Blue Phoenix

by Tinalynge

  “As long as you are within my mansion I can guarantee that no one will treat you disrespectfully,” Hui Yue continued, as he showed the mansion and the surrounding areas to the two guests. “I would suggest that you stay around the mansion the majority of the time. It will be risky for you to enter the city alone, however if you truly need to enter the city then make sure to wear your cloaks. They will grant you a margin of safety.”

  Having said so much, Hui Yue went to the second floor where there were three rooms next to each other which all shone with a warm light emitting from within. The middle room belonged to Sha Yun, yet the snake-woman rarely used her own room, as she liked to sneak into Hui Yue’s.

  As long as the sisters were living in the mansion, Hui Yue granted the three of them full access to the second floor, while he himself resided on the first floor. The sisters were allowed to move anywhere within the mansion and every servant had been ordered to tend to their every need.

  Shui Wu and Bing Niao were both deeply shocked by the care which they were being shown, as they used to only experience the sort of humans who tried to hunt them down or try to hurt them. To these two beasts humans were all but toys and food.

  “I imagine that Sha Yun already explained the plan to the two of you?” Hui Yue asked, as he showed the two sisters around the entire compound and both sisters nodded their heads, eyes wide as they focused on observing their surroundings rather than listening to Hui Yue’s words.

  Although they did not pay much attention to Hui Yue, they still nodded at his question. A sly grin appeared on his face, as he started to whistle and moved back to the stone garden where he once again sat down and entered meditation. This caused his body to rise a few centimetres above ground, allowing for the silvery hue to shine from his soon to be sweat soaked skin.

  ….

  “How come you have not hired any assassins lately?” A voice rang through the frozen mansion and Zhong Fai turned his head only to see a handsome youth walking out from behind one of the ice pillars, which his ice castle was built upon. The handsome man was wearing only a pair of trousers and shoes, his upper body being completely bare showcasing his ripped chest, as well as his white hair, skin, and eyes..

  Looking closely one would be able to see that this man was truly not white skinned, nor was his hair white, but everything was covered by a layer of frost. His eyes were not white, but they had long since become the colour of a dead man’s. Looking at this youth who at first glance seemed handsome would scare anyone upon closer inspection.

  Looking at the frozen young man an annoyed sigh escaped Zhong Fai’s lips, and he shook his head slightly.

  “There is no need to send any more for now,” He said dismissively, but the young man showed no interest in settling with such an answer.

  “Why not?” He asked curiously as he c*cked his head slightly, “Did you not say you wanted to temper him? You can’t be soft on him just because you like him more.” A pout appeared on the frost covered face as he continued, “Look at me. This is how all your attempts at tempering youngsters go.”

  A slight laughter escaped from Zhong Fai as he nodded his head in agreement. “To be honest, I did actually go over the line,” The living man said, “I sent a Silent Raven after him.”

  “Seriously?” The frozen man asked as his jaw dropped down, agape. “So he will be joining us soon?” He asked hesitantly. At first he had been joking about the new kid dying, but it seemed as though Zhong Fai never learned from his previous mistakes.

  “The reason I don’t dare send any more assassins is because he killed the Raven.” The man seated on the ice throne finally sighed, causing the handsome youth’s jaw to drop even further than it had done previously. To kill a Raven was no easy task.

  “I see,” He grumbled for a while. “When do you plan on picking him up?” He finally asked.

  “I won’t make him a part of my Frozen Brigade,” Zhong Fai said with a great smile on his face, “I want this one alive, so for now I will watch him grow. In a few years I will go and pick him up.”

  Shaking his head, the frozen man looked at Zhong Fai as though he was looking at a dumb child, pity and disbelief filling his eyes. Although it seemed as though he wished to say other things no words escaped his lips, and he instead turned around leaving the main hall of the ice castle, constantly shaking his head and murmuring something to himself.

  ….

  Back in Riluo City, the tension had reached an all-time high as the City Lord finally started to move against the Wang and Deng families. All the main families were barring their teeth at each other, each faction spending their savings on hiring extra guards from the commoner families and also they used their wealth and fame to recruit the noble families who had yet to decide upon which faction they wished to ally with.

  While all the older generations of the factions were busy recruiting, Hui Yue was busy laying plans within his home. He would frequently have guests visiting him, some came with information while other came to get information. Everyone soon knew that Hui Yue was housing three high ranked humanoid magical beasts, yet no one dared to mess with them as they were guests of Hui Yue. Even though two of them were yet to be bound by a beast contract, no one wished to make yet another enemy during this time of war, instead they were left alone as they refused to choose a side.

