The Risen Ghost: Master of the Chaotic Origin

Chapter 4 (summoning the genuineness) Wei Jue’s POV

I am the Emperor of Yan. I have subdued rebellions, executed clans, and paved my path to this throne with the skulls of the "righteous." Yet, as I stared at the hooded figure walking away with the Dragon-Slaying Spear, my breath caught as my throat suddenly tightened.

The spear had changed.

For ten years, it had been a dead thing. A heavy, stubborn lump of metal that refused to budge, coated in a dull, grey spiritual rust that no master in my court could pierce. We called it the "Rust of the Fallen." It was supposed to be a symbol of the Long Clan’s decay.

But when his fingers touched the shaft, that rust didn't just flake off—it exploded. It shattered like a broken seal revealing a gleaming silver weapon.

“I have come to collect what was stolen, Wei Jue.”

The whisper should have been lost in the wind of the arena, yet it echoed in my head.

I watched his back as he turned to leave. He moved with a predatory grace I hadn't seen in the boy I killed. He was no longer the child who cried in pain while his home burned and his clan was destroyed. He was a man. Broad-shouldered, tall, and carrying an aura that didn't just occupy space—it swallowed it.

The arena was silent long after he left.

Not from reverence, but a silence born from fear.

I stood frozen on the imperial dais, my fingers locked around the hilt of my sword, its blade half-drawn yet useless.

He hadn’t come to kill me. He had come to watch me fall and shatter. Taunting me until I wished for death. That was the Long clan’s way.

The Dragon-slaying spear was gone. Not stolen in secrecy, it was lifted in front of the entire capital.

By a ghost that shouldn’t even exist.

“Seal the arena,” I said at last, my voice steady despite the ice crawling up my spine. “No one leaves without my permission.”

The command snapped the arena back into motion. Officials bowed and scattered. Guards knelt. Elders whispered frantically behind their sleeves and the crowd murmur resumed.

But I saw none of them.

I saw only his eyes. Cold and bottomless.

It was impossible. The Long Clan was extinct. I had seen to that myself.

Their ancestral grounds burned. Their elders were executed. Their records erased. Their bloodline severed at the root. Long Chen had been a crippled boy with shattered bones and stolen marrow—left to die in the valley’s mist.

No one survived that place.

No one.

“Your Majesty…”

I turned sharply.

The Grand Herald knelt at my side, his face pale. “Shall we pursue him?”

Pursue?

I almost laughed.

“With what?” I asked softly. “The guards he passed didn’t even realize they were dead.”

The memory stuck in my head.

He didn’t even lift a finger. He just walked past.

And yet, my elite palace guards had collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. Their spiritual core melted into his.

That was not Qi.

That was not any cultivation path sanctioned by the heavens. It was a forbidden cultivation not known to mortals.

“Summon the Coalition of Seven,” I said. “Now.”

I commanded and stomped from the arena.

Minutes later, they stood before me—sect masters, clan patriarchs, and hidden elders who ruled the cultivation world from behind veils of authority. Men who had once supported my rise. Men who had applauded the fall of the Long Clan.

Every one of them avoided my eyes. I could still feel most of them trembling.

“You all felt it,” I said and waited a second. “Do not insult me with ignorance.”

An old sect master finally spoke, his voice hoarse. “That presence… It was hollow. It’s not something born on earth.”

Another swallowed. “He devoured force itself. He was like a hollow ghost sucking in every spiritual energy in his path.”

The words echoed unpleasantly.

Devoured.

My jaw tightened.

“Then answer me this,” I demanded. “Who in this world cultivates such a path?”

No one spoke.

That silence was my answer.

Not a living being, especially one without a spine.

After they were dismissed, I stood alone before the empty plinth where the Dragon-Slaying Spear had rested for ten years.

Ten years of peace built on this single fear.

Ten years of believing the Long line had ended.

I was wrong.

That night, I ordered the lamps in the imperial study extinguished and summoned my shadow scribes.

“Draft a decree,” I said. “A grand imperial call.”

Their brushes swiped.

“Send a missive to all clans,” I continued. “By the decree of the dragon throne, the Yan Empire hereby announces imperial levy. All sects, Prodigies, Geniuses. Even those without a master. Wandering cultivators are all welcomed. The emperor issues a grand martial convocation for an army to guard the capital.”

One scribe hesitated. “Your Majesty… the price for participation?”

I smiled.

“A reward great enough to lure the ambitious,” I said. “Techniques, titles, pills, and even imperial favor. But failure to comply will attract consequences immeasurable by words.”

My Grand Vizier looked at me, eyes wide. “Your majesty? You mean to share the imperial techniques with... everyone?”

"I mean to build a wall," I hissed. “A wall impenetrable by even deities.”

I stared out the window at the darkening capital. I wasn't just building an army. I was forming a core that would suffocate the ghost, energy too dense for him to devour.

I pressed my palm against the desk, the faint tremor betraying me despite my control.

“You showed yourself to the world,” I murmured into the darkness. “A mistake you will soon regret.”

I breathed slowly looking ahead at the future that awaits Chen.

"Come back, little dragon," I whispered into the dark. "I have so many new friends for you to meet."

I smiled to ease the tension I felt inside.

“This time,” I whispered, “I will not leave you half-dead.”