"I'm not afraid. If it needs to happen, it needs to happen.", Dayuan said without a moment hesitation.

He didn't look the slightest bit upset or anxious, but stoic. Xiyu Zhai knew very well that he was putting on a façade to keep her from worrying about him. On one level, this warmed her heart. It was nice to know her son cared about her that deeply. At the same time, she absolutely hated it because it made this infinitely harder than it already was.

She didn't want him to worry about her; she wanted him to worry about himself. She wasn't the one being hurt, even though she was the one who was supposed to be punished. Even though she was well over three centuries older than him. Even though she, his mother, had come to his room to tell him that she would need to cut off his finger.

She wanted Dayuan to resist, to defend himself, to scream how unfair this was. Because it was. She wanted him to be angry at her, because he had the right to be. But since he wasn't, the only thing she could do now was to respect his effort by taking him seriously.

Xiyu Zhai swallowed her feelings and met Dayuan's eyes.

"I'll try to make it as easy as possible."

He nodded.

"The right hand, yes?"

Her son was lefthanded.

"Yes."

He held out his hand and she took it, holding it in hers like he was still the little boy who was afraid of cats and dark corners. Then she summoned a ball of water in the palm of her other hand, no larger than a marble, and laid it on top of his.

When she took it away again a moment later, her son's little finger lay cut off in her palm, twitching a couple of times before staying still. He sucked air through his teeth, the pain only setting in now that he was seeing the blood flowing from the wound.

"It'll be alright."

"It's fine, it's… not that bad."

He forced out a smile. She ignored him and took a piece of cloth out of her spatial ring, storing the lifeless finger away in the same motion. She didn't want to look at it anymore.

"Let me bandage it."

The two kept silent as she bandaged the stump that had connected to his finger just moments ago. Xiyu Zhai had seen many things much worse than this and done many things much more brutal than this, but none of them had made her feel this sick. When she was done, she wordlessly left the room.

As she made her way back to her quarters, her sickness slowly transitioned into numbness. She sat down on one of her divans and stared at the ceiling. Everything seemed meaningless and gray. The soft red velvet beneath her felt hard and unwelcoming. The rich golden light of the chandeliers like shallow deception. The war, the sect, her ambitions… what were they worth? What did her strength even mean when she couldn't even protect her son from her supposed ally?

"Lady Zhai? Lady Zhai? Are you alright?"

She snapped out of her melancholy at the repeated exclamation of her name. One of her guards had entered the room, glancing at her with a concerned expression. Seeing her react, the woman quickly straightened her back and looked to the ground.

"Matriarch! My apologies, I…"

"No worries. I was merely absorbed in thought. What is it?"

"Umm… I was asked to inform you that you are expected by Elder Fan."

"Again? I just met him."

"I believe he has summoned all elders. More I don't know."

"I understand. I will go see him then. Thank you, you are excused."

"Yes, Matriarch!"

It was not like she had a choice anyway. She had just cut off one of her son's fingers at his order, she wasn't going to defy a simple summon. Looking down, she noticed that several drops of blood had found their way onto her freshly donned robes, but she found herself not caring enough to remove them.

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…

The six other elders had already gathered before the throne room. There had been ten of them, eleven including Song Fan, making them the numerically strongest army in regard to Dao Contemplation Cultivators. The loss of the scouting force had cut rather deep into that, but with their leader's strength they were still easily strong enough to take on any minor sects that dared to resist.

Before Xiyu Zhai had a chance to greet her fellow elders, the voice of Song Fan resounded through the air around them, ushering them in.

"You may enter!"

The inside of the throne room was hardly recognizable from what it had been merely two hours ago. Black scorch marks lined the walls and ceilings, the few decorations that had escaped the army's plundering were strewn about on the floor and the throne Song Fan was perched on was partially shattered, giving it a menacing, martial appearance.

