NOVEL WEB Chapter 239: The Ash Runner
The first messenger arrived missing half his face.
He collapsed on the marble floors just past the western gate, blood mixing with soot, his lungs rattling like cracked glass. The guards barely managed to catch him before he crumpled completely. His tongue was swollen, lips blackened, and yet he still tried to speak.
"Smoke," he rasped. "It came from the mountains. We thought—" He coughed, spraying blood. "—thought it was fog."
By the time the physician arrived, he was already dead.
The second messenger made it farther, all the way to the receiving hall, but his skin was blistered down to the bone, and the stink of him lingered like something rotten had crawled beneath the silk carpets. He didn't scream. He just sat there, twitching, as his muscles slowly gave up.
By the third one, the Crown Prince had stopped asking for names.
He stood at the center of the war court, his jaw locked tight, and his eyes fixed on the map that now had more empty space than claimed territory. The southern border—his southern border—had been wiped clean in less than a day. Not by swords. Not by fire.
But by mist.
His fingers curled against the edge of the table.
"What did she do?" he muttered, cocking his head to the side. "And how did she do it?"
No one answered.
Around him, ministers muttered behind open fans. Generals whispered over ink-splattered documents. His brother paced near the far door, trying to make sense of the chaos. And Princess Yuyan sat at the edge of the raised platform, twirling a ring on her finger with a bored expression.
"She's overreacting," Yuyan said eventually, her voice dry. "This was likely a pre-planned retaliation. A show of strength, nothing more."
He turned to look at her.
"She destroyed seventeen villages, Yuyan. There are fields down there where not even the worms survived."
Yuyan raised an eyebrow. "If you're frightened of one woman, husband dearest, then perhaps we should find someone else to wear the dragon seal."
He didn't answer.
Because he wasn't frightened.
Not exactly.
He was…intrigued.
Reports came in waves. Men burned from the inside out. Horses screaming before they dropped dead mid-run. Livestock bloated and rotting within hours. Every messenger that escaped carried the same scent—blood, rot, and the faint metallic sting of something unnatural.
One scout had carved a warning into his own skin before dying:
The mountain is alive. She woke it.
It wasn't just devastation—it was message. A declaration without a seal.
The witch was back.
The Crown Prince moved away from the table, pacing toward the broad windows that overlooked the palace courtyard. From here, the horizon looked clear—blue skies, polished gardens, the illusion of safety. But he knew better.
He could feel it now. A wrongness in the air. Like the very earth held its breath.
"She didn't do this during the formal campaigns," he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. "Even when we lost the hunting forest, she didn't retaliate this way. So why now?"
"She's weak," Yuyan said. "She waited until we pulled our best commanders back to the capital. This was just timing. Not strategy."
The Crown Prince tilted his head.
But that wasn't right.
Weakness didn't leave bones in the fields.
Weakness didn't erase an entire province in a single night.
No—this wasn't opportunism.
This was precision.
She had waited, yes. But not because she couldn't strike sooner.
She had waited until she was ready to stop playing their game.
One of the generals approached quietly. "We believe the attack started from the peak of Mount Dalu. Our scouts tracked the poison mist from there, spreading across both Yelan and our southern tip. Daiyu was untouched—barely."
"Barely?" the Crown Prince asked.
The general hesitated. "There are reports of livestock and civilians on the Daiyu border who…didn't survive. But there's no official confirmation. And the Daiyu court hasn't issued a statement."
Of course they hadn't.
Daiyu didn't need to say a word when they had a witch to speak for them.
The Crown Prince turned away from the window.
"Bring me the full list of casualties. Not military—civilian. I want to see the names. Every family, every child, every merchant."
"But Your Highness—"
"Do it."
The general bowed and withdrew.
A long silence followed.
The map on the table shifted faintly in the breeze coming from the window. Tiny flags marked with Baiguang's crimson seal fluttered near the southern edge—now meaningless.
The Crown Prince stared at it for a long time.
Then he reached down and removed them.
One by one.
"I'm not afraid of her," he said finally.
Yuyan smirked turned into a sneer as she looked at the man she had married. He was nothing like Zhu Mingyu, and that fact annoyed her every passing day. "Of course not. You're simply fascinated by her."
He didn't deny it.
Because it was true.
He had read the old reports—the ones from before her rise to prominence. The stories about a ghost girl in the mountains, a cursed daughter with blue eyes and no allies. He remembered when she first entered the political stage, standing beside her Crown Prince husband like a silent blade sheathed in silk.
Back then, he thought she was nothing more than a pawn.
But pawns didn't poison three nations in a single morning.
And pawns didn't make kings tremble.
He sat back in his chair, fingers steepled, gaze distant.
"I want to meet her."
Yuyan froze.
"Excuse me?" she demanded, coming to her feet.
"You heard me."
"You can't be serious."
"I am." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees. "Send word to the Daiyu court. A formal invitation. We'll use the spring delegation as cover. Let's say… a peace offering. An opening of trade."
"That's suicide."
"Is it?" His eyes gleamed. "Or is it the only move left on the board?"
The anger and irritation on Yuyan's face was plain for everyone to see. "She's not the main character of this story. She doesn't matter."
"The thousands of deaths that she just caused says differently," reminded Li Xuejian.
"She doesn't negotiate."
"She hasn't yet." His voice was calm. "But she spared Daiyu's border. That tells me something. She can still draw lines. That means she hasn't fully abandoned reason."
Yuyan crossed her arms. "And if she kills you?"
The Crown Prince smiled, slow and sharp.
"Then at least I'll know what it felt like to look a God in the eye."
No one spoke after that.
The order was written by nightfall.
A courier dressed in royal white and silver left the capital gates at dawn, heading straight for Daiyu with a sealed invitation and one command:
Request an audience with the Witch of the Mountain.