Li Yuan walked through the city's increasingly high levels with a steady, unstoppable pace. At every checkpoint he passed, guards tried to stop him, but the presence he emanated made them retreat without being able to raise their weapons. It wasn't physical fear—it was an instinctive recognition that they were facing an authority on an entirely different level.
Through the small radius of his Wenjing Realm, Li Yuan could hear the alarm spreading through the kingdom's communication system. Panic, confusion, and desperate attempts to understand what was happening. But what was most striking was the intention of King Tianlong himself, emanating from the palace at the city's peak: blind arrogance, a refusal to accept that his authority could be challenged.
A king who only cares about his own power, Li Yuan realized with a deepening coldness. Not about the welfare of the people he is supposed to serve, not about justice, not about anything other than maintaining privilege and control.
The palace gates loomed before him—a massive structure with heavily armed guards and fortifications designed to repel armies. But as Li Yuan approached, something extraordinary happened.
The gates, which should have been firmly secured, began to shake on their hinges. Not because Li Yuan was using physical force, but because his presence had reached an intensity that made even inanimate objects respond to his authority. The metal bindings groaned, the stone foundations trembled slightly, and the guards found themselves stepping aside without a conscious decision.
The Realm itself is recognizing legitimate authority, Li Yuan thought with grim satisfaction.
The palace courtyard was filled with guards, officials, and courtiers scrambling to respond to the unprecedented situation. Through his Wenjing Realm, Li Yuan heard a cacophony of intentions: terror, confusion, desperate loyalty warring with the instinctive recognition that the normal rules no longer applied.
Li Yuan walked through the courtyard with absolute calm, not acknowledging the frantic activity around him. His focus was singular: reach the throne room and have the long-overdue conversation with the man responsible for the systematic cruelty in this kingdom.
The throne room doors—massive wooden barriers reinforced with iron and designed to be impregnable—stood before him. Guards positioned themselves defensively, weapons drawn, but as Li Yuan approached, the doors began to swing open on their own accord.
Even the palace itself knows that this conversation cannot be prevented.
The interior of the throne room was designed to impress and intimidate: high ceilings, elaborate tapestries, a throne positioned to be elevated above all who enter. Seated on the throne was King Tianlong—a middle-aged man with an aristocratic bearing, dressed in expensive robes, surrounded by advisors and guards.
But through his Wenjing Realm, Li Yuan could hear beneath the impressive facade: insecurity masked with arrogance, fear disguised as authority, a fundamental emptiness where wisdom or genuine concern for others should be.
"Stop!" commanded King Tianlong with a voice he clearly expected to carry absolute authority. "How dare you enter our presence without permission! Guards, seize this intruder!"
Nobody moved. The guards found themselves unable to approach Li Yuan, not from a physical barrier but from an overwhelming sense that attacking him would be a catastrophic mistake.
Li Yuan walked slowly toward the throne, each step echoing in the vast room. As he approached, the presence he carried made everyone present feel the weight of an authority that dwarfed anything political power could provide.
"Your Majesty," Li Yuan said in a calm voice that somehow reached every corner of the room, "we need to have a conversation about immediate changes to kingdom policies."
"A conversation?" King Tianlong's voice rose with indignation. "You dare to demand an audience? You dare to enter our palace uninvited? Do you not understand the concept of royal authority?"
Li Yuan stopped directly in front of the throne and looked up at the King with an expression that was perfectly controlled but contained a coldness that made the ruler shrink back unconsciously.
"Your Majesty," Li Yuan said in a tone that was respectful in form but devastating in content, "I understand the concept of authority very well. The question is whether you understand the difference between authority that is earned through service and authority that is claimed through an accident of birth."
Murmurs of shock rippled through the courtiers. Nobody spoke to a King like this—ever.
King Tianlong's face flushed with rage. "Treason! Sedition! Guards, execute this man immediately!"
Again, nobody moved. Through his Wenjing Realm, Li Yuan could hear that even the most loyal guards were having profound doubts about the wisdom of attacking someone who could walk through palace defenses like they didn't exist.
