Chapter 60 - Alternate Means Of Transportation

Sleep came easy that night, the three of us slept while my elemental constructs watched over our dreams. My other self took charge of them while I slept. When I woke up, he relinquished the hold on the dragons to me and disappeared to the spirit realm to recharge.

Despite my initial reservations, I was well-rested and felt good in the morning. We shared breakfast and soon were riding my constructs again. Taking advantage of my knowledge, I changed the structure of my dragon so that it was more like a motorcycle than a flying serpent. When I finished, It had a seat, windshield and a speedometer that only worked because I willed it so because the Dragon was floating over the ground, so there was simply no realistic way to measure speed but the force of the wind around it, and still, that was somewhat inaccurate.

Instead of jumping on top of her dragon Khutulun approached my newest magic and stared at it wide-eyed, asking about everything. I chuckled and asked if she’d like to ride it with me, to which she gleefully accepted. I dismissed her dragon and focused on making my seat longer, and even added the footpegs to make riding easier.

We took off after the changes to both dragons had been completed, since I realized I was not being courteous to the General, and so gave the same amenities mine had saved for the larger seat.

120 miles an hour.

That was the cruise speed of our vehicles.

I was on top of a racing car in the middle of ancient China.

I LOVED IT!

During my childhood, in my previous lifetime, my father had owned a motorcycle and I learned with him how to ride but had never had the opportunity to buy one of my own, so I had considered that to be knowledge not taken advantage of. How strange was it that I actually got to use it a lifetime later?

Memories from my past childhood flooded my brain as Khutulun hugged me from behind, sharing in the emotion of riding something fast.

We shouted, we laughed, we had fun until late in the afternoon, when we stopped to eat and walk for a while. I had a lot of fun watching the otherwise stoic Fei Hong move like an old man, trying to release the tension in his legs… even if I was in the same predicament.

Khutulun, however, was fit as a fiddle. Living most of her life atop a horse must have prepared her plenty for such an experience.

We ate, shared some fun stories, and used the time to get to know each other better.

We set up camp and slept early, rising before the sun to continue traveling the next day. It became a routine until we encountered the first signs of battle.

A small contingent of soldiers inside a wooden fort was trying to prevent the northern riders from crossing the barrier formed by wood spikes into the lush lands of the south. They were vastly outnumbered, and the riders were simply toying with them, using their higher mobility to its full advantage. Apparently, the commanding officer was missing or killed, because one of the soldiers was trying to shout orders with little effect.

I made the motor dragons lower their speed before jumping into the fray, sending a rider flying and landing on his horse.

A man tried to attack me with a sword, but a wall of stone rose from the earth to block it. I heard the ‘clank’ of metal hitting stone before the wall turned to dust and I greeted the warrior with a punch to the face.

I jumped to the ground in front of the soldiers, who were looking at me in awe until one of them spotted the golden pin in my chest.

“Your majesty!”

I turned from them to the riders rushing to me and I made a double punch while earth-breathing. Again, the earth rose in my defense creating a giant stone wall that stopped them in their tracks. Behind me, I began hearing Fei shouting orders. I trusted him to know what to do, while I frustrated every single attempt from the invaders to bypass my wall.

In a spark of inspiration, I opened a gap right in the middle of it, so that they could pass single-file, and I waited in front of it. I disposed of four riders and captured a fifth before the others grew wise and regrouped away from my defenses.

One of my earth dragons was currently holding the man I had captured. Since the poor guy was staring at a gruesome death inside the teeth-covered insides of my construct, it took very little convincing for him to spill the beans.

Theirs was a tribe that had refused to work with others when the rations they had for war had become scarce.

He was astonished when Khutulun stopped beside me and introduced me as Tngri. Although I felt his warranted skepticism, the things he had seen me do made it almost credible.

“I will let you go with one condition,” I said after he answered all of my questions “Go to your chieftain and tell him that Tngri wishes to speak with him. If he won’t honor my request, then I will wipe him and his tribe from the land of the living.”

My dragon released him, and he ran away promptly.

I shook my head and finally looked back to Khutulun when I heard her sigh.

“As much as I want to help all of our people, perhaps you should wipe that tribe out” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she elaborated “They are the Mahrac, monsters. Even amongst the tribes, they are feared for their ferocity and thirst for blood.”

“They didn’t put up much of a fight, and I only disposed of seven of them.”

The glare she sent my way was more exasperated than anything “My lord. Your godly powers make the horses uneasy, not the blood. They are trained for battle, and yet…” she shrugged but I got the message.

If that were true…, would I be able to stop the horses through wood-magic like I did at the marsh?

“Y-your majesty!” a voice called from behind me, and I turned to find the surviving soldiers kneeling in front of me. Khutulun excused herself to check on the horses from my victims in the meantime.

“Yes?”

“These subjects thank the Great Prince Shen Long Mu for coming to their aid!” they all kowtowed, and I looked around, spotting the General who shrugged, informing me that it wasn’t on his orders.

“Raise your heads” I ordered, and they all did at once “You did something very brave, standing your ground against a greater force. I simply arrived at the right time to make the enemy flee. The ones who should be praised are you and those that sacrificed their lives for the safety of the Empire.” I smiled at them and saw, to my surprise, that many kowtowed again to hide their tears. “Now rise, my friends, and rest. I will deal with the invaders when they come again, but I must be gone afterward.”

They rose to their knees but refused to do more, therefore I took myself out of the picture so that they could walk freely.

Soon I found myself at Khutulun’s side, staring at the mountains the Mahrac had run to.

