Young Master System: My Mother Is the Matriarch-Chapter 187: What Remains

Li Wei tapped deep into his reserves, and rose up to defy the imperial magistrate.

There was one technique Magistrate Yun had not been able to suppress. Emerald sparks fluttered around him again, weak and inconsistent.

Yun’s expression hardened. "Stubbornness is not courage."

"And cruelty is not order," Li Wei countered.

Yun extended his index finger, causing a stream of golden light to swirl at its tip like a coiled serpent.

Li Wei steadied his stance. Tang Li merely gasped, covering her mouth. Before thetwo parties could clash a tremor rolled beneath the plaza. Not from Yun or Li Wei, but from the ground itself.

The cracked jade beneath Li Wei’s feet pulsed faintly.

Yun’s eyes narrowed. "What did you do?"

Li Wei’s gaze sharpened. "This is quite the development....

Yun froze, while Li Wei raised the fractured rod. "I was looking for your array’s foundation."

The plaza rumbled all around them, as shattered sigils embedded into the earth flickered erratically. Golden glyphs sputtered. The Oolong Group’s containment seals, buried deep beneath the city, began to overload.

Imperial-grade stabilizing wards collapsed differently from common formations. Upon collapse they immediately detonate.

Yun’s eyes widened as the first fissure shot across the plaza.

"Impossible," Yun hissed. "You—you couldn’t have reached the bottom layer this quickly—"

Li Wei exhaled. "Price was steep."

His meridians and life blood were not in the best condition "But it needed to be done."

One by one, the golden sigils fractured like cracked eggshells, while Magistrate Yun lunged toward the nearest one, trying to rebuild the array from scratch

"You foolish bastard! Do you know what you’ve done? These arrays stabilize the entire district!"

"Collateral damage is a minor inconvenience ," Li Wei murmured.

Tang Li’s eyes widened and the prisoners stared in disbelief. Even the soldiers still in the area were frozen in shock, Yun’s fury erupted like a drawn blade. "If these arrays collapse, the city will lose control of its boundary qi. Hundreds of cultivators across the district could die from overexposure to volatile energy! You are bringing about the demise of innocent bystanders!"

Li Wei raised his war rod.

"And you intended to bludgeon and string up fifty captives in response to one theft, condemning my actions yet you are the one drawing the shorter straw?"

Yun roared before thrusting his palms down, causing the ground to crack beneath him. As golden light surged through every vein in the jade. "RESTORE—!!"

But nature refused to relent. Li Wei’s final technique had burned a mark into the city’s heartland. Yun could not erase the incantation, no matter how many golden seals he wove.

"You disrupted the earth qi keeping this city rooted!" Yun shouted. "What a stubborn brat—" Li Wei cut him off quietly. "You forced my hand."

The plaza lurched, a violent quake toppling statues and sending soldiers tumbling. Dust spiraled around the shattered platform.

Yun whipped his head around. "Enough," the magistrate snarled. "I will end you, stop this, and repair the mess caused by this heretic technique—"

He lunged fast towards him. A streak of gold splitting air, it was like a serpent made of light. Li Wei raised his cracked rod in reflex, but the blow never landed.

A third force collided with Yun mid-strike, blurring from the sudden motion.

A small body with Foolhardy courage intervened .

"TANG LI?" Li Wei was rather confused, the girl had thrown herself forward. A cluster of talismans were clutched in her shaking hands, directly ramming them into Yun’s forearm.

Golden light erupted as these talismans were too weak to restrain a man like Yun, but they did momentarily distort the force of his strike. The magistrate’s palm veered off course, missing Li Wei’s heart and instead slamming into the fractured platform behind him, blowing a crater through the stone.

Tang Li collapsed, coughing blood, the child screaming beside her.

"Foolish wench!" Yun bellowed.

Li Wei’s vision went white and the world slowed. A girl lay on her knees, trembling as a child cried out for her.

Yun raised his hand again.

Not wasting a moment to think or taking a chance to breathe, the young master moved. "I do no believe our is not finished" His body burned from within, while numerous meridians within his constitution tore open anew.

