Harem Master: Seduction System

Chapter 479: The Craving & The General’s Invitation

Five hundred miles southwest of Azure Fall City, at the heart of the Celestial Dragon Empire’s capital, the towering golden roofs of the Inner Imperial Palace gleamed beneath a cold afternoon sun.

Inside the private imperial study behind the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the air smelled of ancient sandalwood and black ink.

Seated upon a wide dragon-carved couch of yellow imperial silk was Emperor Huang Long. Though he had ruled the Empire for centuries as a True Martial Emperor, his outward appearance was that of a tall, handsome man in his prime with long black hair, sharp golden eyes, and a terrifying, oppressive aura that made the air around him feel heavy as lead.

In front of the couch knelt Second Prince Huang Xuan, his forehead pressed respectfully toward the golden carpet, while Chief Eunuch Gao held open the silk-lined lockbox containing the five Dragon-Nourishing Jade Talismans brought back from the Royal Nine-Dragon Hot Springs Villa.

Emperor Huang Long picked up one of the five glowing jade talismans between his fingers.

Infusing a thread of his Golden Dragon Qi into the stone, the Emperor’s golden brows lifted in genuine satisfaction as he felt the pure, condensed stream of Five-Element Geothermal Qi intertwined with the authentic soul-signatures of Cui Yulan, Yan Ruyu, Zhao Mengxue, Su Xinyue, and Ning Wan’er.

‘Not a trace of demonic corruption,’ Emperor Huang Long mused silently, setting the talisman back into the box. ‘Even Yan Ruyu and Ning Wan’er verified their meridians in person and joined them in a three-month cultivation resonance. It seems Cui Yulan’s breakthrough at Azure Fall City was simply a stroke of heaven-sent luck triggered by the border battle.’

In truth, what Emperor Huang Long felt inside those five talismans was a carefully filtered refraction of Alaric’s Spirit-Lion vitality blended with the five consorts’ Martial King Qi—crafted specifically by Alaric and Ning Wan’er to fool the Emperor’s senses.

“You have done well, Xuan’er,” Emperor Huang Long said, his deep voice echoing across the study. “With the Frost Empress of the Rimefrost Imperium massing her winter legions along our northern passes, the throne cannot afford instability in the eastern and central provinces. I hereby ratify the Wartime Logistics Directorate you and Consort De established in Cloud-Mist City. You may rise and return to your mansion to rest.”

“Thank you, Royal Father!” Second Prince Huang Xuan beamed with pride, bowing once more before backing out of the imperial study.

Once the doors closed behind the Second Prince, Emperor Huang Long leaned back against the yellow silk bolsters, tapping his fingers slowly against the armrest of his dragon couch.

With the eastern army calmed and five of his Martial King consorts returning from Azure Fall City in a month’s time, the urgent military pressure on his mind eased slightly. And as always happened whenever the tyrant’s mind relaxed from matters of war, a dark, carnal heat began to stir in his blood.

His golden eyes drifted toward a stack of military supply reports from the central plains—bearing the iron-wolf seal of General Bao, commander of the two hundred thousand Imperial Vanguard troops stationed at Iron-Blood Pass.

Seeing General Bao’s seal immediately conjured a vivid, arousing memory in Emperor Huang Long’s mind: the memory of General Bao’s breathtaking, dignified wife, Guildmaster Lin Ruoli of the Jade Serpent Merchant Organization.

Months ago, during the grand conclave, Huang Long had cornered Lin Ruoli in a private pavilion and forced himself upon her lush, reluctant body while her loyal husband stood guard outside none the wiser. The memory of how tight, soft, and deliciously humiliated the proud merchant queen had been beneath him—coupled with the twisted thrill of promoting her devoted husband General Bao afterward as a secret mockery—made the Emperor’s pulse quicken.

“Chief Eunuch Gao,” Emperor Huang Long said, a cold, predatory smile curving his lips.

“Your Majesty’s servant is here,” the old eunuch bowed low.

“Two months ago, I instructed General Bao to summon his wife, Lady Lin Ruoli, to the Imperial Capital so I could personally consult her on the Jade Serpent Guild’s wartime grain routes,” Emperor Huang Long said, his golden eyes narrowing slightly. “Why has she not yet entered the capital gates?”

“Reporting to Your Majesty,” Chief Eunuch Gao replied carefully, “according to the relay logs from Iron-Blood Pass, Lady Lin Ruoli was detained in the northeastern provinces overseeing the post-war grain shipments for Noble Consort Cui’s army. However, General Bao sent word three days ago that his wife’s caravan is now moving south toward Cloud-Mist Province and Iron-Blood Pass.”

“Good,” Emperor Huang Long purred, his hand clenching slowly on the dragon armrest as he imagined stripping Lin Ruoli’s emerald silk dress off her pale, curvy body right here on his yellow silk couch while sending her husband to the northern front. “Send an express dragon-messenger to General Bao at Iron-Blood Pass today. Tell my loyal general that as soon as his wife reaches his fortress, he is to personally escort her to the Imperial Capital within ten days for a private audience in the Inner Palace!”

