The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 672

The night air in the ruined courtyard still carried the sharp tang of smoke and blood. Li Tianlong stood rigid, his sword lowered but his eyes burning with the kind of fury that could ignite cities. His voice cracked across the open space.

“If you do this, you are no longer human. How can you drag my entire family into your games?”

Alex met his gaze without blinking. “I gave you a chance once. I am giving you another. Choose. Friend or enemy. But choose quickly.”

“I serve only Emperor Liu Jian,” Li Tianlong spat. “The true son of the dragon. Not your puppet boy from the provinces.”

Alex nodded once, a small, cold movement. “Liu Piao. Kill the emperor.”

The fat Wudang disciple holding the bound false emperor tightened his grip. Liu Jian’s eyes widened in sudden terror as Liu Piao drew his blade in one smooth motion, the steel singing as it cleared the sheath.

“Wait!” Li Tianlong roared.

But Lu Piao had already driven his sword straight into the Emperor's heart. The blade erupted from the Emperor's back in a spray of blood.

Li Tianlong stood frozen, his face drained of color as shock overtook him.

In that single heartbeat Alex moved.

He drew his own blade in a blur of silver. The Wudang Limitless Sword technique unfolded without wasted motion—no grand stance, no shouted name, only the quiet precision.

The edge found the blind spot beneath Li Tianlong’s raised arm and drove straight through his heart.

The older man staggered. His sword slipped from nerveless fingers and clattered on the broken stone. Blood welled dark and fast around the steel buried in his chest.

Alex kept his grip steady on the hilt. “I always knew why you married your daughter to the boy emperor. You wanted the throne for yourself. You thought a marriage alliance would let you pull the strings from the shadows.”

Li Tianlong’s face had gone the color of wet ash. His mouth worked, but only a wet rasp came out.

Alex leaned in slightly. “Do not worry. By tomorrow the entire capital will believe a different story. Li Tianlong, desperate for power, murdered Li Jue and Guo Si in their sleep. Their loyal soldiers turned on him in rage. In the chaos that followed, the false emperor and Li Tianlong were killed. And when the dust settled, Prime Minister Bai Xiaochun restored order and brought the true Emperor Liu Xie back to his rightful place.”

He twisted the blade once, cleanly.

Li Tianlong’s eyes filled with the terrible understanding of a man who had gambled everything and lost in the space of a single breath. His body folded, and Alex let it drop.

The courtyard fell silent except for the distant crackle of fires still burning in the outer wings of the mansion.

Alex turned to Zhuge Liang, who stood a few paces away, “Liang Province is now yours. Govern it as you see fit. Make certain every soul here learns to worship Liu Xie as the true Son of Heaven.”

Zhuge Liang bowed deeply. “It will be done, my lord. And you will remain Prime Minister of Great Xia.”

“Good.” Alex wiped his blade on the dead man’s robe and sheathed it. “I am leaving five thousand Wudang disciples with you. Hold this province until it is secure. Then send them home.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

By morning the news had already begun its work.

The heads of Li Tianlong, Li Jue, and Guo Si had been mounted on tall spikes along the main avenue leading to the old palace gates. Flies gathered in the rising heat. Crowds moved past in uneasy silence, some staring, others quickly lowering their eyes.

In the central square, Zhuge Liang stood before a simple altar draped in white. Incense smoke curled upward as he performed the rites for the dead Emperor Liu Jian—short, formal, and final.

No one in the crowd dared question why the ceremony felt more like a closing of accounts than a mourning.

A senior officer in the new black-and-silver uniform of the Prime Minister’s guard walked the length of the avenue, reading from a scroll in a carrying voice that reached every corner.

“Last night Li Tianlong of the Dragon Gate Li Clan, consumed by ambition, murdered the loyal generals Li Jue and Guo Si in their sleep. He sought to seize the young emperor and rule through him.”

“When the generals’ own soldiers discovered the treachery, they rose in righteous anger and struck down both the traitor and the false emperor he had tried to control.”

“In the confusion, the true Emperor Liu Xie—long held captive by Dong Zhuo’s remnants—has returned to us. Prime Minister Bai Xiaochun has restored order. Liang Province is now under the governorship of Zhuge Liang, who will ensure justice and prosperity under the true Son of Heaven.”

“As for the Dragon Gate Li Clan, every member has been judged complicit in treason. They are stripped of name and rank. From this day they serve as slaves of the state, to be dispersed across the provinces and labor until their debt to Xia is paid.”

Soldiers moved through the streets in disciplined squads. They dragged men, women, and children from the Li family compound in chains. Some of the captives wept. Others walked with heads high until the first lash fell. No one raised a hand to stop it.

Steel met steel in the narrow valley roads. Zhang Ji fought at the front, sword rising and falling until his arm ached and his breath burned in his chest. For a time it looked as though sheer momentum would carry them through.

Then an arrow took him high in the side, just beneath the armpit where the armor joined. He staggered, killed the man who had fired it, and kept fighting.

A second blade found the gap between his ribs during the press of bodies. He felt the steel slide in, felt the hot rush of blood inside his armor. Still he pushed forward until his legs would no longer hold him.

He died on his knees in the mud, staring at the banner of Jing as it fell.

His nephew, Zhang Xiu, a lean young man barely twenty-five, took command before the sun set. The surviving officers looked to him. Zhang Xiu looked at the dead and at the letters still clutched in some of the men’s hands. He weighed the cost of another war against the cost of survival.

By the following morning he sent riders north with a sealed message.

The letter reached Changyi three days later. Zhang Xiu pledged his loyalty to Emperor Liu Xie and accepted Bai Xiaochun as Prime Minister of Xia. He asked only to remain governor of Jing under the new order. The request was granted before the ink dried.

Far to the west, Fan Chou finished what he had been sent to do. Yuan Shu’s army broke in a single sharp engagement outside the walls of his capital. Fan Chou took the head himself. When the city surrendered he walked its streets once, saw the fear in every face, and made his decision before the bodies were even cleared.

He too sent a message to Changyi.

He had no wish to die for a throne that was already lost. He would keep Yu Province, govern it fairly, and live long enough to see his grandchildren. In return he offered his sword and his province to Emperor Liu Xie and Prime Minister Bai Xiaochun.

A month passed.

In the war room of the Prime Minister’s pavilion, Zhuge Liang stood beside the living map. Markers glowed across ten provinces now—Yan and Qing, the original five that had knelt, Liang under his own hand, Jing under the young Zhang Xiu, and Yu under Fan Chou.

“We hold ten of the eighteen provinces,” Zhuge Liang said. “Yuan Shao controls four outright and has the quiet support of two others. The remaining two provinces in the south are still in the hands of the Yellow Turban. What are your orders, my lord?”

Alex did not answer at once. He walked slowly around the table, eyes moving from one cluster of markers to the next.

“Clear the Yellow Turbans first,” he said. “Then the two provinces propping up Yuan Shao. Cut away his support before we force him to kneel. Once that is done, the whole of Xia answers to one throne.”

Zhuge Liang inclined his head. “It will be done.”