Immortal Paladin
218 Touch Grass

218 Touch Grass

Jin Chenglei had once carried himself like a lion at the head of a conquering host. His back was straight, his armor polished, his voice a war-drum in human form. However, that man was long gone. The one that remained slouched over a goblet, face half-buried in the shadows of a tent stinking of incense, sweat, and wine.

He hadn’t slept properly in days. The bags beneath his eyes were as dark as old bruises, and his breath carried the sourness of liquor steeped in his gut. He had taken his lunch like a warlord… plated meat, pickled fruits, and enough wine to drown a horse. His commanders had offered reports, and he nodded through them like a specter seated on a throne of ash. Then came the letter… its seal broken, the parchment crude, the ink oddly smug. It was a rejection. The Sacred Grove would not send reinforcements. Worse yet, someone had drawn a childlike sketch of an angry face beside the signature, as if mocking him personally.

He crumpled the letter in one hand and threw it across the tent. The woman beneath him giggled, pressing her painted lips to his chest.

“You’re not even listening to me,” she purred, her voice syrupy and false. “Maybe I should just stop moving...”

Jin Chenglei grunted, not with pleasure but irritation, and rolled back atop her. Her moans returned, louder now, taunting in tone more than need. She murmured obscenities into his ear… crude, desperate affirmations of his power. Her fingernails scratched at his back. He kept moving, numb to it all, using her body like a distraction he couldn’t afford to let go.

“You still have it in you, general,” she breathed, writhing beneath him. “Maybe not an empire, but this... this you can still command...”

He didn’t respond. When it ended, he collapsed beside her, breath shallow, arms thrown over his eyes to block out the light leaking through the canvas.

The silence after was suffocating.

He hadn’t even asked her name.

The woman whispered something else, something coy and vulgar, but it didn’t register to him. His thoughts were already elsewhere… on lost battles, dead comrades, the memory of parades that once bore his name, and the hollow echo of the Sacred Grove’s rejection.

Jin Chenglei reached for the bottle on the side table. His hand trembled. He drank anyway.

The tent reeked of sweat, wine, and musk. Jin Chenglei lay half-naked, sprawled across the tangled furs like a discarded relic of a greater age.

“Woman, what is your name?” Jin Chenglei asked.

The woman answered, “There is no need for you to know, just enjoy the moment…”

Her tongue dragged slowly along his length, deliberate and unhurried. “Everything is going to be fine,” she purred, her voice like smoke curling beneath a locked door. Her hair was obsidian silk falling over her shoulders, framing eyes that held no warmth. Her body was flawless, and she moved with the grace of someone who knew exactly what she was doing.

He groaned, but his voice was distant. “I don’t know... this rebellion… It’s starting to feel pointless.”

The woman sighed, pulling away with a subtle sneer. Her breasts pressed together, slick and warm, as she nestled his length between them, her rhythm steady and practiced. But even in that act of pleasure, her eyes never lost their calculating gleam.

“Don’t go limp on me, commander,” she muttered, her hand suddenly gripping him with a cruel twist that made his breath hitch. He winced. The pain was real and anchoring.

She leaned forward, licking the tip with a slow, mocking motion. But just as the heat built toward release, she pulled away.

“What the hell?” Jin muttered, blinking in confusion.

She slapped his length lightly and playfully, then straddled his waist, stealing the liquor bottle from his hand and drinking deeply. “A man should learn to take what is his,” she said, her voice low and sharp.

He tried to rise, but she shoved him down with surprising strength. Her gaze was wild now. It was feral and untamed. “If you won’t take me now, I’ll kill you,” she whispered, and he wasn’t sure if it was a jest.

Fear rose in his throat like bile. It was primal and immediate. Something deep in his instincts screamed a warning. But pride, lust, and shame twisted inside him like thorns. He snarled, flipping her beneath him. Her laughter was half-mad and half-ecstatic.

He entered her violently, his hands bruising her hips. “Is this what you wanted?” he hissed through gritted teeth. “You like that, don’t you?”

“Yes—gods, yes,” she moaned, her legs locking around him like chains. “More. Don’t stop.”

They had gone at it for what felt like hours. It was an endless blur of breathless gasps, carnal whispers, and whispered curses exchanged between the sheets. Her voice, honeyed and sharp, echoed in his mind.

"Is that all, Commander?" she had purred at one point, her lips brushing his ear "Take me like you take your victories, ruthless and without hesitation." "You’re good at war, but I wonder if you're better in bed." "Make me scream your name louder than your soldiers do."

