Li Yan transmigrated eight years ago. As a civil official, he brought prosperity to the people at home and put down the Rebellion of the Seven Kings, while abroad he brought the four Hexi commanderies beyond Juyong Pass under the fold. He became the youngest chief minister and Grand General King in the history of the Great Wu Dynasty. Emperor Xuanwu even betrothed his beloved daughter, the peerlessly beautiful Princess Ren’an, Ji Nanxi, to Li Yan.
At the same time, he possessed a reward System and continually claimed martial arts rewards. Beneath his unremarkable exterior as a civil official, he had become a Tribulation-Transcending Martial Saint on the verge of being invincible in the world.
Emperor Xuanwu died, and the Crown Prince ascended the throne. The new emperor was debauched and incompetent, spending his days in pleasure and neglecting the people. Li Yan deposed him and installed Princess Ren’an, Ji Nanxi, as the Great Wu Dynasty’s first empress, Emperor Ren’an.
In the second year of Ren’an, the Great Jin Dynasty in the north suddenly attacked from the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun and invaded Great Wu. Li Yan took command once more and reclaimed the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.
However, Wang Jian, the chancellor at court, wanted his son Wang Jing, who had returned from the Daoyuan Sect at the peak of the Martial King realm, to become Great Wu’s Grand General King in Li Yan’s place. So he schemed to have the court ministers accuse Li Yan of amassing power and plotting a rebellion.
With the chancellor’s encouragement, Empress Ren’an began to look down on Li Yan, a mere civil official. An imperial decree was sent to Youzhou, stripping Li Yan of all his titles and ordering the Embroidered Uniform Guard to escort him back to the capital and imprison him pending trial.
With a flick of his finger, Li Yan killed the Embroidered Uniform Guard, reducing them to ashes. He had long been invincible across the Nine Provinces! Did they really think he was just a civil official?! Li Yan proclaimed himself emperor on the spot!
When the Great Yan Dynasty’s army, clad in scarlet armor, breached the imperial capital of Great Wu, and Emperor Li Yan descended from the heavens like a god above the Forbidden City, Empress Ren’an knelt with vacant eyes. Filled with regret, bitterness, and despair, she asked:
“That peerless powerhouse from that night... was that you, Emperor Yan?”