  Wang Ju Long and Deng Wu were the two guests whom Hui Yue saw most often. As they came to visit and chat with the beasts, they acted as though the whole situation in Riluo City was none existent.

  Hui Yue enjoyed getting those visits, and he could not help but feel excitement grow within him, as he looked forward to the battle which was to come.

  Officially Hui Yue had not allied with either of the sites, yet Hui Yue already knew exactly what he would do during the battle, and he had been spending a lot of time to thoroughly consider how to accomplish this task.

  Hui Yue had always loved the ancient history of his old world, and the plan which he was going to implement whenever the battle broke out was one which he had created with inspiration from the ancient greek myths.

  Ruminating over thoughts like these, a sigh escaped Hui Yue’s lips as he felt a few drops of water land gently on his skin, signalling a huge downpour, which started momentarily after. Looking at the downpour, Hui Yue managed to clad himself in flames, evaporating the raindrops before they managed to land on him, yet while doing so it was impossible for him to continue training his Metal affinity within the stone garden. Because all his attention was focused on managing his Fire affinity instead.

  Looking at the cloudy sky, Hui Yue allowed for a sigh to escape his lips as he made his way into the mansion. what he was met with made him stare with his jaw fallen.

  In the middle of the mansion was a courtyard and this courtyard had an open ceiling allowing for both sunshine and rain to enter. Upon entering this courtyard, Hui Yue expected that it would be deserted as it had started to pour down.

  Looking at the courtyard, not even a slight drop of water had hit the floor. Seated on some bamboo chairs were the three beast sisters and a wide array of the servants were waiting for them and complementing their amazing powers.

  Above these three beast sisters was a giant blue orb filled with water, and by looking at it Hui Yue noticed that it was the same type of orb which Shui Wu used to entrap unwanted guests within in her clearing.

  This blue orb was absorbing every single drop of rain, allowing none to slip past it, keeping the courtyard and people within dry.

  Having the beasts within the house, Hui Yue felt how the servants at first had been slightly nervous, and at the same time very curious. Eventually the curiosity won out against their fear and the servants quickly found that these magical beasts were not only intelligent, they were also very human-like when one got to know them.

  The three beast sisters had been provided with medicinal pills from Hui Yue, as payment for their willingness to help with his current endeavour.

  Although Hui Yue was pr
oviding medicinal pills to his friends and now also these magical beasts one has to remember that the price for these pills was astonishing. One of the Qi Congregating Pills alone was enough to pay the salary for a teacher at the Royal Academy. Medicinal pills of lower quantities were more widespread, but their usage was also far below that of the higher grade pills.

  Although Rong Liang was a City Lord even he had problems purchasing high grade medicinal pills. All the alchemists within Riluo City were of the lower ranks and even they set an extravagant price for their lower grade pills.

  The reason why the Royal Academy had such a large quantity of these pills was because they belonged to the Royal Family. The Royal Family employed all higher ranked alchemists. For the City Lord to purchase the pills he would need to pay an even higher price than the students at the academy did.

  For Hui Yue to purchase pills in these quantity was because he did not have to worry about his income too much. His entire income was for the sake of providing himself and his friends with pills.

  Doing this was a thing which made all his friends stare at him with wide eyes and beating hearts. The few high grade medicinal pills which their families owned were all used on their family leader or the elders as none of them had reached the Saint rank just yet.

  These magical beasts did not know the true value of the pills when considering the money spent to buy them, what they did understand, however, was that these pills were many times more effective than the raw medicinal herbs they would eat inside the forest.

  Having bought that many medicinal pills throughout the years, along with buying a big mansion made Hui Yue’s wealth plummet. He went from being as rich as the Deng family to now only be as rich as the average noble family within Riluo City.

  This, however, was still a great amount of money for anyone, especially someone who only spent money on his servants’ salary and medicinal pills.

  “Milord! Milord!” A servant rushed through from the front gate his breath ragged and his clothes soaked from running through the rain. Hui Yue instantly turned towards the young man who had run in, and within his hand was a black memory stone with a few signs of mist floating around.

  This servant was one of Gao Yan’s most trusted men, and Hui Yue quickly accepted the stone before he placed it to his forehead.

  ‘Tomorrow is the day of new beginnings,’ Said a voice within Hui Yue’s mind. A voice which Hui Yue recognized instantly as Deng Tsang Ying.

  Chapter 90 - It Begins

  * * *

  Chapter 90: It Begins

  “Who gave you this?” Hui Yue asked the servant who had rushed to give it to the white-haired boy. Deng Tsang Ying’s voice was not something which Gao Yan, or anyone on the Rong faction side, could gain access too, especially not a sentence which was this important.

