The best laid plans of Immortal Sovereigns and men were wont to go astray, as he quickly found out, beset on both sides by a pair of half-step immortals the moment he tumbled into the realm in orbit over one of the planets. “Imperial scum, you dare! You think the Alliance will stand for such flagrant disregard—”

  “You dare? To speak without thinking, how perfectly typical of sect scum like you. Clearly this interloper is not of the sects, you fool—”

  “Then who else? Are you saying that someone might have ascended all the way to the peak of Immortal Ascension without any assistance from the Empire of Sun? Laughable! Preposterous!” Hm. Now that he was looking for it, he and the man who he supposed was this empire’s half-step immortal representative looked a lot alike, actually— golden hair, bronzed skin, all the trappings of sunlight…

  “The Imperial Standard is a standard, you feeble-minded moronic fool! Why don’t I accuse the sects of raising a hidden master? The Empire of Nine Sunlights is far too righteous to resort to such underhanded techniques as secretly raising an Immortal Ascension master, only to waste them here?”

  The sect representative snarled. “I know your measure, imperial scum.” Mingtian wasn’t even sure if he was talking to the imperial or him, at that point, with how much they were just kinda shouting at anything and everything. “What else other than your so-vaunted secret formation could bring an Immortal Ascension cultivator here so seamlessly? Know that you face the Fallow Sweeping Blade, Core Elder of the Indigo Serenity Sect, interloper, and fear!”

  “The Chaos Sea, perhaps? We’re both Immortal Ascension cultivators— don’t fool yourself. He could have come here a thousand different ways.” Still, the imperial cultivator sounded… unsure. That probably wasn’t good…

  “…you kowtow one hundred times and I’ll allow you to leave with your life, scum!”

  Oh, he was talking to him for real now, this time. “I’m… not going to do that.” It’d been so long since he’d had to deal with arrogant cultivators, it was almost nostalgic. Nobody who made it long in the Celestial Realm had that sort of attitude; it reminded him of his youth, punching up realms and cutting down arrogant young masters… good times. “I’ll just… leave—”

  “No! You can’t do that!” He very much could— “the sects won’t forgive this trespass, interloper!”

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  “The Empire won’t forgive this trespass—” bit out the imperial cultivator, a lot more calmly than the core elder guy— though that wasn’t saying much. “Daring to impersonate an imperial master? They’ll slaughter you for this.”

  “The sects will castrate you for daring to insert yourself into our territory!”

  “No, the Empire will exsanguinate you!”

  “We’ll draw and quarter you with phoenixes and dragons for this slight—”

  “We’ll throw you into the heart of a star—”

  Mingtian blinked as the two of them went on and on, shouting not even at him but rather at each other… competing? Competing, yeah, for the most creative insult— “The sects will slaughter your family to the ninth generation, you sniveling—”

  The world froze.

  A crushing pressure descended on both cultivators. He wasn’t entirely sure why the threats of someone so weak managed to get to him. Maybe it was the reminiscing he’d been doing about his mortal days. Maybe it was the fight he’d just had with his sister. Maybe it was something else entirely, but… they had managed to make him angry.

  Big mistake.

  Before either of them could gather enough presence-of-will to push through his domain, he grabbed Daoist Fallow Sweeping Blade by the scruff of his robes and bodily chucked him into the moon, an enormous plume of dust rising from the new crater he’d made with his face.

  Then for good measure, because you couldn’t have a real fight without destroying at least one celestial body, he blew up the moon.

  As the molten shards of the shattered debris formerly known as the planet’s moon blasted outwards into the expansive dark, he turned to the imperial cultivator, who chuckled nervously. “Might I convince the honored master to entreat with me for a…”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “It was worth a try, I suppose.”

  Then, Mingtian punted him into the sun.

  They’d be fine. Both of them had been half-step immortals, and they had plenty of life saving treasures— and he’d been limited by having to suppress his power to fit into the realm anyways. He seriously doubted that either of his attacks had been enough to actually injure them in any significant manner. Still, it’d be for the best if skipped town before anyone else with the average mental faculties of an amoeba showed up to insult him.

  With an effort of will, he peeled open a portal to the Chaos Sea, and slipped once more into oblivion.

  Surely this will have no consequences later whatsoever.

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