“Who are you to these people, my lord?” she asked, sending me a side-glance. “They all bow to you, and I feel their deference… but they don’t see you as I do.”

I smiled and took her warm hand in mine “To them, I am a prince. One of the descendants of the king that rules this vast empire.”

She hummed and asked, “will you reveal your divine nature to them?”

“I don’t plan to. If I did, they would ask me to rule them… and my path lays elsewhere.”

“You can live free among us” she turned to me, and I saw her eyes sparkle “It is true that the tribes will look up to you, but we love the freedom you gave us above anything else. We will respect your wishes and-”

I raised a hand to stop her, already shaking my head “If a god lives among your people, conflict will arise from me spending more time with one or another tribe. They will look for my council for every single problem and conflict that arises… how will you learn if I solve every problem that comes your way? How will you grow as a culture if my presence becomes a walking stick? No. I will not curse my chosen ones to become too dependent. I will aid you with the drought, and even spend time with you until you’re fit to care for yourselves again and peace has returned, but no more.” I sighed and looked at the horizon “Besides, there are still plenty of people I care for in this country and without me, they’ll be robbed of their future. I cannot, in good conscience, do that to them.” I was thinking of Bai Fan, my family, and Heng Li. I wanted to, at least, make sure they were well taken care of, especially Zhi Rou who was living at the palace in such troubling times.

“Is there…?” Khutulun began but bit her tongue, letting go of my hand to cross her arms under her chest.

I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her face to my chest. “Tell me.”

She hesitated for a few minutes before sighing.

“Are you taken, my lord?”

I tilted my head to the side “beg your pardon?”

She frowned before using a word she was clearly not used to “Are you married?”

I chuckled and shook my head “no. but I made a promise to a friend to help her out by marrying her.”

Khutulun took off her mask and her hands came to rest on my chest as she looked up at me “By the sky and the ancestors, I give myself to you, of my own free will, to cherish and love, until the heavens do us part.”

I stared into her eyes, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, the proper words came to me “By the sky and the ancestors I take what you offer freely and give myself to you of my own free will, to cherish and love, until the heavens do us part.”

Her smile was the most tender I had ever witnessed in this life. “By the heavens, I take what you offer freely, My lord.” She tiptoed and kissed my lips with a sweetness that made me not want to ever let her go.

------

We returned hand-in-hand, Khutulun foregoing her mask, something that amazed me because I was under the impression that it held a momentous significance. When the sentry saw us, he announced our presence to the rest, who left what they were doing to prostrate themselves before us.

I glanced at Khutulun before rolling my eyes, making her giggle.

My eyes returned to the men before me, and I recognized the man who had been trying to keep the fort from falling under the enemy’s hooves. I approached him and placed my hand over his shoulder. “What is your name, soldier?”

“To answer his majesty, the name of this servant is Hui-Liu.”

“And your rank?”

“Forgive me, your majesty, this servant has no rank.”

I hummed the way I had observed the emperor when he was thinking. “Where is your commanding officer?”

“To answer his majesty, our commander was killed earlier this week. We have been holding the fort as best as we can since then.”

A man snorted behind us, and I turned in that direction “Is there anyone that wishes to say differently?”

An uncomfortable silence reigned for a moment before a man stood up. “Long live Ji!” he and another five pushed those in front and came at me with knives.

I smiled, beginning my air-breathing and, in an instant, all five were on the floor with broken ribs and arms. “Will wonders ever cease?” I asked nobody in particular as I approached the man who had shouted in the first place.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Khutulun stare at the other soldiers challengingly, with her spear in a low guard.

I grabbed the man by the throat and lifted his head. “What kind of idiot are you?”

He glared at me before he spat on my face, and everyone present gasped.

“A true believer, I see.” The Dragon awoke in me and closed my fist, crunching the man’s larynx in an instant. I wiped the spit from my face as his face turned purple from lack of oxygen.

Inside I was fuming, not from the offense, but from the Dragon’s proclivity to kill everyone that even looked at us wrong.

As I raised my head, I finally noticed something curious… General Fei was nowhere to be seen.

I closed my eyes for a second and concentrated on finding his chi, when I did, I growled, grabbed Khutulun by the waist and jumped over the remainder of the soldiers. “Four enemies inside,” I said before placing my hand on the wooden structure, through chi magic, the pegs and beams came alive and parted on their own, revealing four soldiers in the process of beating Fei.

They were startled by our sudden appearance and the lack of their hiding spot, and Khutulun made good use of their surprise, knocking them all out promptly before releasing the man from where he had been tied.

While she checked on him, I turned to the rest of the soldiers and invoked my fire-dragon.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t burn you all this instant!”

One of the soldiers fell to his knees and kowtowed “forgive us, your Majesty, we didn’t know-” those were his last words when my dragon transformed it into a pile of ash.

Everyone stood transfixed at the pile of gray that had once been a man.

“The next person who tries lying to me will follow the same fate.” I glared at the bunch of them, reading the fear in their eyes. All except for a few of them, who seemed angrier than anything. “Your eyes betray your true intentions.”

The men I had spotted earlier went for their weapons, but they too became charcoal.

The rest of the soldiers… Some fled, some pissed their pants or shit themselves, but only one remained stoic, on his knees and looking at the ground.

“Hui-Liu” I called, and he raised his head but didn’t dare look past my knees. “Enemies of the Empire have hidden themselves inside Ji, will you help me root out this conspiracy?”

He kowtowed “Yes, your majesty!”

He didn’t look away when I squatted in front of him.. “Then tell me all you know.”