his isolation finally, irrevocably, crashed down upon him.
A strange, high pitched sound escaped his lips, building into a crazed, helpless laughter that echoed through the hall. Outside, the sounds of battle grew closer, the clash of steel, the roar of the mob, the splintering of wood as the outer palace gates gave way.
Then, a new sound cut through the din. The great doors of the council hall themselves were struck from the outside, once, twice, before bursting open with a explosive crack.
But it was not rebel soldiers who entered first.
It was a group of women.
More than half of King Rudravarman IV's own harem filed into the room. They were a haunting, magnificent sight. They wore the silks and jewels he had given them, but their faces were set in masks of cold fury. In their hands, they held not mirrors or cosmetics, but weapons.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 35 (202 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 9)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 966 (+20)
VIT: 623 (+20)
AGI: 623 (+10)
INT: 667
CHR: 98
WIS: 549
WILL: 432
ATR Points: 0