—

The very next afternoon, inside the bright, map-lined strategy room of the Border Marshal’s estate in Azure Fall City, a small green communication jade resting on the mahogany table began to hum and glow with urgent light.

Sitting around the strategy table with Alaric were Guildmaster Lin Ruoli, Matriarch Lyra Steele, Aunt Cassandra Galanis, and Imperial Consort De Yan Ruyu, while Kara and Ulriya stood attentively beside Alaric’s chair pouring fresh coffee brewed from the beans cultivated in his dimensional space.

Lin Ruoli looked down at the glowing green jade stone—the paired marital communication token linking her directly to her husband, General Bao.

Not a single trace of warmth or marital affection crossed Lin Ruoli’s beautiful, aristocratic face. Instead, her dark eyes turned cold as winter ice, and her fingers curled slightly against the silk of her emerald-black dress.

“Answer it, Ruoli,” Alaric said calmly, leaning back in his chair and pulling Lyra onto his left knee while gesturing for Lin Ruoli to come sit on his right knee. “Let us hear what the good General has to say.”

Obeying instantly, Lin Ruoli walked around the table and settled her lush, silk-clad hips onto Alaric’s right thigh. As Alaric’s hand slid casually through the high slit of her emerald cheongsam to cup her bare, warm buttock beneath the fabric, Lin Ruoli infused a wisp of Qi into the green stone.

Immediately, the deep, booming, gruff voice of General Bao echoed from the stone across the silent room:

“Ruoli! My dear wife, has your caravan reached Cloud-Mist Province safely yet? I just received an express imperial decree from His Majesty’s personal eunuch an hour ago! His Majesty is overjoyed with the Jade Serpent Guild’s support on the eastern border and commands that as soon as you arrive here at Iron-Blood Pass, I am to take three days of leave to welcome you and then personally escort you into the Inner Palace in the capital for a private royal audience! Come to Iron-Blood Pass as quickly as you can, my love—I have had our private quarters cleaned and decorated with your favorite white orchids!”

Lin Ruoli kept her voice steady, cool, and polite as Alaric’s fingers slipped between her soft thighs under her dress, stroking her already damp silk undergarments:

“I received your message, Husband,” Lin Ruoli spoke into the stone without even a flicker of hesitation while leaning her cheek against Alaric’s shoulder. “My business in the north is nearly finished. I will depart with my personal guards today and arrive at Iron-Blood Pass tomorrow afternoon. Have the gates ready.”

She cut the connection and set the green jade stone down on the table, letting out a slow, bitter breath.

Across the table, Imperial Consort De Yan Ruyu frowned slightly behind her silver-rimmed spectacles.

“General Bao truly has no idea why Emperor Huang Long is summoning you to a private audience in the Inner Palace, does he?” Yan Ruyu asked, her tone laced with disdain for the Emperor she had once served. “As Chief Arbiter of the Inner Court, I saw Huang Long use that exact excuse three times before with the wives of provincial governors. And your husband is happily decorating his rooms with orchids to hand you over on a silver platter.”

“General Bao is a blind, loyal dog who worships the Dragon Throne above everything else,” Lin Ruoli said coldly, turning her head to press a grateful, passionate kiss against Alaric’s jaw. “When Huang Long forced me in that pavilion at the conclave while Bao stood outside the door, I swore I would see that tyrant’s empire burn to ashes. The day Master claimed me and showed me what true power and pleasure felt like, my marriage to Bao died forever.”

Alaric stroked the soft skin of Lin Ruoli’s thigh, his ruby eyes calm and calculating as he looked at the map of Iron-Blood Pass sitting between Cloud-Mist Province and the capital plains.

“General Bao commands two hundred thousand elite soldiers of the Imperial Vanguard stationed right across the main highway to the Imperial Capital,” Alaric said evenly. “Killing him now would only cause Emperor Huang Long to replace him with a suspicious palace general. Instead, we will accept his invitation to Iron-Blood Pass tomorrow.”

He looked at Lyra, Cassandra, Kara, and Ulriya.

“I will accompany Ruoli as her personal steward and physician,” Alaric continued. “Lyra, Cassandra, Kara, and Ulriya will wear veiled eastern martial cloaks and travel as Ruoli’s four female bodyguards. While General Bao celebrates his reunion with his wife tomorrow night, we will put him to sleep with a Dreamwalker draught, copy his Imperial Vanguard Tiger-Seal and troop deployment ciphers, and let Ruoli take her first taste of revenge right in front of his bed.”

A wicked, thrilled smile curved Lin Ruoli’s red lips, while Cassandra laughed softly and cracked her knuckles.

Using the Cloud-Mist sanctuary’s teleportation anchor to bypass two hundred miles of northern mountain roads, Alaric, Lin Ruoli, Lyra, Cassandra, Kara, and Ulriya boarded two luxurious, gold-trimmed carriages of the Jade Serpent Guild on the southern highway the next morning, heading straight toward the towering iron walls of Iron-Blood Pass.

