Chapter 62 Day One | The Message

"Today you will learn the consequences for aggrieving cultivators and striking them!" The emperor yelled, flying 300 feet over Marysworth Hospital.

Evalyn watched the ordeal in astonishment. Moments before, she was on her death bed after tasting raw power. Now, she was healed and learning who Kaze was—who he really was.

She wasn't bothered by who he was; the part of her that would care was locked away at present, and she wasn't certain if it would ever return. But that didn't matter to her.

The state she was in led to her treating all actions and events as if they were equal.

"Malta has led its people to the slaughter by hiding the nature of Qi Sickness, and the foolish people in this hospital have killed my mentor, Doctor Martin Miser, or stood around while he died!" Kaze roared, "Both are responsible for his death!"

Evalyn's muted emotions returned in full force after his declaration, and a torrent of ice formed around her.

"Take a moment to process what happened so you can comprehend what comes next!" The emperor demanded arrogantly.

A crushing pressure assaulted her body a moment later, and a bubble of warping space surrounded her head.

"Stay down, you fool!" Kaze growled through the rift alongside the sound of the helicopter propeller, "Do you wish for your uncle, cousins, and friends to share the same fate?"

Evalyn's eyes shot open in shock, letting her emotions cool.

"That will happen if the government learns Evalyn [Skye] was responsible for this!" He snapped.

"You did well, given the circumstances. So retain what you're learning from these harsh lessons, and don't repeat your mistakes!"

She dropped to her hands when he released the pressure. Her bloodshot eyes were trembling, and tears were welling in her eyes. "Learning?"

"Have you processed what you've done?" The emperor asked the camera with wrath in his eyes.

"No, you haven't; you never will. If you knew who I was, you'd chase me to the ends of the earth seeking to victimize me further!

You'll come after me, my family, and my friends to make me suffer.

Well, I have a message for anyone who seeks to further victimize me after their crimes!"

Kaze snapped the struggling rioter's neck and let the body drop to the ground.

Time slowed to a crawl as the man's body fell 300 feet to the earth.

When the body hit the ground, it triggered a cataclysmic chain reaction.

The emperor turned and waved his hand behind him, and the hallway that Evalyn was just in clouded with an ominous, pitch-black miasma before—

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

A massive explosion erupted, rocking the hospital's foundation and spreading through the building.

It was a stunning display.

The entire hallway before and after the doctor's office detonated, shattering the windows linearly for 300 feet.

Doctors, nurses, and soldiers watching the emperor from the plate glass windows on the seventh and sixth floors covered their eyes as shattered glass hit their faces and bodies.

That was just the beginning.

A magma-like substance dripped through the eighth-floor hallway, eating through the floors one by one.

People screamed when the molten liquid touched them, instantly setting them on fire.

Those blinded by the explosion began running around, hitting one another and falling out of the windows on fire.

Evalyn watched the scene in blank confusion. She no longer had sympathy for the people in the hospital, but she was confused about why Kaze was so ruthless.

Soon, the entire hospital would be on fire, and everyone would die.

"What is the [lesson]?" She asked lifelessly.

Kaze's words flashed across her mind.

—

Kaze <3: Your mother is jeopardizing the lives of thousands. So remember that before you fail to use your head again.

Kaze <3: The world is simpler now. Don't help people; if you're forced to act, don't leave witnesses. Take your mother and escape; there won't be an investigation.

—

"Everyone in the hospital is a witness." Evalyn whispered, "I was on everyone's floor, showing off my powers. The doctor warned all the cultivators and soldiers about me."

She watched the flaming bodies hit the ground with a surreal expression, processing the extent of [no witnesses].

"If I would've taken my mother and escaped, there wouldn't have been an investigation." She chuckled with madness in her eyes, "Wait… why isn't he killing the witnesses?"

Contrary to expectations, she looked up and found Kaze suspended in the air. He wasn't acting or killing more people.

"Why declare war on Malta?" Evalyn asked, trying her best to understand, "Why not finish quickly?"

When she looked closely, she learned he wasn't waiting around.

Every time someone tried to leave the area, he waved his hand, and a cloud of miasma flooded the area, slowly encircling everyone there, preventing them from leaving.

The screams and shifting spotlight were hiding his actions.

"What are you waiting for?" Evalyn asked in confusion.

After three more minutes of chaos and panic, she got her answer.

A red streak flew across the sky, shooting at Kaze like a meteorite.

The same streak abruptly reversed course at the same speed in a millisecond.

BOOOOOOM!

The nighttime sky lit up as an explosive eruption bloomed in the sky.

