The Vermilion Palace courtyard lay in dead silence beneath the noonday sun. A place built for glory, now filled with liars and thieves in silk robes.
Noble families, generals, ministers—all gathered under the pretense of honoring tradition. Yet everyone knew why they had come.
The king was dead. The throne was empty and standing ten paces from it was the rightful heir—Li Tianming.
He wore no crown. No banners followed him.
But his stillness carried more weight than a royal decree.
He scanned the crowd, quiet and unreadable. Let them look. Let them whisper. He would not ask for recognition and would take it.
⸻
The three most powerful men in the kingdom stood arrogantly below the throne platform.
Xian Rong, Minister of Treasury.
Fat on stolen coin, he had emptied the royal vaults to build private armies and curry favor with emissaries from the Black Tortoise Kingdom. Gold had bought him silence, soldiers, and secrets.
Hu Dou, Minister of Military.
A soldier once. Now a butcher in fine armor. He had reassigned loyal generals to die in hopeless battles and filled the officer corps with cowards who answered to his purse, not the crown.
Dou Wei, Minister of Public Order.
The law had become his personal auction. He sold licenses of authority to corrupt noble clans, turned city guards into private enforcers, and erased honest men like chalk from a wall.
Together, they had suffocated the kingdom under a polished boot. And with the king dead, their final move was to place a puppet noble child on the throne and quietly remove Tianming through protocol.
They had prepared everything—except for Tianming himself.
⸻
Tianming did not need to summon anyone.
He had summoned Itachi Uchiha weeks ago, and the man had been working ever since.
While the court slept, Itachi had moved unseen.
He infiltrated manors, unlocked sealed scrolls without touch, watched private meetings from the walls like smoke. Wherever secrets festered, he placed a genjutsu marker—small, invisible, waiting.
By Tianming's order, he had marked every thread of the conspiracy.
Meanwhile, the ever-unpredictable Kisuke Urahara carved his way beneath the courtyard, etching complex Whisper Spider Arrays under the marble tiles.
Sound-catchers. Memory mirrors. Escape sealers.
"When this begins," Kisuke had said with a grin, "it's your play, Your Majesty. I've simply rigged the stage."
⸻
Now, standing alone in the center of that trap, Tianming raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The ground pulsed. Sigils lit beneath the feet of every traitor and the entire courtyard glowed with concealed formations—now awakened.
Above, illusions shattered. Truth took form.
Ghostly images bloomed in midair—signed letters from Xian Rong arranging foreign deals, Hu Dou's war orders condemning loyal generals, Dou Wei's voice echoing in recordings as he negotiated law sales like bartering for pigs.
Gasps tore through the crowd.
Even guards flinched as faces they trusted were laid bare.
Hu Dou reached for his sword, too slow.
A shadow flickered.
Three crows landed on the platform.
Itachi stepped out from the shadows—one man in three forms, each clone behind a different minister.
He spoke in a whisper only they could hear.
"You have worn your lies long enough. Now wear your truth."
Their eyes glazed over.
Itachi triggered the genjutsu seeds he'd planted—shoving each traitor into a private prison of their own memories.
One relived every bribe he ever took.
Another watched soldiers die over and over under his orders.
The last drowned in the voices of grieving mothers he had silenced.
They collapsed without resistance. Their bodies lived. Their minds shattered.
No sword drawn. No blood spilled.
Only judgment.
⸻
Tianming turned to the stunned court.
"I offer no duel. No trial. The time for questions has passed."
His voice cut like ice through stunned silence.
"These three men sold this kingdom piece by piece. Your sons died in wars they arranged. Your streets were patrolled by men who paid for the right to hurt you. Your taxes lined their vaults, not ours."
He gestured to the throne.
"I claim this seat not because I was born to it—
—but because I did what none of you had the will to do."
He stepped forward, past the broken traitors.
Up the marble steps and sat.
Something shifted. The winds over the palace softened. In the spiritual world, something unseen began to stir—an invisible force rising from the ground, from the people, from the very air.
National Qi.
The collective will of the people, the spiritual stability of the realm—now focused on him.
Tianming felt it settle into his body like warm rain soaking into thirsty soil. His cultivation surged—not through pills, nor meditation, but through recognition.
The people had chosen.
[System Alert: National Fate Shifted]
You have absorbed ambient National Qi.
Your foundation is stable.
Core Seed forming…
Congratulations. You just cultivated by throwing the garbage out. Your mop-fu is strong.
He smiled, just slightly.