By mid-afternoon, the carriages entered Red-Pine Canyon—a narrow, rocky gorge five miles north of Iron-Blood Pass where red-needled cliffs rose three hundred feet on either side of the stone road.

Suddenly, as the lead carriage rounded a sharp bend in the canyon, the ground beneath the horses’ hooves shuddered with a muffled crimson flash!

*BOOM!*

A temporary third-tier blood-mist array snapped up across the canyon road ahead and behind, and thirty masked figures in tattered black-and-red robes leaped down from the cliff ledges with curved sabers and poisoned crossbows drawn!

At their head stood a scarred, one-eyed Peak Martial Grandmaster wielding a heavy serrated ghost-head saber, flanked by two rogue Early-Stage Martial Kings whose weapons dripped with corrosive red Qi.

“Stop the carriages!” the one-eyed leader roared, his greedy eyes locking onto the golden Jade Serpent crest on the carriage doors. “Deacon Xue of the Blood Lotus remnant promised us fifty thousand spirit stones for the head of Guildmaster Lin Ruoli and the contents of her treasury wagon! Kill the guards and take the woman alive!”

Inside the carriage, Alaric didn’t even bother standing up from his cushioned seat.

“A pack of stray Blood Lotus dogs and hired mercenaries waiting five miles outside General Bao’s pass,” Alaric remarked calmly, taking a sip of tea from his travel cup. “Lyra, Cassandra, Kara, Ulriya—go stretch your legs. Leave the one-eyed leader alive just long enough for General Bao’s patrol to see you finish him.”

“Gladly,” Cassandra grinned beneath her silk face-veil, throwing open the left carriage door as Lyra stepped gracefully out the right door, while Kara and Ulriya vaulted lightly onto the roof of the carriage!

Seeing only four veiled women step out to defend the carriage without a single male guard in sight, the two rogue Early-Stage Martial Kings burst into ugly laughter.

“Only four female guards?!” the burly Martial King on the left sneered, charging forward with his heavy iron mace wreathed in crimson blood-qi:

“Blood-Cleaving Skull Smash!”

At the same time, the twenty-seven Peak Martial Master and Grandmaster mercenaries behind them loosed a dense volley of poisoned crossbow bolts and flaming saber slashes toward the carriage!

Standing atop the carriage roof, Ulriya didn’t even flinch. Raising both fair hands, the curvy Grand Mage maid snapped her fingers as a massive, shimmering dome of sub-zero blue ice erupted outward across a fifty-yard radius:

“Grand Mage Ice Magic: Absolute Zero Frost Curtain!”

“Water Magic: Raging Tidal Hammer!”

*CRACK-FREEZE—BOOM!*

Every single poisoned crossbow bolt froze solid in mid-air and shattered into harmless iron shards against the frost curtain, while a condensed, thirty-foot wave of pressurized water materialized out of thin air and slammed downward like a giant’s warhammer—crushing fifteen charging mercenaries flat into the canyon stones with broken bones in a single heartbeat!

“What kind of martial technique is that?!” the second rogue Martial King gasped, trying to leap sideways off the road—only for the dark shadow cast by the canyon cliff to suddenly rise up like a living wall of black iron behind him as Kara thrust her palm forward from the carriage roof:

“Combined Shadow-Earth Magic: Abyssal Stone Coffin!”

“Shadow Spike Volley!”

*SLAM—SHING-SHING-SHING!*

Four slabs of shadow-infused bedrock slammed shut around the second Martial King’s waist and legs, pinning him immobile in the dirt, while a dozen razor-sharp spikes of condensed shadow shot from his own shadow on the ground, piercing straight through his shoulder and thigh acupoints and dropping him screaming into the dust!

Meanwhile, the burly Early-Stage Martial King with the iron mace barely had time to swing his weapon toward Lyra before both Lyra and Cassandra moved in a blinding flash of golden and violet light!

“Garuda Wingbeat Breath: Twin Violet Talons!”

“Celestial Phoenix Sword: Blazing Wing Sever!”

*CLANG—SLASH!*

Cassandra blurred past the man’s guard like a violet phantom, her twin short-blades slicing cleanly through the iron shaft of his mace and opening two deep gashes across his chest armor, while Lyra glided past his left flank with breathtaking, fiery grace—her golden Phoenix longsword flashing once in the afternoon sun and sending the rogue Martial King’s head spinning twenty feet into the air!

In less than ten seconds, twenty-nine of the thirty ambushers lay dead or crippled on the canyon floor, leaving only the one-eyed Peak Grandmaster leader trembling in horror as he backed up against the cliff wall!

Right at that moment, the thunder of two hundred armored warhorses echoed from the southern mouth of the canyon as General Bao—riding at the head of his personal Iron-Blood Vanguard patrol after sensing the energy fluctuation from the pass—galloped around the bend!

“Ruoli!” General Bao shouted in alarm, drawing his heavy halberd as he saw the overturned rocks—just in time to see the tall, veiled blonde figure of Matriarch Lyra Steele flick her wrist, sending a single crescent of golden Phoenix Battle Aura across the road that shattered the one-eyed leader’s saber and pinned him unconscious against the cliff wall!