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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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"You paint a pretty picture, Lie Fan," Xiahou Yuan murmured, leaning his head back against the wall. "But you missed the fundamental truth. I didn't ride fast because I loved the wind. I rode fast because Cao Mengde needed me to be there. He was the target my arrow was loosed for. Without him..." Xiahou Yuan shrugged his good shoulder casually. "...what is the point of the bow?"
"He is a defeated man. His era is over," Lie Fan pressed, leaning closer to the bars. "Will you throw away your life, your brilliant talent, for a ghost?"
"In a heartbeat," Xiahou Yuan smiled, a chilling, absolute serenity settling over him. He looked at Lie Fan with no hatred, only a profound sense of finality. "I don't take this seriously anymore, Your Majesty, because my world has already ended. Pledge allegiance? I think I'd rather see what the afterlife looks like. I hear the wine is better, and the company is certainly more familiar. You can't restring a broken bow, Lie Fan. Don't waste your breath on me."
Lie Fan held the general's gaze for a long moment, recognizing the smiling martyr before him. Xiahou Yuan was entirely untethered from the mortal world. He was just waiting for the ferryman.
"Then I wish you a swift journey, Xiahou Yuan," Lie Fan said softly, bowing his head in a gesture of profound martial respect.
"Try not to let Xiahou Dun bite you on your way out," Xiahou Yuan chuckled, closing his eyes and turning his face away, returning to his silent, peaceful wait for death.
Lie Fan stepped away from the cell. The air in the corridor seemed to grow even heavier, thicker. He had faced the unmovable mountain, the raging fire, and the smiling martyr. Now, he had to face the darkest, most terrifying entity in the subterranean levels.
He walked to the very end of the cell block. The cell was pitch black, the torches intentionally kept distant. The smell of damp stone was overpowered by the sour, metallic scent of extreme physical degradation and pure, concentrated hatred.
Sitting in the absolute center of the cell, entirely motionless, was Xiahou Dun.
The Blind Wolf of Wei. The man who had famously plucked his own arrow pierced eye from its socket and swallowed it on the battlefield rather than discard the essence his parents had given him. He had not eaten a single grain of rice or drunk a drop of water in days. His face was gaunt, his lips cracked and bleeding, his skin a sickly, pallid grey.
But his remaining eye burned with a hellish, incandescent fury that seemed to illuminate the darkness.
As Lie Fan approached, Xiahou Dun did not move. He did not speak. He just stared, radiating a physical pressure of hostility that made the hairs on the back of Lie Fan's neck stand up.
"Xiahou Dun," Lie Fan spoke, his voice ringing with absolute, terrifying imperial authority, completely dropping any pretense of diplomatic warmth. "Starving yourself in the dark is a coward's death. It is an insult to the warrior you are."
For a long moment, there was no response. Then, a dry, horrific sound, like two grinding stones, echoed from the cell. It was Xiahou Dun laughing with a parched throat.
"You... speak to me of cowardice?" Xiahou Dun rasped, his voice a broken, agonizing whisper that forced Lie Fan to step closer to hear. "You, who hid behind massive explosive siege engines and coward's siege engines? You broke our world with iron toys, Lie Fan. You did not beat us. You just burned us out."
"I unified the realm," Lie Fan countered coldly, staring directly into the burning eye. "I ended the chaos that Cao Cao perpetuated. I have come down here to offer you a place in the new world. Your martial prowess is legendary. If you drink water, if you eat, and if you bend the knee, I will spare your life and grant you a command."
Xiahou Dun slowly pushed himself up from the floor. He moved with agonizing slowness, his starved muscles trembling, but his sheer, terrifying willpower forced his body to obey. He staggered to the iron bars, gripping them with bony, white knuckled fingers. He pressed his gaunt face against the cold metal, inches away from Lie Fan.
"I would rather drink my own blood than swallow your water, you treacherous dog," Xiahou Dun spat, a fleck of dried blood flying from his cracked lips.
"Your loyalty is misplaced," Lie Fan argued, matching the general's intense proximity, his own eyes narrowing into slits of pure obsidian. "You speak of treason? Cao Cao held the Han Emperor hostage! He was a usurper of the highest order. He had no heavenly mandate. I have claimed the mandate by right of conquest and by the peace I bring. Serving him makes you an accomplice to a failed tyrant. Serving me makes you a guardian of the future."
