I am NOT a Demon Queen!

Su Yao assessed the situation in a split second. Revealing herself as Xiao Ling to the false Seimei now would be strategically idiotic. It would give him a clear target, expose her ongoing investigation, and frankly, she was in the wrong mood for his posturing. She had to stop this new Kaiju liquefy the city, too.

A solution presented itself. It was both practical and deeply, personally amusing.

Fine. Let’s give the people a different legend to cheer for.

She focused, drawing upon the template of the being whose echo she had once housed and whose identity her cousin had so gleefully hijacked. The air around her shimmered with a heat haze. The scent of sakura and ancient perfume momentarily overpowered the stench of sea decay.

Her form blurred. Contours shifted. Height increased slightly. Her clothes transformed into an elaborate Heian-era junihitoe, layers of crimson and white silk. Nine magnificent, fluffy tails fanned out behind her. Her features sharpened into the devastating, fox-like beauty of Japan’s most infamous enchantress.

She became Tamamo-no-Mae.

With a grace that was all predatory elegance, the form of Tamamo glided to the forefront. She placed herself between the collapsing shoreline and the advancing Alpha Kaiju. She ignored the false Seimei completely. Her voice was a silken, carrying chime that cut through the chaos.

“My, my,” Tamamo purred. Her eyes glowed with light. “The children are getting so rowdy these days. Don't you know it’s rude to break the furniture?”

The false Seimei, who had been frantically trying to recast his unraveling talismans, froze. His head snapped toward her. His mask-like face for the first time showed genuine, unscripted shock.

“You! It can’t be!”

Tamamo gave him a sidelong glance. A smirk played on her lips. “Is that any way to greet an old friend? Or perhaps just a rival? You seem to be having some trouble with the local wildlife. Allow me.”

She turned back to the Kaiju. It was now focusing its ground-liquefying frequency toward her. The air around Tamamo’s form ignited. Foxfire, pale blue and hungry, erupted in a swirling vortex around her. It formed a barrier that consumed the destructive frequencies, turning them into harmless light and heat.

“The deep places have their tricks,” she declared. Her voice now held an edge of primordial authority. “Fire purified the first land. It will cleanse this one too.”

A prolonged fight was unnecessary. She needed to stop the immediate collapse and show the false Seimei that there were other players on the board. Players he couldn't predict or control.

With a dramatic flourish that Kayo would have been proud of, she gathered the foxfire into a single, concentrated orb of annihilation and hurled it into the Kaiju’s open maw.

The orb vanished down its throat. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, the Kaiju’s abyssal black skin began to glow from within. Cracks of blue-white light spread across its form. It shuddered. The destabilizing frequency cut off into a choked gurgle, before it exploded in a spectacular shower of steaming viscera and spiritual residue that rained down into the bay.

Tamamo-no-Mae’s false form brushed a non-existent piece of lint from her sleeve. She turned her head slightly, giving the stunned false Seimei a look of pure, unadulterated mockery.

“Do try to keep up,” she said. Then her form dissolved into a swirl of cherry blossoms, leaving behind only the scent of perfume and the echo of triumphant laughter.

The real Su Yao, now several blocks away and back in her own form, allowed herself a small, satisfied smirk. Let him wonder why Tamamo-no-Mae was interfering in his carefully staged drama. The confusion was a weapon in itself.

That should give him something to think about.

Her phone buzzed immediately. The caller ID flashed ‘Kayo’ with a heart emoji.

“Bravo!” Kayo’s voice shrieked with delight before Su Yao could even say hello. “An absolute masterclass in dramatic entrances and exits! The costume change! The foxfire! The condescending one-liner! I'm getting emotional, cousin, truly. You've learned from the best!”

Su Yao rolled her eyes, though a faint smirk remained. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing? It was art! But,” Kayo’s tone shifted to one of genuine curiosity, “why didn't you finish the job? You had the perfect chance to skewer that boring impostor along with the overgrown tadpole. He was right there, looking all stunned and useless!”

