Chapter 267 Offending the Devil!
Fragmented glass shards rained down over the crowds below in a deadly shower as everyone scrambled to safety.
The burst of shock from the crash was so great that the air crackled and reeked of burning ozone.
Still hovering in the air with the help of his exoskeletal winged jetpack, the stranger grunted painfully, his face was now a deathly shade of white as his internal energies boiled and churned uncontrollably inside him. With great difficulty, he fought to suppress the roiling energies in him and calm himself, preventing from internal damage that would make him vomit blood, and managed a shocked glare at Chu Xun.
But a sneer quickly reformed on his face; with no foothold, Chu Xun began to fall.
Only the glee on face froze not even a second later as a long whip glittering with a bright purplish glow wrapped around his waist, pulling him down as well.
The exhaust of his jetpack blazed on afterburner in his vain attempt to stay afloat, but to no avail; he could do nothing to stop himself from falling.
Boom!
Chu Xun landed squarely on his feet with a deafening crash that split the ground while kicking up sand and dirt into the air.
Waving the Reincarnation Whip in his grasp, he yanked it hard, pulling down the stranger with all his might.
With a startled howl, the sudden pull from the whip tore him off midair and into the ground with a powerful slam.
Boom!
The ground shattered with a horrifying crack reaching far and wide, and a wave of dust swept forth in a stampede of horses.
Woosh!
The warriors onlooking the spectacle could not help but draw in a long breath of the chilly night’s breeze. The stranger came down with his face smashed into the ground like the flail of a chain mace that everyone who watched his fate could almost feel the pain themselves as a phantom prickly sensation crawled on their faces.
“C-C-CHU XUN—!” A raspy roar came from the ground and the stranger sprang back up to his feet, looking grimy and unkempt like a beggar.
He might be dirty and dusty, but as a Third-grade Human King, he was nowhere near injured.
“Your hide is really thick,” Chu Xun jeered, “I wonder how you managed to stay uninjured after all that.”
In fact, the stranger was actually a handsome young man looking like in his early thirties. But not even his fair and beautiful skin could prevent his face from twisting hideously with anger and malice.
“Chu the Devil,” he growled, “How dare you launch sneak attacks like some common thief and knave?!”
“Save your embarrassment, you fool!” bellowed Lei Bao sardonically from afar, “You know full well if that was actually a sneak attack!”
“What is your name?” asked Chu Xun.
“Luo Ying,” the stranger revealed proudly.
“Can’t say I’ve heard that name before,” Chu Xun replied.
“...” Luo Ying would have cursed angrily with that remark, if not for the sudden jolt of pain on his chest.
“I told you, you won’t be going anyway. Stay here.”
“Hmph... If not for that dirty trick of yours, what makes you think I’d do as you wish?” Luo Ying hissed stubbornly, still adamantly insisting that Chu Xun ambushed him using nasty methods.
“Very well,” Chu Xun responded calmly, “I’ll attack openly, let’s see if you’d be able to handle it this time.”
Purplish vapors of Immortal Qi began coiling around Chu Xun like a snake as he performed several hand seals, then he launched another punch.
Luo Ying let loose a feral howl, flailing his arms as his Internal Breath roiled in a frenzy. He conjured a three-layered protective aura while driving a punch of his own, firing a bolt of energy.
A blast of Hong Meng Immortal Qi erupted from Chu Xun’s fist, smashing apart Luo Ying’s energy projectile, and continued tearing straight at Luo Ying and hit him in his outstretched arm.
Boom!
A terrible explosion ensued, followed by waves of shocks billowing with a thunderous sweeping force.
Crunch!
Luo Ying howled again; this time with palpable agony and pain, he crashed hundreds of meters away, smashing deep into the ground and his arm now crooked in an impossible and grotesque angle.
“So, what else are you going to say now, you poor little thing?” taunted Lei Bao loudly.
Luo Ying leaped back to his feet, his face convulsing with hatred as a dark look loomed over him, although one could almost make out the disbelief stamped on him as well.
Hardly perturbed, Chu Xun weaved another spell casually with one hand.
Rumble!
The air trembled with the sudden presence of a thick and ancient aura, and a gigantic finger the size of a gargantuan monolith came down with a force of absolute destruction.
And even before it neared, the ground was already cracking and convulsing at its staggering might.
Feeling his scalp tingling from the suffocating presence, Luo Ying howled defiantly as he hastily channeled his Internal Breath. Unnatural gales blew around him, and he leaped up, smiting a fist hard at the gigantic finger bearing down on him.
Boom!
The resultant impact from the clash rocked the earth and broke it into half, whisking up dust and sand that built into a mushroom cloud that rose magnificently into the sky.
A figure flitted out from the epicenter of the blast, his robes all tattered and torn, and blood trickled continuously from the edges of his lips.
