Even after they hauled Gao Wenyan's unconscious form away, the dark stain of his blood remained on the training grounds. Xiao Ke was wounded, sure, but the final, brutal combination he'd used to take down his opponent had left everyone stunned. It was a clear message: he was still a force to be reckoned with. Injured or not, no one was foolish enough to challenge him now.
By the end of the day, it was official. Xiao Ke, Ling Feng, and Ye Yun held the top three combat rankings in the elite program. Their spots in the Emperor's Autumn Hunt were secure.
Soon after, Chief Instructor Di Shitian and Jiang Youwei made the public announcement. Graduation was just around the corner, but first, the top ten students—led by Ling Feng, Ye Yun, and Xiao Ke as the starting team—would accompany them to the prestigious hunt hosted by the Emperor himself.
The three of them exchanged a look, a shared spark of triumph in their eyes.
Then came the weekly rewards. It was, to be honest, a letdown. The prizes were nothing compared to previous weeks. Ling Feng, in first place, got three vials of "Angel's Kiss" recovery potion. Xiao Ke and Ye Yun got two each, and the rest of the top ten received a single vial. While Angel's Kiss was useful for healing, it was no Fountain of Origin Force.
He's probably saving the good stuff, Xiao Ke reasoned. Di Shitian likely figured that with the Hunt tomorrow, a minor power boost from the Fountain wouldn't make much of a difference. A fast-acting healing potion, on the other hand, could be a lifesaver.
That night, Xiao Ke didn't hesitate. He downed a vial of Angel's Kiss, feeling its restorative energy mend his wounds. He needed to be in peak condition for the Hunt.
The next morning, ten students from the Glory School, dressed in crisp, new black combat uniforms, boarded a troop transport—the kind grunts called a "battlefield bus." With Di Shitian and Jiang Youwei leading them, they set off for the heart of the capital.
They arrived at Qilin Plaza, a magnificent, sprawling space built to hold three hundred thousand people, a massive hero's monument standing at its center. Today, it was on lockdown. Soldiers from the Nine Gates Command patrolled the perimeter, and armed vehicles were stationed at every intersection. With the new Emperor in attendance, security was ironclad.
The plaza was already crowded with the empire's elite: princes and grandsons from the imperial houses, and the young scions of powerful noble families. They were all dressed in extravagant silks or gleaming, ceremonial armor, ornate swords and sabers hanging at their hips, each surrounded by a flock of servants.
Then Xiao Ke saw them—a unit of warriors in stark, silver-white uniforms. Leading them was a formidable man with sharp, eagle-like eyes. Xiao Ke's breath caught in his throat. He knew that man. It was Qiao Zhennan—the Warlord of the Phoenix, and Qiao Mingxuan's father.
Ling Feng followed his gaze. "Those are the noble elites from Hanlin Academy," he murmured, his voice low. "They're our main competition. Every one of them is from a high-ranking family. We're backed by the Imperial House; they're backed by the Cabinet."
"What's Qiao Zhennan doing here?" Xiao Ke asked, his voice tight.
Ye Yun stepped closer, a faint smile on his lips. "He's the headmaster of Hanlin Academy. He's here to personally make sure his students put us in our place, same as every year."
A bitter taste filled Xiao Ke's mouth. He never would have guessed that his son's killer would be standing face-to-face with the man's father at the most important event of the year. After his son's death, Qiao Zhennan must have been hunting for the killer. Has he found me? Does he know?
As if sensing the stare, Qiao Zhennan—a terrifying Level 10 Great General—suddenly turned. His gaze locked with Xiao Ke's across the plaza.
Xiao Ke instinctively looked away, but it was too late. He saw a flicker of surprise in the Warlord's eyes, quickly replaced by a cold, predatory smile. With his elite students in tow, he began walking toward them.
Di Shitian and Jiang Youwei intercepted them.
"Headmaster Di Shitian. Your Highness," Qiao Zhennan said, his voice dripping with false courtesy.
After a stiff greeting, Di Shitian eyed the young warriors behind Qiao Zhennan. They were all around twenty, but every single one of them was a Valiant General. Di Shitian's heart sank. He'd had three students at that level, but with Gao Wenyan's defeat, he was down to two. Qiao Zhennan, meanwhile, had brought a full team of them.
"Quite the showing, Headmaster Qiao," Di Shitian said, forcing a chuckle. "It seems Hanlin Academy is planning to spare no effort in humbling us again this year."
Qiao Zhennan's smile never reached his eyes. "We simply fight with the strength we have. To do any less would be an insult to the Glory School, don't you think?"
"Fine," Di Shitian snapped. "Then let's see whose students are truly superior."
"With that sorry-looking crew?" Qiao Zhennan gestured dismissively at Xiao Ke and the others.
Di Shitian's face flushed with anger, but a sharp glance from Jiang Youwei stopped him.
Qiao Zhennan's eyes scanned the ten students, lingering on each face before finally settling on Xiao Ke. A wave of killing intent, cold and sharp, washed over him. It felt like being plunged into a frozen lake; the raw power of a Level 10 warrior was suffocating.