Li Yuan continued with relentless calm: "Your Majesty, in the past week I have observed your kingdom carefully. I saw children starving in the streets while the palace feasts. I saw skilled artisans denied credit for their work while nobles claim artistic vision. I saw knowledge hoarded in libraries that restrict access based on birth."
Li Yuan's voice remained level, but each word cut with the precision of a blade.
"And when people began to help each other—sharing food, teaching children, working together to address basic needs—the response from Your Majesty was to outlaw cooperation and threaten torture for those who dare to show compassion."
"Order must be maintained!" King Tianlong shouted, desperation creeping into his voice. "Social hierarchy provides stability! Without control—"
"Without justice," Li Yuan interrupted with absolute coldness, "a system based on oppression will eventually collapse. The question is whether the collapse happens through peaceful reform or violent revolution."
Li Yuan stepped closer to the throne, and King Tianlong pressed back into his seat as the presence intensified.
"I offered this kingdom an opportunity for gradual change. Reasonable reforms that would address suffering without destroying stability. But the leadership chose instead to increase oppression, to respond to calls for basic human dignity with threats of torture."
Li Yuan's expression remained calm, but there was something in his gray eyes that made the King realize that he was facing something far beyond a normal political challenge.
"So now, Your Majesty, you have an immediate choice to make. Either implement the reforms that I will specify, or discover what happens when a system based on cruelty encounters a force that is not bound by political constraints."
"You... you threaten us?" King Tianlong's voice was a mixture of outrage and growing fear.
"I state consequences," Li Yuan corrected with a finality that filled the room. "You built a kingdom on a foundation of deliberate suffering. You maintain power through systematic cruelty. And now you will learn that there are forces in the world that are older and stronger than royal authority, and some of those forces do not tolerate organized injustice."
Li Yuan raised a hand, and something unprecedented happened.
Throughout the palace, throughout the city, throughout the entire kingdom, every person could suddenly hear—not with their ears, but with their mind—a voice that spoke with an undeniable authority:
"People of Tianshan. Your King has chosen cruelty over wisdom, oppression over justice. Today, that choice ends. Today, the system that keeps you divided and desperate will change fundamentally. Today, you will be free to help each other, to learn, to grow, to live with dignity regardless of the circumstances of your birth."
King Tianlong stared in absolute shock as the voice reached every corner of the kingdom.
"Guards and officials: Are you loyal to a system or to the people? Do you serve a power that crushes spirits or an authority that lifts them up? Choose wisely, because after today, everyone will remember what side you chose when faced with a clear moral decision."
Li Yuan lowered his hand and looked at the King with an expression of complete finality.
"Your Majesty," he said in a voice that now carried an undertone of something that made the throne room itself seem to tremble, "you have one minute to decide. Either announce immediate reforms—education for all, an end to the birth-based hierarchy, resources shared equitably—or discover what happens when someone with real authority loses patience with deliberate cruelty."
King Tianlong, faced with something completely beyond his experience or understanding, made a choice that revealed the true nature of his character.
"Never!" he screamed, his voice breaking with a mixture of rage and terror. "We are the King! We will not be dictated to by... by whatever you are! Guards! Fight! Die for your King if necessary!"
Li Yuan nodded with an expression of profound sadness mixed with cold resolution.
"As you wish, Your Majesty. You chose pride over wisdom, power over people, cruelty over compassion. Now experience the consequences of that choice."
Li Yuan's presence expanded throughout the throne room, throughout the palace, throughout the kingdom with a force that no political power could match or resist.
Time to show a delusional tyrant what real authority looks like when wielded in the service of justice.
Time to show the entire kingdom that systems based on organized cruelty are ultimately powerless when faced with a force that truly understands the meaning of righteousness.
And time to demonstrate that some conversations really cannot be avoided, regardless of palace walls, royal guards, or delusions of absolute power.
What happened next would be remembered for generations as the day when true justice finally lost patience with systematic oppression.