For once, Luo Ying felt truly afraid. Chu Xun’s battle strength had clearly exceeded his imagination. Until this day, the strongest foe Chu Xun had managed to defeat were Second-grade Human Kings. That caused the miscalculation, believing that Chu Xun’s strength placed him on par with one of a Third-grade Human King. But what Chu Xun had displayed today showed that he bore at least the powers of a Fourth-grade Human King. On that note, Luo Ying knew he needed to escape. He needed to relay this information to his cohorts and they needed to come up with another plan.
While everyone else was blinded by the fog of sand and dust, Chu Xun, with his Divine Sense, knew the stranger was fleeing. He dashed through the sandstorm, and catching up to the now-wounded Luo Ying could have not been any easier. With another spell, he swung his fist and smote down hard on him before he could escape.
Luo Ying emitted a bestial roar, his eyes bloodshot with red-scarlet veins as he channeled every once of his Internal Breath inside him and his aura spiked to an astonishing level.
Hum!
Another earthshaking collision followed, and Luo Ying crashed into the ground once more, spewing more blood.
Eager to not prolong the fight, Chu Xun followed up with a flurry of punches, sending a devastating barrage of magical bolts – each resembled a purple image of his fist – raining down on the incapacitated Luo Ying.
Bang! Bang! Bang—!
The blasts burst open the ground again and again, shaking the earth incessantly while the entire street was filled with Luo Ying’s dying shrieks.
There was no way he could defend himself against Chu Xun’s mighty powers. With every blow, his bones cracked and shattered.
As they waited for the dust settled, every warrior below watched fearfully in silence that was only otherwise broken by their heavy wheezes and pants as they felt the heat in their limbs ebbing swiftly.
The name of Chu the Devil was not one to be taken lightly.
In the aftermath of that skirmish was a huge crater on the ground and inside it was a badly-bloodied Luo Ying, still lying miserably on the ground, unable to get up.
“So... How are you now, Luo Ying? Are you expecting to win by lying down on the ground?” jeered Lei Bao with hardly any reservation.
“Trash,” growled Luo Ying bitterly with what strength still remaining, “If I fought with you, you’d not even have any chance to escape.”
Lei Bao, brandishing his sword breaker like a toy hammer, strolled near the edge of the crater and looked down contemptuously, teasing, “Well, here I am, standing right here. Let’s have a three-hundred-round bout if you’re still at it? Hmm?”
A good many lips of the crowd of onlooking warriors were twitching uncontrollably with irritation. Lei Bao’s behavior was just so unkind and shameless to the point that many of them would have relished the chance to give him a good walloping. With his injuries now, Luo Ying could not so much as stand up to his feet to win a three-year-old in a fist fight.
“Off with you!” Luo Ying bellowed with immense exasperation.
Lei Bao grinned gleefully, and turned back to greet Chu Xun. “How should we dispose of him, my Lord?”
“Shoot him,” Chu Xun muttered with hardly a rise in his tone.
Such simple words that made everyone who heard him felt their blood run cold.
Still teetering to dear life, a blood-streaked Luo Ying threw up more blood before he whimpered, “Kill me if you will, Chu the Devil! But why humiliate me with something like a firearm!?”
Warriors maintained the pride of living by the sword and dying by one, more so for Luo Ying, a Third-grade Human King and there was hardly any other way of humiliating him except by execution by shooting,
Chu Xun cast a cold glare at him, uttering mockingly, “As if the likes of you are even worth humiliating.” He brusquely turned away and left, waving for Jiu You to follow.
“CHU THE DEVIL! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS! TOMORROW SHALL BE YOUR LAST, AND I AWAIT YOUR ARRIVAL IN HELL!” Luo Ying shrieked as loudly as he could.
Bang!
A huge sword breaker smacked painfully into his head and Luo Ying felt himself going black as he nearly fainted.
“Shut your trap,” snapped Lei Bao. He bent down and pulled one of Luo Ying’s leg, dragging him out of the crater.
Luo Ying would have killed himself if he could; a Third-grade Human King now being dragged on the ground with just as much pride as a sack of filth.
Lei Bao dragged Luo Ying all the way back to the plaza like a triumphant parade for all to see and watch. Luo Ying had never wanted so much to kill himself before at the shame and rage that filled him.
Hushed murmurs and chatter hung over the crowds that gave way like a pall at Luo Ying’s miserable fate. As a Third-grade Human King, he would have been accorded the greatest of respect and dignity for this accomplishment. Yet he had but committed one mistake: provoking Chu Xun, and for that, he was now paying the price for his folly.
“On my mark,” Lei Bao yelled.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
More than a dozen soldiers loaded and cocked their rifles in crisp unison.
The warriors watching could hardly prevent from turning aghast as a cold chill crept up their spine, raising the hair on the backs of their necks.
