Meanwhile, deep within the Puppet Liang imperial palace, the Hall of Mental Cultivation was in utter chaos. Liang Qian stood in his dragon robes, his hair disheveled and his face twisted with savagery and madness. The sword in his hand was covered in blood. The corpses of palace maids, eunuchs, and ministers lay strewn across the floor, their blood staining the golden tiles red. A thick stench of blood filled the air.
"Useless! All of you are useless!" Liang Qian roared, swinging his sword again. A minister who had tried to remonstrate with him fell dead, blood splashing across his face. He paid it no heed, his eyes filled with madness and despair. "I am the true Son of Heaven! How could I have come to this? No, I haven't lost yet! I haven't lost!"
Liang Qian could not understand it. Just half a year ago, he had been riding high, a true dragon emperor who had taken all of Bing Province and was poised to march south and conquer the remaining provinces of Great Yan.
Yet in just six months, he had lost all his territory and been forced to cower in his last capital, Bingzhou City.
Everything had begun when he detached an entire camp's worth of troops to attack Qingzhou.
Images and names flashed through his mind before finally settling on two names. The first was Sun Chenzong!
Sun Chenzong was a military genius without equal. After the man had spent years imprisoned on fabricated charges, Liang Qian had assumed he was long dead. Instead, the emperor of Great Yan had brought him back into service. His godlike command of armies had become Liang Qian's nightmare.
The other was Zhao Feng, a nobody just a few months earlier.
He had defeated Liang Qian's army marching south into