And then… nothing.

Jin Chenglei jolted awake. The lingering warmth of her body was gone. The scent of wine and sweat clung to his skin, but the woman was nowhere to be found. He blinked, dazed. “Was that… real?” The answer came soon enough when he noticed the mess in his pants. With a curse under his breath, he cleaned himself up and changed into a clean robe. Stepping out into the pale morning light beyond the tent flaps, he was greeted by the sharp chill of reality.

A soldier hurried to him, kneeling at once. “General Jin! The rebel alliance in the southern reaches… they've been wiped out.”

Jin Chenglei’s expression froze. “What?”

“All of them, sir. Their bases razed, leaders unaccounted for. No survivors, just ashes and bodies. We’re still gathering reports on who did it.”

His breath hitched with disbelief, and then fury boiled in his chest. Without warning, his aura erupted, a violent surge of pressure that rattled the entire camp. The ground trembled beneath his feet. Trees groaned. Storm clouds gathered overhead as if summoned by his rage, and within seconds, a steady rain began to fall… his Spirit Mystery cultivation manifesting without restraint.

“Who?” he growled. “Tell me who did it.”

The soldier trembled beneath the pressure. “We don’t know yet, sir… The attackers left no emblems, no message, and there were barely any survivors.”

But Jin Chenglei already had a name in mind. "It could only be them... The Sacred Groves." The southern rebels had been too close to their territory. It would have taken only one secret campaign and one bold move. He clenched his jaw.

A voice slithered into his ears… silken, mocking, and far too familiar.

“Strike them first.”

A breathless voice curled in his ear, feminine and smooth as silk soaked in venom. It was the same voice from his dreams… the one that had begged, teased, and toyed with him in the dark. The same voice that wrapped itself around his weakness and wore it like armor.

“They fear you. They hide behind piety and walls of virtue, but they murdered your allies like dogs. The Sacred Groves will not stop. Cut them down before they do the same to you.”

He clenched his fists as droplets steamed off his body, his qi leaking unchecked.

“Prepare the legions,” Jin Chenglei barked.

“Sir?”

“I said… march the troops. I want scouts circling the Groves before nightfall. Anyone loyal to the rebellion, I want their names. Anyone hesitant, silence them.”

The soldier bowed and then scrambled off.

Alone now, Jin Chenglei stared into the storm above. The voice had gone quiet, but its echo lingered. Not just in his ears, but behind his eyes… burning with hunger, temptation, and something deeper.

The woman from his dreams. The one who smiled as he fell deeper. He didn't even know her name. And yet, she had planted a war in his heart.

…

..

.

In a dimly lit chamber, the Dark Witch's voice dripped with honeyed malice as she spoke, her words weaving a spell of seduction and terror.

"Oh, how I long to unravel you, thread by thread," she purred, her voice husky with desire. "To spill your secrets, to savor the taste of your surrender, to feel your warmth envelop me as I claim you from the inside out." Her words were a slow-burning fire, igniting a passion that threatened to consume her.

Among the Seven Sages, few inspired more dread than the Dark Witch.

She lay languid atop a bed spun from spiritual silk, her bare form resting against cushions filled with dream pollen and perfumed fog. A floating mirror hovered before her, its surface warped by sorcery, pulsing faintly like a living eye. Within it played a scene… a battle wreathed in firelight and steel.

Wen Yuhan was clad in black. She rushed through a thicket of rebels with only three companions at her back. Her blade carved through spirit shields and flesh alike, her movements clean, calculated, and almost theatrical. Bodies fell like petals from a storm-struck tree.

The image in the mirror flickered, blurred by distance and formation wards. The Dark Witch frowned and flicked her finger. A ripple of intent passed through the air, and the mirror sharpened instantly, revealing every blow in intricate detail.

“Back it up,” she murmured. “Again.”

The mirror obeyed. Wen Yuhan squared off with a Supreme Master. A duel unfolded. It was fast, brutal, and masterful. Five exchanges. Ten. The Supreme Master was no fledgling; his control of domain aura bent the surrounding trees, cracked the earth beneath him, and scorched the very rain. Yet Wen Yuhan moved through it like smoke. A feint, a flash, a strike aimed not for flesh but for timing. She turned his strength against him.

With the thirteenth blow, the Supreme Master collapsed, mouth foaming as his core cracked from within.

“That’s why Supreme Masters can be dangerous…” the Dark Witch whispered, her voice smooth as oil poured over silk. “If they raise their mastery any further… they might contend even with us at our current realm.”