  Looking at the memory stone, Hui Yue thoughtfully waited for an answer as he turned and played with it, seemingly deep in thought causing the servant to not dare open his mouth. Hui Yue sighed, and crushed the stone to pieces before he looked at the servant in front of him, urging him to answer.

  “Young Master Deng Wu, sir.” The servant said with a resolute expression. Although the majority of the servants within Hui Yue’s mansion were all living comfortable lives, all of them felt slight dread when it came to interacting with the lord of the mansion.

  Hui Yue was strong, which they were aware of by now. He also happened to be incredibly rich and had an erased background. Everything about him reeaked of mystery, and although he was a good friend of Gao Yan, these commoners felt an oppressive aura coming from him. He had a decisiveness which they were unfamiliar with, not to mention that he never spent too long interacting with others, but instead spent all his time training and cultivating.

  Nodding his head Hui Yue dismissed the servant before he, with long steps, strode into the dry courtyard where he clapped his hands, gaining attention from everyone present.

  The servants all looked at him with respect, some curtseyed while others bowed, yet the two magical beast guests both looked annoyed with the sudden interruption during their leisure-time, still none of them said anything as they saw the stern expression which their host was showing.

  “We begin tomorrow,” Hui Yue said, as a grin appeared on his handsome face and a merciless light gleamed through his eyes, causing even the ferocious magical beasts within the room to feel a chill run down their spine. This slight feeling of fear was however quickly subdued by the sheer excitement which shone from their cat-like pupils.

  ….

  The city of Riluo had long since changed from its bustling and positive atmosphere to one which seemed as though it was ruled by martial law. Citizens did not leave their homes, unless they had certain errands to run, and the streets had been filled with patrols from the two different factions.

  Whenever these patrols were to stumble upon each other one could assume that skirmishes would appear, causing the sounds of fighting to ring throughout the deserted streets. The scenes of injured and even sometimes dead guards had become an every-day occurrence.

  In spite of that, the following morning when Hui Yue and the three beast sisters left the mansion, not even one guard was seen on the deserted streets. An eerie silence had descended upon one of the great cities of the Taiyang Kingdom.

  Although the common citizen was unable to tell exactly what was going on, every one of them knew that it was something which would change their city greatly in the future. It was something which they had no means of controlling, and this had caused them to stay inside this fateful day.

  Rushing through the empty streets, Hui Yue noticed how every shop within the city was closed and a relieved smile appeared on his face, as he kept leading his small party towards the center square of the city itself. The square was the only place which had enough capacity to hold a large amount of cultivators in one go.

  Getting closer and closer to the sSquare, Hui Yue saw how he ran into more and more guards from the two siding factions. Hui Yue had chosen neither faction to side with at this current point, and having done so resulted in both factions seeing him as an enemy, causing the young man to swear slightly.

  Hui Yue had long since broken into the middle dantian making martial art attacks something incredibly simple for him, and as he quickly gave up on entering the center square. On his feet he started circulating his Qi through his meridians and quickly created four Qi Fan’s.

  He instantly jumped onto one of these while the three behind him followed his lead and did the same with the fans in front of them. Hui Yue nodded in approval and the four fans soared into the sky where they shot forward with an amazing speed, bringing the group towards the center at an astonishing speed.

  The closer the four of them got to the square, the more guards they saw and soon the streets were packed with guards. These happened to be from the Rong fFaction, which caused Hui Yue to nod his head slightly.

  The closer Hui Yue got to the center the stronger the guards got, causing Hui Yue to raise a brow in surprise. Most tactics he knew of allowed for the weaker soldiers, or cultivators in this case, to become the cannon fodder, while the stronger would stay behind stepping in when the enemy had gotten tired. Yet here it was as though the guards were filled with eagerness to show their battle prowess, and the stronger they were. The closer to the center they flew the more intimidating the auras became.

  Seeing Hui Yue and his three followers soar above the heads of these strong cultivators caused great shock in the experts’ hearts. Unlike the outer guards these stronger ones were knowledgeable about high ranked martial art skill, such as Qi Fan as it was the one the young lady of the Rong family used.

  Secretly, Hui Yue was stunned when he saw the astonishing amount of cultivators who were gathered up in the streets. If there were already this many high ranked Practitioner cultivators in the smaller streets one could imagine how many experts each side controlled, and how fierce the battle would become in a short amount of time if they were to start figh
ting.

  Hui Yue calmly flew above all these experts until finally the center square was within sight, and he had to suck in a breath of air. Thousands of cultivators were packed together on two sides of the square with a small area of ten metres, which was a no man’s land.