Then, just as quickly as it came, the pressure vanished. Qiao Zhennan's gaze dropped to the Great Commander's Saber at Xiao Ke's hip—the very blade he had commissioned for his son. The memory brought a fresh wave of pain, invisible to all but him.
"Nice blade," he said, his voice flat.
Xiao Ke met his gaze. "Thank you, sir."
"Good luck on the battlefield," Qiao Zhennan said, the words heavy with unspoken meaning.
He turned and led his students away. Once they were out of earshot, his expression hardened into a mask of cold fury.
"During the hunt," he commanded his students, "kill that boy."
Di Shitian and the others were confused by the exchange. A man of Qiao Zhennan's stature had no reason to speak to a low-ranking centurion, especially from a rival school. They chalked it up to the blade—it was an exceptional weapon, after all. Perhaps the Warlord was simply a connoisseur of fine steel.
Only Xiao Ke understood the truth. It wasn't a blessing. It was a death sentence.
The crowd in Qilin Plaza swelled to over a thousand as the morning wore on. They waited. And waited. Seven o'clock stretched to ten, and still, there was no sign of the Emperor. The delay gnawed at the others, but Xiao Ke, his mind racing with Qiao Zhennan's threat, barely noticed the time passing.
"Are they ever going to start?" Ling Feng grumbled.
"Easy, Second Brother," Ye Yun said calmly. "His Majesty has rituals to perform—the Temple of Heaven, the Ancestral Shrine. These things take hours. We wait."
Finally, around eleven, a commotion at the far end of the plaza signaled an arrival. A procession of Imperial Guards cleared a path, followed by a train of opulent carriages. One, drawn by six magnificent white horses, stood out from the rest: the Emperor's chariot.
As the convoy rolled to a stop, the plaza erupted. "Your Majesty!" The cheer was deafening. In this new era, people didn't kneel, but the reverence was real. The Cabinet may have held the true power, but the Emperor was still a symbol, a figure of divine authority.
Xiao Ke joined the military salute, his eyes fixed on the lead carriage. As the pearl curtain was drawn aside, his jaw went slack. The young man who stepped out, clad in an immaculate dragon robe, was no stranger. His mind flashed back to the battlefield, to a cheerful voice complaining about wanting to kill a zombie himself.
It couldn't be. The Emperor… was Jiang Ning?
Suddenly, it all clicked. Jiang Ning's imperial surname, that of the effeminate Butler Li, who was clearly a palace eunuch. The memories came flooding back: sharing meals, singing old war songs, fighting side-by-side against the undead. And Jiang Ning's smiling words echoed in his mind: Let's make it a story for the ages!
The Emperor—Jiang Ning—gave a short, rousing speech. Xiao Ke was too stunned to register a single word. He only snapped out of it when the entire procession began to move, heading out of the city toward the Hidden Dragon Mountain Range. He scrambled to follow his instructors onto the transport bus, his world completely upended.
He noticed that while the Emperor and the entire royal family were present, the real power players—the Cabinet's Grand Elders and the heads of the five great noble houses—were conspicuously absent. To them, this was just a game, a piece of imperial pageantry they could afford to ignore. But they hadn't ignored it completely. They had sent their best from Hanlin Academy to act as spoilers, a reminder of where the real strength lay. It was a calculated insult, a yearly tradition of putting the imperial faction in its place.
The Hidden Dragon Mountain Range was the Emperor's private hunting ground, a massive preserve stocked with deer, boar, and wild fowl. But for the Autumn Hunt, a thousand new "animals" had been released into the sprawling wilderness: zombies.
Most were low-level shamblers, but among them were far more dangerous creatures. Hellhounds and Friezas lurked in the shadows. There were even a few Level 7 Titans—headless, ten-foot-tall brutes covered in eyes—and a couple of Level 8 Demon Apostles, intelligent, winged assassins that could turn invisible. Each zombie was tagged with a tracker. When the hunt was over, a team of specialists would sweep the mountains and eliminate any that remained.
Of course, the Emperor wouldn't be fighting Titans. His part of the hunt was pure ceremony. On the safe, open plains at the foot of the mountains, Imperial Guards drove herds of deer and boar toward the royal party for them to shoot with bows and arrows. After a couple of hours, Jiang Ning personally felled a large sika deer. The crowd roared its approval. "His Majesty is mighty!"
Killing a deer was symbolic. It meant the throne was secure. Only the Emperor was allowed the honor.
Jiang Ning, however, just rolled his eyes. "Big deal," he muttered under his breath, "they drove it right in front of me. This is nothing like the real thing. Nothing like fighting alongside Centurion Xiao Ke."
With that, the royal portion of the hunt was over. But for the warriors, the real hunt was about to begin. As night fell, their prey awaited them in the deep, dark mountains.
Standing before the assembled participants, Jiang Ning's voice rang out, strong and clear.
"My brave warriors! As the moon rises, your hunt begins! Take your weapons and your courage into those mountains and claim your glory. Return by noon tomorrow, and I will see which of you is the greatest hero. The rewards will be legendary!"
Xiao Ke, Ling Feng, and Ye Yun stepped forward, joining the throng of young nobles ready to enter the forest. As they crossed the threshold into the dark woods, Xiao Ke noticed three silver-white uniforms detach from the Hanlin group.
They were following them.