It had been surprisingly easy to get Emperor Qin to submit. As Xiaofan had suggested, once it was clear that she was beyond him, his domain of Order and Hierarchy had overcome his personal pride to reevaluate his own place in the world. Qin Yang was still a blight, but he was no longer a threat and even without his pathetic attempt to use his link with the planet as a shield, his followers had the right to choose. Yoshika didn’t need violence to give them that choice.
She manifested another avatar over Qin’s Jade Palace, where the battle was still raging between the dragons and the imperial clan. Qin Yang himself followed soon after, trying to hide how perturbed he was by her ability to do so within his domain. Her presence alone nearly put an end to the fighting, and the sight of the Emperor next to her was enough to bring it to a full halt.
Qin Ling still held her unconscious sister in her arms, while Qin Yongliang eyed Yoshika with a scrutinizing gaze. Xiaofan was the only one present who didn’t hesitate, her draconic form receding back into her human one as she grinned knowingly at Yoshika.
“You did it, then. I can feel your influence around us—it’s almost physically difficult to take any hostile action in your presence.”
Yoshika nodded.
“Thanks in no small part to you. I’m impressed you managed to place the anchor amidst all the fighting.”
“I said I would, didn’t I? You gave me quite the distraction.”
“I have a few questions for you and, er...uncle? About the divine realm.”
She snorted and gestured with her head towards the Dragon Lord, still filling the sky with his mountainous coils as he leered down at them.
“Him, you can call grandpa. He’s beneath you now, so you needn’t concern yourself with etiquette.”
Yoshika just smiled politely. Qin’s obsession with ceremony and etiquette and the dragons’ unapologetic rule of strength were both extremes that she rejected.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Qin Ling flew towards them, carrying her sister and furrowing her brows.
“Father, what’s the meaning of this? What’s happening?”
He sighed and joined her, regret on his face and in his aura. He brushed a lock of hair out of his unconscious daughter’s face.
“I miscalculated. Empress Yoshika’s power and preparation were beyond my most generous predictions. We are defeated.”
A flicker of concern flashed across Qin Ling’s face.
“What does that mean for us?”
“I believe that is up to Sovereign Yoshika, but she seems inclined to mercy.”
Yoshika cast a sidelong glance at the man who had used the entire world as a human shield without hesitation. It felt a bit distasteful for him to speak of mercy now, but arguing would just make her look petty. Instead, she floated over to join them and gently tapped Qin Xiang on the forehead, dispelling Yue’s Melody of the Dreaming Moon.
“I am, yes. I suggest you meditate on what you would do in my position—what you did—and consider how it reflects upon you. If you still think I’m weak for sparing you, then I’ll be happy to return later to earn your respect one last time.”
Xiang’s eyes began to flutter open, finally free of the illusory dream that had trapped her mind. In truth, it should have ended on its own, but Yoshika had misjudged her own strength with the attack and created a self-sustaining construct. Not that they needed to know that.
She left the Qin Imperial clan alone, joining back with the dragons now that her business—such as it was—had concluded.
“Shall we move somewhere more private?”
The Dragon Lord finally returned to his bulky human form and sniffed dismissively, still trying to project some level of authority, despite his sister undermining him.
“Where did you have in mind?”
It was almost frightening how trivally easy it was to just...move them. One moment they stood in the sky above Qin, then with a thought the world around them shifted until they stood in an empty expanse of nothingness, a brilliant tapestry of stars surrounding them in every direction.
The Dragon Lord managed to contain his surprise, taking in their surroundings before turning back to her.
“And this is?”
Yoshika shrugged.
“Nowhere. There’s quite a bit of empty space within me now, and I wanted a blank slate. The view is quite nice, though. I thought everything would be too far away to see.”
“It’s almost comical how inexperienced you are, for all your strength. You had questions about my home?”
She nodded slowly.
“Qin explained the basics. This world is the Sealed Bloody Star, and there is a starfield of other mortal worlds—mostly barren—around us, yes?”
“That’s correct. ‘Star’ may seem like a misnomer, but from the divine realm, that’s how mortal worlds appear. Unlike physical stars, however, you can never reach a mortal world physically. No matter how you approach, it remains a distant light.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Interesting. How does travel between them work, then?”
Xiaofan stepped in to answer for her brother.
“Spiritually. The divine realm isn’t split into different phases like a mortal world. Spiritual, physical, and elemental all exist in tandem. What you know as spirit walking here is a fairly common mode of travel in the divine realm, not that everyone can do it.”
The Dragon Lord nodded.
“There’s psychic transport as well, but that’s rare—usually only those who come from psionic worlds know how to do it.”
Yoshika blinked.
“Psionic worlds?”
“A rare type of mortal realm—it’s not important, forget I mentioned it.”
That was interesting. She knew that not all mortal worlds were alike, but in her limited experience the divine realm seemed to operate on rules similar to those she was familiar with. Chou had also come from a world similar to hers. Was that a coincidence, or had they simply been adapting to the context of the world as she knew it? There was still so much she didn’t know about the universe beyond her home.
