Alarmed by the explosion, guards from all over the city rushed toward the magistrate's office, spearheaded by the sheriff and custodian. Blood-Feather City's troops numbered about 40,000 Celestial Kins, ranging from the 3rd to the 8th level. Bonded through battle formations, their strength overlapped and multiplied, enabling them to stomp mid-level Celestial Guards with ease—to say nothing of the rebellious riffraff.
As the two men with the greatest military authority after the magistrate, in times of crisis, the sheriff and custodian could quickly mobilize the forces. However, little did they expect a scene of over 3,000 page-corpses, over 10,000 severely injured, and the rest with minor bruises. Smoke soared, rubble crumbled, and in this chaos, the city magistrate kneeled. With his right arm ruined, a bleeding face and splintered leg bones, Servan didn't have it easy.
Clinging on to a last hope, Harun swallowed a Life Severing Pill, a poison that first split the physical consciousness from the Divine Sense, then cut off all body functions for as long as the Divine Sense wished.
With his Divine Sense alone, Harun observed the show.
"What is the meaning of this? A rebellion of pages?" Confused by the scene, the sheriff staggered, unable to make a judgment call. In his centuries of officialdom, never had he seen or heard of a rebellion of pages. The very words made no sense. Yet the scene stood before them all.
"Wrong! Custodian sir, you must give us all justice! The magistrate provoked public anger by rigging the Peach Banquet Service's selection process! But instead of providing us with an explanation, he started killing people! Hundreds butchered arbitrarily!"
"Is this still the Blood-Feather City, or Servan City?"
"Is this the Fourth Heaven, or the Diljen Heaven?"
"Thirty-thousand celestials can't be killed at will!"
"With officials such as these, no wonder His Divine Majesty forbade murder and suicide! What a pity that we didn't understand his wisdom early on!" A choir of dissonant voices, one more piercing than the other, nailed the two officials. Instantly, they realized what went down.
This was another case of bullying gone wrong. The magistrate chose the members of his six pages quota early, then played an insulting show for the remaining pages. In another situation, they would likely not dare argue. But faced with the robbery of their literal, one in a lifetime chance to become a powerhouse, they protested—triggering the magistrate's brutal retaliation.
A riot naturally followed.
"Servan is done for," the custodian shook his head, and told the sheriff in a mental message. As custodian, he could only inspect and impeach the magistrate. Passing out judgment, however, was beyond him. In the Blood-Feather City, only one person could judge the magistrate.
A blood-red sun formed in the sky, with a hundred meter radius, and enough Heavenly Qi to dwarf all on the scene. Before that fireball, all that still stood kneeled, and more than any other, Servan shuddered.
"C-clan lord?" Indeed, the master of the Diljen Blood Crow clan, city lord and true leader of Blood-Feather City, now stood in the air, with his Celestial Knight cultivation crushing all dissidence.
Titled Demigods, Celestial Knights were the true starting point of the Divine Path, each mastering formidable skills and commanding great forces. Becoming a Celestial Knight was the first requirement to joining the Divine Army, or Lord Army as some called it. However, the Blood-Feather Lord preferred his millennia of secluded cultivation. Cultivation now disturbed by Servan's failures.
"What a fiasco. Such a trivial task, ruined so splendidly. Servan, Servan, you've just forfeited your office," a languid voice came from the fireball, followed by a dazzling flame arrow that pierced and burned a terror-stricken Serdan to ashes. He didn't even have the time to plead or protest.
"Although in his will, the late emperor forbade mourning, as his servants and officials, how can we disturb the peace on this unique day? Slaughtering without just cause, oppressing your subordinates to the point where death or rebellion become their sole option. Naturally, you must die. The Diljem Blood Crows can't afford such an insensible clansman."
The Diljem Clan Lord said at Servan's ashes, then swept all those below with his Divine Sense. Believing that playing dead before a Celestial Knight was akin to outsmarting oneself, Harun reactivated his body. And indeed…
"However, it is a fact that instead of seeking justice from the custodian or city lord, you, mere officials of the ninth rank, challenged and took arms against a superior of the seventh rank—contributing to the current mayhem.
Guards, take them away. Since today is too early for a mass execution, keep them imprisoned until the new magistrate is appointed. Meanwhile, burn the dead, and take the selected pages to my mansion. They shall depart at once." When those words resounded, hundreds of dead bodies miraculously returned to life. Heaven's grace, perhaps.
...
They were shipped like commodities. As if fearing further complications, the Blood-Feather Lord had his servants activate the teleportation formation, and send the six chosen to the Fourth Heaven's Capital: Golden Crow City.
From then, they were again teleported, this time to the Highest Heaven's capital. Before they could fully gawk, the six landed before a reception of spirit servants. Unlike the mortal emperors, the God Emperors never employed eunuchs—instead relying on youths from the Spirit or Armament Divine Clans.
The members of these two clans possessed an incomplete emotional spectrum, reproduced asexually, couldn't feel love or lust, and lived to serve the imperial clan. With such reliable servants, the God Emperors didn't need to fear their fairy maids and consorts getting some extra D. elsewhere. Still, the late Agiri passed an Anti-Cheating Divine Law that revealed and banned all affairs across the 33 Heavens. Surprisingly, many vassals would thank him for it.
"Welcome to the Imperial Domain. You are the 321st batch. Please follow us," said the leading spirit youth, a silver-haired boytoy with the type of looks that'd make a married couple fight for his affection. Seeing him, Harun couldn't help but feel that perhaps, the true reason behind the spirit servants' use was…*hum* *hum.*
Getting out of the teleportation platform, Harun and his six companions of fortune followed the spirit youths, one more radiant than another, straight to the Peach Page Court. They didn't dare let their gazes wander to the tall marble-white walls of Divine Jade, the floating Divine Mansions shrouded by swirling clouds, or the sky-piercing pagodas.
Instead their gazes remained glued on the misty-white ground, with their senses wrecked by the tyrannical concentration of Heavenly Qi in the air. If he could sit and meditate, Harun didn't doubt that in such an environment, it wouldn't take him a year to reach the peak of the Celestial Kin Realm.
This was a terrifying concept. On average, without pills and the like, a small talent took 100 years per Celestial Kin level. Less in the early stages and more in the late, while a prodigy took 10. Only the cream of the crop could breeze through those levels within a few years.
Thanks to his current Dao Foundation, Harun could be considered a prodigy. If any random corner of the Imperial Domain could provide him with such a cultivation speed boost, Harun couldn't estimate what cultivation level those spirit youths that'd been here for centuries or more, now stood at.
A den of ferocious beasts hiding under a fair countenance. That was the Imperial Domain.
…
Meanwhile, back in the Fourth Heaven, a middle-aged man dressed in a loose green robe kneeled before an armored man, his flaming-red eyes glued on the ground.
"They should have arrived by now."
"Yes, My Lord."
The middle-aged man, none other than the Blood-Feather Lord, replied with the utmost deference. The armored man spun, revealing daunting, flaming-gold eyes that outshined everything else in the room. Those eyes could blind mortals with a glance, and make all those below the Celestial Knight Realm feel as if a pair of suns directly faced them.
"We have given them what they asked for. It's now time to make sure they can't harvest the fruits. Heaven's Destiny belongs to the Golden Crows," said the armored man.