His bones groaned like strained iron, yet he still managed to surged between Yun and Tang Li. In a split second the young master slammed his fractured rod down in front of her like a shield, as a flood of Emerald light filled her vision

Tang Li gasped. Her body felt weak and fractured, it was a pitiful sight yet her persistence still flared. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Yun growled. "You cannot even stand! Cease this pathetic show of heroism—"

Li Wei’s voice cut through the dust like black steel. "Your words are all the same, I have no need for your garbage insights." The young master’s eyes glowed a faint, dying emerald.

Yun’s strike crashed down, but was met by an unyielding force. The fractured rod screamed and the stone buckled. Tang Li was fortunate to have not been harmed, while the magistrate staggered back one step.

He stared at Li Wei with something new, it was not respect or fear. "You... dirty animal" Yun whispered. "It seems your committed to dying here"

Li Wei exhaled, blood dripping off his chin. "Not... yet."

Yun’s gaze sharpened. "I will harvest your soul into relic for this transgression!"

A tremor cut him off before he could curse Li Wei further. The anomaly was a deep, concussive vibration that rumbled through the plaza like a slumbering beast waking beneath the stones.

Yun froze.

Li Wei’s eyes widened and Tang Li clutched his robe in panic.

For a heartbeat, the ruined plaza felt as if it were breathing.

BOOOOOOM—!!!

A colossal shockwave erupted from the district’s ley anchors beneath the city. Numerous plumes of white light shot into the sky. Boundary qi broke loose and the city’s stabilizing arrays finally collapsed.

This was happening all at once. Magistrate Yun’s head snapped upward. "No... no, no—unacceptable!" He spun, abandoning Li Wei for the first time since the battle began, racing toward the collapsing leyline as if the source of his livelihood was vanishing.

Li Wei sagged to one knee, barely conscious.

Tang Li caught him with trembling arms. "Senior Wei! D-don’t close your eyes!"

Li Wei’s breath rattled. "Am sure some tea would do a world of good..."

The plaza sank behind them as the leyline quake consumed the platform. Magistrate Yun’s furious voice echoed in the distance, barking orders, weaving seals, fighting desperately to stop the city from unraveling.

Tang Li’s tears fell onto Li Wei’s cheek. "We survived," she whispered.

Li Wei exhaled weakly. "All is well."

Her grip tightened. "What now?"

Li Wei closed his eyes for a moment, "Now..." he murmured "...we make our exit."

The city around them screamed as the foundation collapsed.

As Li Wei, broken and bleeding, prepared to make his escape at the end of one battle.

The beginning of a war was on the horizon.

A few hundred miles away, The Blood Lotus encampment had once thundered with marching boots, crackling banners, shouts of invigorated warriors echoing through the ravines. Now, silence owned the night.

Torches sputtered as if frightened to burn, while collapsed tents littered the ground like slain beasts. The distant cliffs reflected a dying sunset that stained the world the color of blood.

The camp was in tatters and its survivors were thin and hollow-eyed. During Li Wuji’s stand against Li Wei, numerous soldiers had been burned, bruised and caught between the crossfire of the two parties

Li Wuji, the Blood Lotus inheritor who promised a path to transcendence. Yet he marched them into slaughter. To put things simply he was a commander who demanded loyalty, and offered them nothing in return.

Tonight, many cursed his name beneath their breath. But none dared curse him out loud, as his fate was not known.

Far at the southern edge of the camp, deep inside a tattered command pavilion, lantern light flickered behind patched canvas. A ring of twenty weary soldiers knelt in a circle, heads bowed.

The entrance parted as woman stepped through. Tall, elegant, draped in Blood Lotus crimson. Her hair was tied in a precise knot, though dirt and battlefield ash clung to her sleeves. Her face, normally unreadable, carried exhaustion beneath the cold focus in her eyes.

Yuan Yi was the sole surviving envoy. Every other envoy had died mysteriously over the past month, sent out on missions that were not as they seemed. She alone still breathed, but her survival was not due to favor.

She had become the most important woman in the camp, as everyone knelt as she entered.

"Envoy," they murmured.

She raised a hand. "You may stand."

They obeyed, but because she was the only leader who was not a butcher. Yuan Yi looked around the tent at the survivors, men and women who once followed Li Wuji. Some had bandaged limbs, while a few had blood on their armor.

She exhaled softly.

"Report."