“Okay, another time maybe. My next question is about territory. As far as I can tell, this mortal world is...huge. Maybe even infinite. There are countless planets surrounding countless stars, and it just keeps going on forever. Why occupy multiple worlds instead of multiple planets?”
He stroked his chin as Yoshika gestured at the shimmering expanse around them.
“This mortal realm is what’s called an astral world. A common, but desirable type. Not all worlds have such a vast inner cosmos. Stellar worlds, for example, have only a single star. But to answer your question, though it’s counter-intuitive, it’s much easier to travel between worlds than between planets.”
Xiaofan stepped in to elaborate before Yoshika could inquire further.
“It doesn’t take a deity to enter or leave a mortal realm, normally. Your sister—oh, I should be more specific—Seong Misun discovered one such method herself. Had it not been for the divine seal, her trip to the edge of reality would have been met not by an ocean of divine essence, but a divine bureaucrat, there to register her partial ascension and orient her on the ways of the divine realm.”
Her brother grunted in acknowledgement.
“From there, it’s quite simple to travel from one world to another. There are even services to ferry people around. By comparison, though there are astral worlds with vast interstellar empires, they are few and far between. Interstellar travel is incredibly difficult on mortal worlds.”
“It’s also against the mandate of heaven to interfere with naturally developing mortal realms until they produce deities of their own, which means that the vast majority of mortal realms are colonies under control of the Sovereign Lords, created on one of the many barren realms lying around.”
Yoshika hummed thoughtfully.
“I see. And now that I’m a fully-fledged sovereign, I need to learn to navigate the divine realm myself. No bureaucrats have shown up to bother me, though—divine or otherwise.”
The Dragon Lord frowned.
“That is because the seal is still in place. Normally, as a sovereign, you would become the living embodiment of this world, able to move about freely while bringing the world with you.”
“That sounds like it would make travel between worlds under a sovereign’s domain kind of difficult.”
Xiaofan shook her head.
“It doesn’t. You’ve already experienced a similar phenomenon. When you traveled the world, did Jiaguo change places? A sovereign’s worlds are always within them, but they don’t actually move from their place in the starfield.”
“Oh, I see. So then, you think that the divine seal is restricting my movement?”
“Most likely, yes. You may still be able to destroy it, with your current power, but if not, you have an unlimited source of essence to cultivate until you can.”
Yoshika scratched her head. She’d been poking at it for a while now, and there was something bothering her. The real reason she’d wanted to speak to the dragons, and the question she’d been building up to this entire time.
“Okay, but what if the divine seal is also part of me, now?”
Both of them blinked at her. The Dragon Lord’s brows furrowed into an expression somewhere between concern and fear.
“What do you mean it’s part of you?”
“I mean like...when I absorbed Chou’s realm, it had some complicated wards and formations that were pretty far beyond me, but they were part of me, so I could still use them.”
“Yes?”
He really didn’t seem to like where she was headed with this, but they were the only denizens of the divine realm she could count on for information. Jianmo was a bit too unreliable when it came to detailed explanations.
“And the divine seal feels the same, now. I can’t reach beyond it, but I can control it. I haven’t tried actually doing anything with it, because I’m worried I’ll do something irreversible, but it’s definitely within my domain—not outside of it.”
“That seal is the culmination of billions of years of expertise, and the result of the combined efforts of all three Sovereign Lords—something that has never happened before or since, and may well likely never happen again. It is, without exaggeration, the most powerful spell in the entire divine realm. And you’re saying you’ve absorbed it wholesale?”
“Seems like it, yes.”
Xiaofan burst out laughing, though her brother was not so amused.
“They aren’t going to like that.”
She shrugged.
“They already don’t like me. But now I’ve got a shield that they can’t penetrate. What I want to know is...do you think I can make it bigger?”
Xiaofan’s eyes lit up at the suggestion.
“Oh, I see! With your own font of creation, and an impenetrable barrier for protection, you could expand your domain unopposed and become a Sovereign Lord yourself!”
“That wasn’t really what I had in mind, but I suppose it would end up that way. I just thought that maybe I could build a little chunk of the divine realm for ourselves. Free from the persecution of the Sovereign Lords, but not confined to mortal existence either. A sanctuary, like I told you before.”
“Yes. I understand. I like it! I think it’s worth trying.”
The Dragon Lord stepped in, grimacing.
“That’s a dangerous path. Tampering with magic that powerful could have consequences beyond your reckoning. Should you fail, the best case is simply destroying the barrier and leaving yourself vulnerable to the full strength of the Sovereign Lords.”
Yoshika nodded amiably. Normally he’d be entirely correct, and she wouldn’t want to risk it, but she did have an ace up her sleeve that made the experimentation far less risky than it might otherwise have been.
“You’re right, grandfather, but there is one other thing I haven’t told anybody about. I’m still having a hard time believing it myself, to be honest.”
It was another reason why she’d summoned them to such a remote and empty location. There were fewer variables there—not so many branching paths to fill her vision. It was still infinity, but...a more manageable infinity? No matter how much she tuned them out, the moment she lost focus or tried to think about the future, the visions were always there, waiting.
The Dragon Lord cocked an eyebrow at her.
“And what’s that?”
“I think I can see the future.”
!
Selkie Myth for their incredible shoutouts.
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