A tornado of fire spun out of control, moving towards the ground.

BOOOM!

A second boom followed the helicopter, crashing to the ground, lighting the buildings in the area on fire.

Everyone was stunned by what they had just witnessed.

Another red light illuminated from above, but Kaze's hand waved at a speed that left after-images in its wake.

The instant a missile shot down, an invisible force caused it to explode less than fifteen feet away from the Skycruiser above him.

BOOOOOOM

Before the ship could crash to the earth, Kaze waved his hand twice more, and two invisible objects in the sky exploded.

"So that's the message you're sending." Evalyn laugh-scoffed in exasperation, "Justified or not, your arrogance is a double tapped oil well that could fuel a fucking continent."

The emperor proved he could reverse missiles en route, move his hand faster than they could fire, and destroy invisible military stealth skycruisers two thousand feet in the air.

It was a bold declaration that stated that using modern weaponry to fight him was futile. However, that didn't stop them from trying, proving that his warning was in vain.

A flurry of missiles and machine gun fire from above and below assaulted Kaze. However—

The missiles and bullets abruptly changed course—toward the ground.

BOOOOM! BOOM! BOOOM! Boom! Boom, boom, BOOOOM! Boom, BOOM!

Evalyn lost her footing as the building rocked from exploding missiles.

Hundreds of rioters, soldiers, and medical staff died on impact. It was a calamity.

The helicopters in front of Kaze tried to fly away after the pilot recovered from the shock. However, he seized up again when an invisible force paralyzed his body, leaving the helicopter suspended on autopilot.

"LISTEN, MALTA!" The emperor boomed in an unnaturally loud voice, bypassing the screams, fires, and explosions.

"When it comes to cultivators, there are some people you shouldn't provoke!

I am one of those people, and you're learning the consequences today!

Think twice before you court death aggrieving me twice!

You can bring your armies, missiles, and artillery! Bring your nuclear weapons!

And they will all reverse course, killing you from where you sent them!"

Cold sweat dripped down the cameraman's shoulder blades.

"But before wasting resources and courting death to attack me, look around you!"

The emperor panned his gaze around the city.

"The hospital my mentor fought to protect was overrun with patients." Kaze yelled.

"There are riots in the streets! Buildings are burning! People are dying in their homes!

This is your fault, Malta; the blood is on your hands!

You're hiding the true impact of Qi Sickness and wasting resources with this farce when you should be working on getting cultivation techniques to the populace!

? The sickness is caused by human's inability to cultivate Qi. It could easily have been avoided by posting cultivation techniques online and instructing people to learn them after discovering the issue.

If you did, the city wouldn't be burning, and my mentor wouldn't be dead!

Your greed to amass power with cultivation and foolish quest to hide your actions have led to this calamity!

My mentor died because of your shiftless ineptitude! So if you continue to waste resources trying to harm me instead of fixing this hell that killed him, I'll show no mercy and bring the fight to you!

Every skycruiser in the sky, every tactical missile sent to unrelated targets, every base you have shall fall at my hands!

What you have seen tonight is not simple rage against the fools who let my mentor die. It was a warning to you, Malta, because you caused his death!

You've received your one and only warning! There will not be a second!"

Evalyn stared at the scene with a surreal haze.

She was lost in her thoughts when her center of balance abruptly disappeared, and she found herself crashing 30 feet down to the earth and began rolling.

"W-What was that?" She asked in a haze, dizzy from rolling, "What—"

The blonde fell through the ground again, and again, and again, three times before she stopped moving.

Her body burned with the pain while she quickly moved to any object in sight to brace herself, groaning. Once braced, she looked around.

Evalyn was on another building's rooftop around 3000 feet away.

Kaze had used his technique to the maximum allowance, using her fast rolling to gain more distance with his spatial technique.

Once her vision focused, she looked into the distance and saw the hospital burning on fire.

Seconds later, the entire building exploded with violent flames, scorching the earth with unparalleled might.

The helicopter followed, sending it crashing to the earth in a horrifying display of force.

Yet amid the fires that raged out of control on the ground, a new light burned brightly.

A small dot in the air turned golden as a vortex of golden energy was lifted from the ground and attracted to it like a vacuum. It was the most beautiful scene Evalyn had ever seen.

—

[A/N: There. I did it. I've fulfilled my obligatory cringeworthy cultivator dialogue quota for the novel. This scene is all you get; after this, Kaze won't outline a philosophical axiom of human nature before killing people. XD Seriously, though, I hope you've found this finale extremely satisfying.]