Her smile deepened. “Of the Seven Sages, two have already fallen. Hmmm…”

A great serpent slithered around her thigh, its scales a deep violet black with golden accents, like a robe embroidered in venom. Its tongue flickered against her navel before curling higher, brushing the underside of her breast. She paid it no mind. It was her pet, after all. One of many.

She reached out and stroked its head.

“I’ve already poisoned the mind of the one closest to martial ascension,” she said, sighing like a lover recalling old passion. “He could have surpassed the realm of Supreme Master. Could have broken this board entirely. But no… I lured him to the Longevity Path. A sweet trap. A patient death. Let him waste eternity chasing an illusion of permanence while his blade dulls with dust. Yes, that’s better…”

Her gaze never left the mirror.

She watched Wen Yuhan step into a burning camp, watched her raise her hand and call down a divine strike, watched her cleanse a den of corruption without hesitation. Again, and again. She rewound the scene a dozen times, until each flick of her wrist and pivot of her heel was etched in memory.

A blush colored the Witch’s cheeks… not of shame, but of excitement.

She whispered, as the snake coiled tighter around her waist, “Oh, I’d love to see you soon, Wen Yuhan…”

Her finger traced the mirror’s edge, slow and hungry.

“…and when I do, I’ll peel you apart… mind, body, and soul.”

As she gazed into the mirror, her eyes locked onto her own reflection, and she began to caress herself, her fingers dancing across her skin with an intimacy that was both captivating and unsettling. Her moans of pleasure filled the air, a sultry serenade that seemed to draw the very darkness closer. The sound of her own desire was a potent incantation, one that conjured a sense of abandon and release.

Her back arched, a supple curve of flesh and shadow, as she reached the crescendo of her own making. The air was heavy with the scent of her arousal, a heady perfume that clung to every surface. And then, she laughed, a sound that was both mad and mesmerizing, a joy that was as much a part of her darkness as the shadows that shrouded her.

As she leaned back into the bed rest, her movements were languid, her body still thrumming with the aftershocks of her own pleasure. She pulled the mirror closer, her eyes never leaving her own reflection over Wen Yuhan's face.

Softly, the Dark Witch whispered, "You will be mine, I will make that a certainty." Her body was half-curled beneath a coiled serpent, her limbs languid, her expression caught in that dreamy space between arousal and obsession. The enchanted mirror showed her what she craved: Wen Yuhan, bathed in lightning and blood, standing at the edge of a ruined rebel camp.

She had replayed the final moment at least a dozen times… the last exchange between Wen Yuhan and the Supreme Master of the rebel force. The sacred fire in Wen Yuhan's eyes had not dimmed. She looked unshaken. No… she looked disappointed. 

The Dark Witch chuckled. “Always so cold, so dignified. What would it take to crack you, I wonder?”

But just as she prepared to rewind the image again, something changed.

The mirror twitched. The reflection stopped obeying.

Wen Yuhan did not move with the past’s rhythm this time. Her eyes, glowing faintly from the divine arts that powered her, turned to the viewer… not the world around her, not the battlefield, but straight at the Dark Witch.

The Dark Witch blinked, startled for the first time in a long time.

And then, from the reflection, Wen Yuhan’s voice rang out with sharp clarity.

“Bitch, get a life.”

For a breath, silence hung like a knife.

“...What?”

The Dark Witch sat upright, sheets falling from her chest. The serpent hissed as it recoiled at the sudden shift in qi. The mirror wavered as if resisting her grip. Wen Yuhan remained fixed in the reflection, her eyes unimpressed, her mouth curled in disapproval that felt far too grounded and far too real to be an illusion.

“Impossible…” the Dark Witch muttered, extending a hand toward the glass.

But Wen Yuhan's voice rang again, this time calm and cutting, laced with disdain.

“Seriously? You’ve been watching me all day. Touch grass.”

Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface of the mirror as the spellcraft collapsed. The viewing spell was being rejected from the other side. Not disrupted, not dispelled, but thrown back.

“Ahahahaha!” The Dark Witch’s laughter spilled into the chamber, rich with excitement. “Oh, you can see me now, can you? You clever little minx. This just got interesting.”

The mirror finally shattered. Fragments floated in the air like stardust. The Dark Witch fell back against her bedding, laughing wildly, the snake curling up beside her once more.

“A woman who can cut through one of the Seven Gazes… you’re even more delicious than I imagined.”

She turned her head to the ceiling and whispered with a breathless hunger, “Come find me, Wen Yuhan. Or let me come find you. Either way… let’s play.