Book 12: Chapter 63: Blood-Soaked Tyrant

Sen announced himself through the expedient of kicking open the gates and throwing the instigator from the crowd through the door of the manor. The shocked screams and bellows about being under attack were satisfying in their own way. Not that he gave anyone time to mount a resistance. He was inside the manor before anyone could even grab a weapon. Since he’d arrived in Emperor’s Bay, he had been trying to take measured action. Kill only those he absolutely had to kill in order to create enough fear that the politicians and mortals would fall into line. He’d even gone so far as to forgive people who had condoned a massacre. He’d done it in the name of stability and order.

It was clear to him now. That approach had failed. Maybe it made the nobles and authorities in Emperor’s Bay think he was weak or indecisive. Maybe they’d just been assuming he was too stupid to realize that the mob was instigated by them. Maybe they were just counting on him taking his army and leaving before he could solidify his position with the people in the city. Sen didn’t know, and he no longer cared. He’d wanted to find a middle ground where he could offer some lenience, even if it turned his stomach at times.

They had apparently taken his lenience as weakness. Very well, he thought. He would forgo lenience in favor of absolute terror. If they didn’t want a strict king, he would give them something else. He would give them a blood-soaked tyrant. A guard who looked half out of his mind charged Sen. A negligent gesture shattered the man’s sword. Sen plunged his hand into the man’s chest and ripped out his heart. The other guards who had been gathering themselves stared at the dripping organ with disbelief. Sen threw that through another guard. A few moments later, the guards were all dead.

He stalked through the house, using earth qi to seal the doors with stone. The servants and children who largely fled at the sight of him, he ignored. The day might come when even they would also die by his hand, but that was a line he still refused to cross. There was rage, and then there was madness. But anyone with a weapon died. Men. Women. It didn’t matter. He knew where everyone was in the manor and sealed the windows when he saw some people trying to escape through them. He never drew a blade. Never used a qi technique. He did it with his hands and brute force. Sen intended to make a point.

By the time he finally found the man he was looking for, a familiar figure from the few times he’d been forced to gather all the politicians, Sen was blood-soaked literally as well as figuratively. The man was cowering in a corner with tears streaming down his face. He screamed when Sen calmly stepped into the room with blood running off his hands.

“Please, Lord Lu! I beg you! Have mercy!”

“Mercy?” asked Sen. “I already showed you mercy when I first arrived in this city. I told you then that I hoped you would be less disappointing.”

“Please, spare me.”

“You clearly weren’t listening then, the way you aren’t listening now. So let me be clear. I am still disappointed.”

“It was a mistake! I swear it was a mistake! It will never happen again! My oath to the heavens!”

Sen waited to see what would happen. He supposed that it was possible the oath was sincere. Yet, no telltale glow surrounded the man. Sen shook his head.

“The heavens didn’t believe you. Now, you’re going to tell me everyone who was a part of this stupidity or encouraged it.”

The noble shrank back against the wall, his eyes wild.

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“You can’t kill me! You can’t! I’m a noble!”

“You don’t seem to understand your situation. I warned you all what would happen if you tried to steal that food. Oh, I know you weren’t really after the food. You were trying to undermine me or lay claim to the Soaring Skies Sect compound or something equally beyond your grasp. But your people went there to take food. Do you remember what I said would happen? Were you even listening? I said if you tried to steal that food, you would all die.”

“You can’t do this! You don’t have the right!”

“I’m a nascent soul cultivator. Even if I weren’t the king of this country, I could still do this to you with no consequences. Now, you can tell me who else was involved, or I can start breaking your bones one at a time. It’s entirely up to you. Take your time. I’m a generous man. I’ll give you ten entire seconds to decide. One. Two. Three.”

The noble let him get all the way to six before he apparently realized that a fast death was preferable to an excruciating death. Then, the names poured out of his mouth. Sen shook his head. He knew it had been a mistake not to kill all of those politicians and nobles the minute he arrived. There was the pleasant surprise that the new magistrate had not only not been involved, but had actively tried to warn Sen’s people. He was being held at another noble’s estate. When the man had nothing left to say, all the manic terror seemed to drain out of him.

“What about my family?” he asked numbly.

“Why is it that you nobles never seem to care about your families until after you’ve done something stupid enough to get them all executed? If you actually cared about them, you wouldn’t have done this in the first place.”

The man hung his head and said, “We never thought you’d go this far.”

“What would have ever given you that notion? Haven’t you heard the stories?”

“They were just stories!”

Sen considered the noble and wondered why he kept talking. He seemed to have accepted his fate. Then, it became clear.

“By the way, if you were trying to give people time to escape, I sealed the manor. No one is getting out of here unless I decide to let them out.”

The noble snarled at him and shouted, “Who in the thousand hells do you think you are to judge us like this?”

Sen reached out, grabbed the man’s head, and twisted. There was a sharp crack, and the noble went limp.

Looking down at the body, he said, “They tell me I’m Judgment’s Gale.”

Sen wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, but one look at his hands changed his mind. He rolled his neck a few times before he finally addressed the other person in the room.

“Did you get all of those names?” he asked.

Misty Peak dispelled her illusion. For once, there was no humor in her expression or merry sparkle in her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Are the soldiers waiting outside?”

“They are.”

Sen could have checked for himself with his spiritual sense. However, he wasn’t especially eager to see just how many fewer people would appear in it.

“Then we should go to the next manor before word spreads.”

“And what of the remaining members of this house?”

“The children will join the rest of the children with nowhere else to go. The adults will march to war with us.”

“And if any fight?”

“Kill them. No warnings. No negotiation. Make a list of where we’re going and have a runner sent to direct the soldiers waiting near the gate. This is already going to be messy. I don’t want to make it worse with a manhunt through the streets.”

“I’m sorry, Sen,” said Misty Peak in a small voice.

He glanced at her and asked, “For what?”

“We…I missed this. If we’d been paying more attention—”

“If it wasn’t this, it was going to be something else,” said Sen and then gestured at the body. “He said it himself, they didn’t believe I’d go this far.”

“But this is the exact kind of thing I’m supposed to help you avoid.”

“This isn’t your fault. You can’t know everything. You can’t find everything. If anyone is at fault here, it’s me.”

“You? Why would this be your fault?”

“I didn’t want to do, well,” he gestured around, “this. So, I made threats. I made a few examples. But I knew I was taking half measures. It’s the story of my life. Hells, I’m still taking half measures. A true tyrant would kill them all just to be on the safe side, but I can’t make myself do it. And I won’t order someone else to kill children. I guess that makes me half a tyrant.”

“Maybe half a tyrant is enough,” said Misty Peak, although even she didn’t sound sure about it.

“They didn’t believe I’d go this far,” repeated Sen. “I think they’ll believe it tomorrow.”