Even in his death, Luo Ying was subjected to a firing squad. Indeed, whoever serving under Chu Xun were nothing more than manifestations of terror and carnage.
“FIRE!”
The muzzles of the rifles flared with a red flame, and bullets drove through the skull of the now-dead Luo Ying.
Such an inglorious end for a Third-grade Human King, to whom glory and prestige would have been a virtual given.
On this day, due to this incident in Haiqing City, the domain of the Martial Tao Forum simmered heatedly with numerous discussions.
That one would rather offend Hades than offend the very personification of the Devil himself, Chu Xun.
Far away in the capital city, the top official slammed a fist into his desk, hooting jubilantly.
Sitting in a picturesque setting of flower-filled lawn and a quaint little bridge that arched over a bubbling brook, Emperor Ao sipped casually at his tea, murmuring, “Desperate times, desperate means, eh?”
On the contrary, in a secluded valley in the far outskirts of Haiqing City, an unknown figure was seething with rage, firing salvos of magical bolts everywhere in maniacal frenzy that chilly gales churned and whisked around the rockfaces of the valley, shredding any leaves and branches in their path as the shocks from the blasts pulverized boulders into dust.
Enter Luo Fei, the elder brother of Luo Ying’s blood. Upon hearing how his brother had been sentenced to a firing squad, he was filled with so much rage that he succumbed into a beastly delirium of destruction that nearly laid waste to the valley and none of the wild beasts dares to come out, eager to just skulk in the shadows.
“Chu Xun!,” his hoarse cry echoed off the jagged rockfaces of the valley as more energy bolts zapped around like stray lightning bolts, “I’ll destroy you! I, Luo Fei so swear!”
A single strike from a Fourth-grade Human King was enough to rock the earth and make the very air in the skies tremble with fear.
“Chu the Devil... he insulted us...” growled a stranger insidiously inside a darkened room. He pounded a fist into the table in frustration, only to destroy it instead.
“We’d allow him his last bout of havoc. Tomorrow shall be the day he breathes his last.”
“Chu the Devil... Tomorrow, I shall let you taste what is pain and agony.”
One after another, the shadowy figures in the room voiced their hatred and displeasure.
Chu Xun began his solitary meditation as soon as he got back to the army garrison. Knowing full well that he would most likely encounter one of the grittiest of battles tomorrow, he needed to physically recondition himself to top-form.
“What did you say?!”
Yan Chong almost leaped up from his bed when he heard the story. The wound on his abdomen had stopped bleeding and most of his other injuries were fully healed by then.
“He can’t handle that many Human Kings! Ten Third-grade Human Kings and one Fourth-grade Human King?! I must speak to him. He cannot go.”
“It’s nine now,” Lei Bao muttered quietly.
“What do you mean?” gasped Yan Chong.
“That Luo Ying was a Third-grade Human King. With him being killed, that leaves only nine of them.”
“And what is your point?! Does having one less Third-grade make any difference?! All of us put together can’t even bring down one!” Yan Chong bellowed, his eyes livid.
“Why are you yelling at me?!” retorted Lei Bao with annoyance, “His Lordship just gave us an order to stand down. What are we supposed to do?!”
“Then?! Couldn’t you even try to stop him?!” Yan Chong roared again imperiously.
“That is His Lordship’s decision! What makes you think we can stop him!?” Lei Bao thundered.
“All right, enough you two,” said Winsome Widow suddenly, “I think I have an idea.”
“Pray tell.”
Yan Chong and Lei Bao looked at her in unison.
“It takes about six hours to fly to Gujiang City from here on an air conveyance. So altogether that would be twelve hours to and fro. That means we have almost twenty hours until the fight tomorrow.”
“And your point is?”
“His Lordship’s parents are at Qianlong Mountain of Gujiang. If there’s anyone who can’t dissuade His Lordship from attending the duel, I dare say they are the ones.”
Lei Bao and Yan Chong were speechless before their eyes twinkled with agreement, saying, “That’s a really good idea! I best set off at once!”
Jiu You appeared out of nowhere and barred Lei Bao from leaving, “You cannot go.”
“Why? Do you expect us to watch His Lordship to tread into certain peril?” Lei Bao gasped.
“Try bringing Chu Xun’s parents into this, and mark my words, he’d strip you of your powers and banish you from the Chu Mansion,” Jiu You’s babyish voice came with hardly a tinge of hesitation and doubt.
“...” Lei Bao shuddered with apparent dread.
“I’d rather worry about yourselves if I were you,” said Jiu You again, “What you’ve seen from Chu Xun is only the tip of the iceberg which represents his full might.”
“Huh... the tip of an iceberg?!” Lei Bao and his companions wondered if they had heard wrongly.
But they knew better than to doubt Jiu You’s words. She was after all the only one here who knew Chu Xun best.
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