All of these were visible marks of their leader's rage and a starch reminder of why his strategy of controlling his subordinates through fear worked as well as it did even though it was plainly obvious to all of them. Looking up at the man's cold, domineering face, Xiyu Zhai was once again reminded that she would much rather just slit her own throat than face him directly, for that would at least guarantee her a relatively quick and easy death.

When everyone had gathered before the throne, Song Fan began speaking. His voice was cold and harsh and though he spoke quietly, it carried clearly throughout the entire room.

"Thank your timely arrival. I've been informed of a situation that requires my immediate personal oversight. As soon as this meeting is over, I will depart. Alone. Patriarch Luli of the Burning Thorns Sect will take over command in my stead."

Just days ago, Xiyu Zhai would have felt annoyed at this. Guyuan Luli, Patriarch of the Burning Thorns Sect had been Song Fan's second ever since the army had assembled. He and his sect were equal to her in power – or at least that had been the case before she had lost her own second in the battle against Ma Rong – but greater in favor before both Song Fan and the Roaring Thunder Sect as a whole.

She had been trying to chip away at their position and distinguish herself to replace them in that regard. Becoming second in command would have afforded her access to more plundered resources from their conquest and greater diplomatic leverage, both of which she could have used to advance herself, her son and her sect as a whole. Patriarch Luli becoming temporary commander blocked that pathway shut. Right now, however, she couldn't bring herself to care.

"I do not expect you to attack any more sects in my absence, but I do have a task for you to fulfill. As some of you may have already heard, our scouting force located an enemy force, although, only Lady Zhai managed to return to convey that information. You will march to intercept that force."

Xiyu Zhai ignored the several uncomfortable looks sent her way to focus on what Song Fan was saying. Specifically, she wondered why he had left out the part about this enemy force belonging to the Lunar Peaks Sect. That was critical information, it was in fact the most important part here, so it surely couldn't have been by accident.

Now that she thought about it, what were the chances that he had received another piece of critical information right at the same time as that? Basically none. Ergo, the 'situation' he had told them he needed to act on was almost certainly the Lunar Peaks Sect's arrival as well. Why then was he not telling the others that part?

"I expect you to start getting your subordinates ready immediately and move out by tomorrow morning. After you have taken out the enemy force, you are to fortify and await further orders. Understood?"

"Yes, Elder Fan!", Patriarch Luli exclaimed. "We shall not disappoint you!"

The burly old fire cultivator was nothing if not enthusiastic to follow orders. Perhaps that was what Song Fan liked about him so much.

"Very well. Then I will leave you to it."

With that, Song Fan rose from his shattered throne and levitated past them, out of the room. The other elders followed him one by one until Xiyu Zhai was the only one who had remained behind, glued in place by her thoughts.

The way she saw it, there was probably a reason Song Fan wanted to separate from them. In all likelihood, he was headed to Xing Zhou to confront the new threat that was the Lunar Peaks Sect. They had no idea where their main force was for now and they'd probably want to find out before the enemy found them.

This army's purpose then, was to take out the group she had encountered and… what then? In the best case this was a distraction maneuver, in the worst a suicide mission. The fact that Song Fan hadn't been upfront with them made her tend towards the latter option. Perhaps the reason he had ordered them to fortify was so they could keep Tengfei Ye's army busy while Song Fan and Xing Zhou dealt with the Lunar Peaks sect.

The question then became: what was she supposed to do about it? Go along with it and hope for the best? Try to warn her fellow elders only to be brandished a traitor? Flee the army, leaving her sect members behind to save her life for however long it would take Song Fan to find her?

She looked down on the brown splatters of dried blood on her robes – her son's blood. She didn't want to follow his orders. She followed them anyways, because she feared him. But now, he was gone. Not permanently of course, but at least for a good while. She doubted the Lunar Peaks Sect would go down easily.

Perhaps disobeying was worth it. Even if it led her nowhere, just foiling his plans for once would be a reward in and off itself. She could still feel the warmth of the finger in the palm of her hand. She still had it stored away in her spatial ring…

Xiyu Zhai took a deep breath. The air tasted of charred wood and a hint of sulfur. Then she made a decision.

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