Watching the distant figure of the false Seimei who was now frantically trying to regain control of the panicked crowd, Su Yao leaned against a crumbling wall. “This fake Seimei is predictable,” she explained. “He’s a known variable. Arrogant, loves spectacle, and thinks he’s the smartest one in the room. He’s a tool, and I know who’s holding him. The Wild Hunt.”

Her voice was low and analytical. “If I eliminate him now, they'll just pick a new leader. Someone potentially more cautious, more clever, or worse, completely unknown. An unpredictable enemy is far more dangerous than a proud, blustering fool I can already read like a children’s book.”

She paused, letting the strategic coldness of her words sink in. “Let him keep his position. He'll make mistakes and lead me right to the people truly pulling the strings. Removing him now would just be cutting the head off a weed. I need to find the roots.”

Kayo was silent for a moment, then let out an appreciative whistle. “Oh, that’s devious. I love it. So you're keeping him as your pet idiot.”

“Precisely,” Su Yao said. “He’s more useful to me alive and confused than dead and replaced. For now, he’s just another piece on the board. A loud, predictable piece.”

“Spoken like a true grandmaster,” Kayo purred. “Fine, I'll allow it. If he starts monologuing again, I reserve the right to drop a building on him for my own amusement.”

“Do what you want,” Su Yao said, ending the call. She looked back toward the coast.

The fake Seimei was a manageable problem. What could be considered as the real threats were still hidden in the shadows: the true leadership of the Yamato, the mystery of the moon, and now, the lingering question of who had truly unleashed the Deep Ones. That predictable impostor was the least of her worries.

He was merely the distracting flash of a firework, while the real explosion was still being prepared in the dark.

Speaking of explosions, the building directly across the street from Su Yao let out a deep, groaning shudder. It was a structural collapse. The building was sinking as the ground beneath it simply gave way.

Then the earth itself bulged upward. Asphalt and concrete cracked like an eggshell as something massive and scaled began to rise, uncoiling from the depths. The resulting earthquake sent cars tumbling and people screaming.

Su Yao stared as a colossal, serpentine head crowned with antler-like horns broke through the surface. Its scales were the color of tarnished jade and old bronze. Its eyes, like molten gold, opened slowly, as if from a long, long sleep.

No way, Su Yao thought. A sense of exasperation momentarily overrode her battle focus. Is that a Jiao Long? A Flood Dragon?

This was a primordial entity of the land itself. A being of rivers and deluges. One of the true dragons of Chinese myth. The commotion must have woken him up.

The Jiao Long let out a low rumble that was the sound of a cosmic entity rudely awakened from its millennia-long nap. Its golden eyes, bleary and angry, scanned the ruined cityscape, the retreating Deep Ones, the false Seimei, and finally landed on Su Yao, who was standing there radiating enough power to be noticeable.

You have got to be kidding me, Su Yao mentally groaned. I have to fight a dragon now? On top of everything else?

A Jiao Long was a force of nature. Its power was rooted in the very ley lines of the continent. Fighting it head-on would be like trying to punch a hurricane.

The dragon’s head swung toward her. Its maw opened slightly to speak. The voice that emerged was the sound of grinding tectonic plates and rushing underground rivers. “Who disturbs my slumber?”

Su Yao pinched the bridge of her nose. “It wasn't me,” she said. Her voice was flat despite the cosmic pressure. “It was the fish-people and the giant lizard. They started it.”

The Jiao Long’s molten gaze seemed to sharpen. Its intelligence fully focused on her. “A Fox, of Nuwa’s court. Her servants always bring trouble.”

Great, Su Yao thought. Even the local wildlife has a grudge against my old boss.

This was turning into a very long day. She calculated the energy required to even scratch a Jiao Long and decided it was more than she was willing to spend on a misunderstanding.

“Look,” she said, taking a step back and gesturing toward the bay. “The ones who woke you up are that way. See them? The loud one in the fancy robes, or the things coming out of the ocean. I'm just a bystander.”

