The Weak Prince Is A Cultivation God

First light of dawn slid across the fields like a knife would, gilding every stalk of wheat in gold. It should have been beautiful. It should have been a morning that promised bread, warmth, and life.

Instead, the air was cold, the horizon thick with smoke before the fires had even begun.

From the hill above Westerloch's rolling farmland, Lan watched his army assemble in silence.

The Mad Vipers and the Ranevian gangs moved with a discipline born of months of drilling under Miller's pitiless orders. They were no longer scattered cutthroats. Rows formed. Spears aligned. Armor glinted faintly under the pale sun.

Venom stood beside him, face shadowed beneath his helm, voice low and sharp.

"Fields first. Stores second. No non civilian survivors in the barns. Garran takes the mage unit."

Lan didn't answer. His eyes were on the wheat. Endless food and gold.

A gust of wind bent the stalks, and in that moment, he imagined them breaking beneath his hand like the necks of men.

He raised his palm.

The talisman paper he had crafted flared to life between his fingers — golden seals crawling across its surface like veins of fire.

With a flick, he sent it spinning toward the nearest granary. It vanished in the air. A heartbeat later, a tower of golden flame erupted from the barn, roaring high enough to blot the sky.

It was the signal.

The army descended.

Garran's squad hit first, smashing through the makeshift barricades the farmers had erected overnight. They were met by a cluster of robed figures — the province's mage levy, eyes wide, hands trembling over half-formed spells.

Garran didn't slow. His fists cracked ribs through enchanted breastplates. One mage managed to loose a spiraling bolt of ice; Garran caught it in his palm, the frost spreading up his forearm before shattering as he drove his knuckles into the man's skull.

Bragg came from the flank, his own talismans exploding in bursts of searing light, tearing through men like parchment.

By the time the smoke cleared, the mage unit was nothing but crumpled bodies steaming in the dirt.

The rest of the Vipers spread through the fields, torching whatever stood. Whole barns went up in sudden blooms of golden flame as Lan's talismans landed among them.

The fire wasn't normal — it didn't crawl, it ravaged at every and all. Stalks of wheat flashed from living gold to curling black in seconds. Chickens and cattle shrieked inside their pens before being swallowed whole.

Screams began to carry from the direction of the city.

Within Westerloch's stone walls, the Duke had rallied his household guard. From the war tent earlier, Venom had described him: a man of good breeding, decent swordplay, and far too much pride in his provincial titles.

Now, Lan walked through the chaos toward him, boots crunching over broken spear shafts and spent arrows. His army fought all around, but none dared step into his path.

The Duke's knights — silver helms catching the light — closed ranks before the keep gate.

"Hold!" one bellowed, lowering a longsword.

Lan kept walking.

The first knight lunged. Lan didn't even look — his blade, Devil's Lie, flicked once. Steel parted like wet cloth. The man dropped, clutching a throat that wasn't there anymore.

Two more came from the sides. Lan turned lazily, parried without effort, letting his rusted blade's edge kiss their armor. The rust left black marks, and both men collapsed moments later, their bodies shuddering as life drained from them.

The Duke stood at the top of the keep steps, silver cloak bright against the smoke.

"You dare bring fire to my lands?" he shouted, his voice heavy with magic. Water coiled in the air around him, pulling from the fountains and aqueducts — a glistening serpent of pure current that hissed as it rose higher.

He thrust his hand forward, and the serpent became a flood.

Lan stepped into it.

The water hit him like a collapsing wall. The force would have shattered a lesser man's ribs, dragged him under until the breath burned out of his chest. But the flood split around him, breaking on an invisible shell of Qi. His hair barely stirred.

[Qi Shield]

When the water fell away, he was already halfway up the steps.

The Duke's eyes widened. He tried to summon another spell — but Lan's blade moved once, slow and unhurried.

Steel slid through cloth, skin, and bone with a whisper. The Duke looked down, as if unable to believe the blackened point protruding from his chest.

Lan leaned in close, voice quiet enough that only the dying man could hear.

"I will spare the civilians."

He pulled the blade free. The Duke collapsed on the steps, blood pooling around the silver hem of his cloak.

The city was theirs within the hour.

Those who had the sense to drop their weapons were herded into the central square. Lan looked them over — shopkeepers, millers, stable hands — their faces drawn tight with fear. His gaze stopped on a handful of guards and militia that had survived the fighting.

"Let them go," Lan said.

Venom blinked. "You want them running?"

"I want them speaking," Lan replied, sheathing Devil's Lie. "Fear travels faster than any army."

The captives were shoved toward the gates, stumbling and limping. Already, their whispers were beginning — about the black-eyed warlord who walked through floods, about knights who died before they could blink.

About a one handed swordsman called Miller.

About the return of the tyrant prince who killed his brothers and slaughtered half his own kingdom's army.

About The god of the North.

By nightfall, those whispers would be screams in every tavern south of Westerloch.

---

Massive wagons began rolling through the city's storehouses. The air was thick with the smell of grain — sweet and dry, dust rising in shimmering clouds as sacks were hauled out by the dozen. Every storehouse was stripped bare.

Halmer kept count from the wagons. "Three hundred sacks per load, ten wagons full. More in the next train," he reported to Venom.

Lan stood at the gate, watching the smoke rise over the fields. In the distance, the blackened stumps of wheat still smoldered, the earth itself scarred. There would be no harvest here for years.

He didn't need it.

By dusk, the Mad Vipers had taken the provincial capital. On the highest tower of the keep, Miller drove a spear into the stone and unfurled Lan's new banner — deep crimson, a serpent inked in black, its jaws open wide.

The city's last light reflected off the banner's folds, painting the cobbles below in shades of blood.

Lan stood in the courtyard, boots sinking slightly into the ash that drifted down like snow. The wind carried the scent of burning wheat over the walls, thick enough to coat the tongue.

Venom approached, his armor streaked with soot. He looked to the sky as the cold wind bit his skin through armor.

"It's going to be a harsh winter," he said.

Lan's eyes were still on the horizon, where the flames marked the edges of his conquest.

"Winter," he said softly, "will be the least of their worries."

The fires crackled. Somewhere in the city, a bell tolled — hollow, mournful.