"You talk of mandates and peace like a philosopher!" Xiahou Dun roared, his voice suddenly cracking with an explosive, desperate fury that defied his starving body. "I don't give a damn about the heavens! I don't give a damn about the Han! Cao Mengde was not my Emperor! He was my brother!"
Xiahou Dun violently shook the heavy iron bars, his single eye wide and frantic. "We bled together in the mud before anyone knew our names! We built an empire from nothing! You think you can replace that with titles and border commands? You think your 'peace' means anything to me when the man I love like my own flesh is chained like a dog?"
Lie Fan stood his ground, entirely unmoved by the physical display, but deeply struck by the raw, undeniable philosophical truth of Xiahou Dun's words. It was the ultimate clash of ideologies, the cold, rational calculus of state building against the raw, irrational, burning core of human brotherhood.
"Brotherhood dies when the state falls, Xiahou Dun," Lie Fan said softly, delivering the final, brutal truth. "I have made my decision today in the Grand Court. Cao Cao, and all the men of his blood, will drink the poisoned cup before the week ends. Your brother is already a dead man."
Xiahou Dun froze. The frantic shaking of the bars stopped. The air rushed out of his lungs in a long, agonizing hiss.
He stared at Lie Fan, the last spark of hope, the hope that Cao Cao might somehow miraculously survive, extinguishing in his remaining eye, leaving behind only an infinite, terrifying void of absolute hatred.
"Then kill me," Xiahou Dun whispered, his voice completely devoid of emotion, a hollow, echoing sound from a dead man walking. "Kill me now. Because if you let me live, Lie Fan... if you ever make the mistake of leaving a sword within a hundred miles of my hands... I will butcher my way through your entire palace, and I will rip your throat out with my teeth. Go to hell, Emperor."
Xiahou Dun released the bars. He turned his back on Lie Fan, staggered the few paces back to the center of his cell, and collapsed onto the cold stone floor, resuming his silent, absolute vigil of starvation.
Lie Fan stood outside the cell for a long time, the heavy silence of the dungeon pressing in around him. He had tried. He had used every psychological angle, every logical argument, and every offer of glory he possessed. But he had finally hit the bedrock of the Wei Dynasty.
He turned away from the darkness, his face a mask of cold, unyielding iron. He looked at Huangfu Song, Zhang Liao, and the heavily armed generals who had watched the entire grueling exchange.
"We are done here," Lie Fan commanded, his voice devoid of any warmth, carrying only the lethal, terrifying pragmatism of the supreme executioner. "They have made their choices. Let the records show that the Emperor offered them life, and they demanded the sword. Come. There is only one man left."
They moved deeper into the cavernous third level, leaving the main cell block behind. The air grew perceptibly colder, the torches even sparser. The final cell was not part of the standard block, it was a specially constructed vault, reinforced with thick, overlapping iron plates and heavy stone masonry designed to contain siege beasts.
This was the cage of the Tiger Fool.
As they approached, the silence of the corridor was broken by the sound of heavy, rhythmic breathing, like a massive bellows drawing in air.
Lie Fan stopped before the thick iron grating. Inside, the dim light barely illuminated the monstrous form of Xu Chu. He was chained to a massive, central stone pillar.
The chains were not standard prison iron, they were incredibly thick, industrial grade links, the kind Liu Ye used to anchor heavy siege engines. They bound his wrists, his waist, and his ankles, leaving him only enough slack to sit or stand, but not enough to reach the bars.
When Xu Chu saw the imperial entourage approach, he did not cower, nor did he offer a mocking smirk like Xiahou Yuan. He slowly rose to his feet. Even bound and stripped of his armor, he was a terrifying sight. He was a mountain of corded muscle and raw, primal aggression.
He let out a huge, shuddering breath, his massive chest heaving, and fixed Lie Fan with a glare that burned with pure, uncomplicated fury.
"Where is my Emperor?" Xu Chu demanded, his voice a deep, reverberating growl that seemed to vibrate in the stone walls. "Release me at once, Lie Fan! Come in here and fight me like a man! If I defeat you, you release me and you release my Emperor. If you defeat me... do what you want."
It was a completely unpolished, utterly sincere challenge. There was no political nuance, no debate over mandates. Just the primal, brutal simplicity of a duel for the life of his lord.