The Jiao Long considered this. Its massive head tilted. The ground continued to tremble with its every slight movement. It was clear that ‘bystander’ or not, her presence was enough to keep its attention.

Su Yao sighed. It seemed a tactical retreat was once again the most sensible option. Fighting a dragon was outside her to-do list. Evading one, however, was suddenly a very high priority.

The Jiao Long’s molten gaze swept over the shattered skyscrapers and ruined streets. A low, grinding rumble built in its chest. It was a roar of territorial offense.

“Who,” its voice boomed, shaking the very foundations of the remaining buildings, “dares build a city of noisy, stinking ants, on top of my nest?”

Su Yao, who had been poised to make a swift exit, paused. She looked from the primordial dragon to the sprawling, devastated metropolis around them. A city of twenty million people, centuries of history, layers of infrastructure, all reduced to ‘a nest of noisy, stinking ants.’

She gestured vaguely at the urban wreckage. “Whoever they were, they're probably long dead by now. Cities tend to do that. They get built over older cities. It’s a mortal thing. You nap for a few millennia, you wake up with a parking lot over your head. It’s the risk you take.”

The dragon’s massive head lowered, bringing one golden eye to bear on her like a searchlight. “The Han Dynasty was merely a hatchling’s memory when I last slept. This blight of steel and concrete is an affront.”

“The Han Dynasty?” Su Yao repeated, doing the math in her head. “You've been asleep a while. A lot has changed. Frankly, you're lucky it’s just a city. They could have built a nuclear power plant or a theme park called ‘Dragon World’.”

The Jiao Long let out a huff of steam that smelled of deep earth. “They will remove it.”

“I don't think that’s how it works,” Su Yao said. Her tone was dry. “There are procedures called zoning laws and construction permits. It’s a whole bureaucracy. There are still a lot of ‘ants’ here, even now. You can't just unmake a megacity because you fancy a nap in your old spot.”

“I can.”

“Fine, you can try,” Su Yao amended, crossing her arms. “I should warn you, the ones in charge now have weapons that can turn this entire area into glass. It would ruin the feng shui of your nest permanently.”

The dragon fell silent. Its immense body was coiled beneath the broken earth, processing this. It was a being of ancient power, but the modern world presented forms of destruction even it had to consider.

“This is an unacceptable awakening,” it grumbled finally. The sound was like a landslide.

“Tell me about it,” Su Yao muttered. “I was in the middle of something important.” She saw an opportunity. “The ones who truly disturbed you are the ones from the sea. The ‘fish-people,’ as I called them. And the big one pretending to be a hero.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder toward the distant figure of the false Seimei. “Perhaps you should discuss urban planning with them first.”

The Jiao Long’s golden eyes narrowed, shifting their gaze from Su Yao to the coastline, where the remnants of the Deep Ones’ invasion and the false Seimei’s posturing were still evident.

“The ocean’s spawn, and a false face,” it mused. The ground trembled with its voice. “Perhaps I shall start my reclamation with them.”

Su Yao gave a slight, satisfied nod. “Excellent, I'll leave you to it. Try not to break the whole continent.”

With that, she melted back into the shadows, perfectly happy to let the angry, ancient dragon become someone else problem. The fake Seimei was about to get a lesson in real, terrestrial power. Some conflicts were best handled by outsourcing.

She watched from a safe distance as the Jiao Long began to haul its colossal, serpentine body fully from the ruptured earth. Its scales scraped against shattered concrete with a sound that set her teeth on edge. Her mind, ever the strategist, ran through the inventory of her capabilities against a foe of this caliber.

What can I even do against a dragon? she thought. A fresh wave of irritation washed over her. The classics were clear on this. True dragons, especially the ancient terrestrial ones like a Jiao Long, possessed an innate resistance to magic.

Spiritual energy attacks would likely wash over its scales like water. They could only be truly harmed by divine weapons of immense purity.

She had divine weapons. The Void-Severing Glaive was one. But there was a catch. Her arsenal was primarily demonic divine weapons.