Lie Fan looked at the giant, shaking his head slowly. Despite the profound hostility, he could not help but feel a certain respect for Xu Chu's straightforward nature.
"I cannot do that, Zhongkang," Lie Fan replied calmly, resting his hands loosely on his belt. "And even if I did, and even if you miraculously bested me... you are not a fool. You know Cao Mengde. If our positions were reversed, and his army had captured me, do you truly believe he would accept a challenge from my bodyguard to let me walk free? He would have the guards loose a hundred arrows into the challenger and be done with it."
Xu Chu let out a massive, frustrated humph, his nostrils flaring like a cornered bull. He knew it was true. Cao Cao did not play games with captured rivals. But the admission did not cool his rage; it only ignited it.
"Then I will break these chains!" Xu Chu roared, his eyes widening with feral intensity. "I will tear this pillar down, I will kill you, and I will tear the doors off Cao Cao's cage myself!"
With a sudden, explosive surge of power, Xu Chu threw his entire massive weight forward. The thick iron chains pulled taut with a deafening, metallic CLANG. The sheer, terrifying kinetic force of the movement made the heavy stone pillar shudder visibly.
The muscles in Xu Chu's arms bulged, straining against the dark metal, a low, guttural roar tearing from his throat as he tried to physically rip the links apart through sheer, monstrous strength.
Behind Lie Fan, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao instinctively took a half step forward, their hands gripping their sword hilts, entirely prepared to intervene if the impossible happened and the iron snapped.
Lie Fan did not flinch. He stood perfectly still, watching the giant struggle against the unbreakable logic of metallurgy.
"You can never break them, Zhongkang," Lie Fan said, his voice cutting through the sounds of straining metal. "Even if you push your body until your muscles tear from the bone, you cannot break them. They were forged from the strongest alloys my workshops possess. And even if you miraculously managed to shatter one link... my blacksmiths are just upstairs. I would simply have them forge thicker chains, and wrap you in more iron, until you are too exhausted to breathe."
He paused, letting the cold reality sink in. "You are powerful, but you are a man fighting a mountain. You cannot win this."
Xu Chu strained for a few more agonizing seconds, his face flushed dark red, veins popping on his forehead. Finally, with a massive, frustrated roar, he slackened the tension, collapsing back against the stone pillar, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. He glared at Lie Fan, defeated by the iron, but not broken in spirit.
"Now that we have established the physical reality of your situation," Lie Fan continued, his tone softening slightly, "let us speak of the future. The war is over, Xu Chu. The central plains are quiet. You have fought ferociously. You have earned your legends. But your lord has fallen."
Lie Fan stepped closer to the bars, looking intently at the exhausted giant. He knew he could not appeal to Xu Chu's intellect with complex geopolitical arguments, nor could he challenge him to a philosophical debate about the Mandate of Heaven. Xu Chu was a man driven by profound, personal loyalties and deep, sentimental roots.
"I know you are a man who cares deeply for his home," Lie Fan said softly, shifting his psychological approach. "You raised an entire militia from your hometown in Qiao County just to protect your neighbors from bandits before you ever met Cao Cao. You care about your people. Swear your allegiance to me, Zhongkang. Become a shield for my dynasty, and I promise you, I will shower Qiao County with imperial favor. I will lift their taxes, build them new roads, and ensure your hometown flourishes in absolute peace. I will treat your people better than Cao Cao ever did."
Xu Chu stared at Lie Fan, his chest still heaving. The offer was incredibly generous, aimed directly at the sentimental core of his heart. For a long moment, the Tiger Fool just looked at the Emperor.
Then, he let out a low, rumbling scoff.
"They call me the Tiger Fool, Emperor Lie," Xu Chu growled, his voice thick with stubborn pride. "But I am not a fool. I know exactly what you are trying to do. You think you can buy my loyalty with gold and promises for my village."
He leaned forward as far as the chains would allow, his eyes blazing. "Cao Mengde didn't buy me. He understood me. He trusted me to guard his back when the entire world wanted him dead. He is my lord. He will always be my lord. You can shower my hometown in gold until the streets are paved with it, but you will never, ever have my sword. I know where my loyalty lies, and it stays with my Emperor until I am dust. I will never agree to serve the man who caged him."
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0