They were forged in celestial fires but tempered in her own fox-spirit essence, which was cunning, ancient, and fundamentally at odds with the pure, ordered divinity that could cleave a dragon’s hide. Their potency against a being of primordial order like the Jiao Long was significantly reduced.

It would be like trying to cut diamond with a blade of obsidian.

Then there was the regeneration. It was the stuff of legends for a reason. She could lop off a limb, and it would likely begin re-knitting before the limb even hit the ground. A dragon’s vitality was tied to the land itself. Unless you could sever that connection or deliver a wound so absolute it overwhelmed their core, you were just pruning a tree that would grow back thicker and angrier.

A direct fight is pointless, she concluded. The assessment was cold and final. It would be a battle of attrition I can’t win. I lack the divine firepower or the specific legendary tools designed for dragon-slaying.

Her eyes narrowed, tracking the dragon as it turned its wrath toward the coastline. Its golden gaze locked onto the false Seimei. A new plan began to form, one that relied on misdirection and leverage instead of force.

But I don't need to kill it, she realized. I just need to survive it, and better yet, use it.

The dragon was a force of nature, an unstoppable tide. Tides could be channeled. They could be pointed at your enemies.

She watched as the Jiao Long unleashed a torrent of pressurized, mud-darkened water from its maw, a deluge that swept away entire blocks and forced the false Seimei to abandon his platform in a frantic, undignified retreat.

Good, Su Yao thought. A grim smile touched her lips. Let them play.

Her role here was to be the puppetmaster who made sure the dragon was someone else problem. Su Yao would watch. She would learn its patterns and tempers.

If the time ever came when she had to confront it, she would do so with precision. Perhaps by finding a purer divine weapon, exploiting a moment of weakness, or by sealing it away somewhere even deeper than its last resting place.

For now, she was content to be a spectator. The dragon was a problem, but it was a spectacularly effective distraction. While it occupied the false Seimei and the remnants of the Deep Ones, she could focus on the deeper, more insidious threats.

Some battles were won by knowing when to let the bigger monsters fight each other.

As the Jiao Long’s earth-shaking roars echoed through the city, a new, tangential thought surfaced in Su Yao’s mind, connecting the primordial beast before her to the lingering mystery of Li Xuan’s wife.

Li Xuan’s wife, the mother of his main bloodline, she couldn't have been a dragon, right?

The idea had a certain dramatic appeal. It would certainly explain the sheer, chaotic power and the ‘cursed’ nature of the Li family’s bloodline. Su Yao’s knowledge of dragonkind made her immediately skeptical.

Dragons are among the first and greatest shapeshifters, she mused, watching the Jiao Long effortlessly shrug off a volley of spiritual artillery. Their transformations are flawless, perfect to the smallest detail. A dragon could become a human, and not even another celestial being would be able to tell the difference.

That very flawlessness was their fatal flaw.

They lose their invulnerability when transformed, she reasoned. A dragon in human form gains all the weaknesses of a human. Their immense spiritual power remains, an ocean confined to a teacup, but their physical vessel becomes as breakable as any other mortal's.

It was the ultimate trade-off, and the reason most true dragons considered shapeshifting beneath them. Why would a being of near-absolute power and durability willingly encase itself in a form that could be killed by a fall from a horse or a bad piece of fish?

Li Xuan was many things, but he wasn't suicidal. Taking a dragon as a wife was impossible. She'd be more like a force of nature than a partner.

No, Su Yao concluded. The Li family’s curses are messy, spiritual, and intricate. A dragon’s wrath would have been simpler, cleaner.

The wife was something else. Something perhaps just as powerful, but in a different, more personal and volatile way. A dragon was a cataclysm. Li Xuan’s wife sounded like a beautifully crafted, yet fundamentally unstable, piece of soul-alchemy.

She filed the theory away, discarding it as unlikely. The real answer was still out there, probably even more convoluted than she could imagine. But for now, she had a dragon to observe, a fake Seimei to monitor, and a city that was rapidly turning into a playground for primordial entities.

The mystery of the mad wife would have to wait its turn.