Chapter 373 Overpower
Everywhere in the compound of the Sanctuary, severed limbs and mangled corpses bestrewed the blood-washed flagstones.
The air reeked with the nauseating stench of death and despair.
But more disgusting than all this macabre grisliness was this stranger Kong Yiming.
The man who ordered his men to seize Jing Hong. Did he really intend to abduct Chu Xun’s woman and take her as his own?!
“Filthy scums!” Yan Wushuang bellowed defiantly, “How dare you!?” He would have given anything to fight, but he could not even move an inch with the injuries he had borne.
As was everyone else. No one could do anything but watch with their eyes flaring with frustration and helplessness.
Unfazed, Jing Hong’s beautiful face beheld the approach of the two elderly bodyguards with a steely glare.
“Apologies, lady!”
The two men came in unison, both reaching each of her shoulders.
All of a sudden, she changed. Her frosty countenance melted into a joyous smile that could have made anyone pass out.
The two elderly men hesitated for one split-second before they realized something was wrong. Their senses tingled wildly and their hairs stood on ends, warning them of great danger. Frantically, they howled with fright, channeling their Internal Breath rapidly.
Two purplish jets of energy shot out of nowhere along the horizon, heading straight for the two elderly men.
Boom! Boom!
Two deafening explosions pummeled the ground, tossing up winds and sand.
The elderly men crashed to the ground, screaming with agonizing pain, their arms completely dissolved into morbid pulps of flesh and viscera like meatballs skewered by ivory-white bones.
The whole scene fell into silence so still that one could hear a pin fall.
Whoosh!
A figure came like a bolt of light.
Boom!
Flames swept across the entire vista of the sky overhead; the silhouette of phoenix soared above everyone’s head and behemothic monoliths came crashing down from the sky.
In just one blink of an eye, more than a dozen Zombie Kings died being utterly disintegrated.
“WHO GOES THERE!?”
The Zombie chieftain cried with rage. This stranger had come of nowhere and easily overpowered them all by effortlessly slaying his kinsmen with the ease of crushing to death a little bug.
The chieftain lunged with rushes of black smolders pouring forth in waves, swinging its claws furiously at the stranger.
Bang!
With a crisp bang, the Ninth-grade Zombie chieftain could not believe its eyes. The stranger had easily caught its claws midair!
Urghh!
With a grunt of pain and another spray of greenish ichor, the stranger savagely tore its hand from its wrist.
“ARGGHH!” shrieked the monster in agony. The pain was too much even for a Ninth-grade Zombie King.
Everyone on the battlefield stared wordlessly. Clad in his usual glossy-white robes, the suave and fair man stood tall and proud with his hands held casually behind his back.
Jing Hong was smiling. Yan Wushuang was grinning victoriously, so were Yue Fandie, his sons, and the remaining presbyters and acolytes and students of the Sanctuary who survived.
Sizzle!
The broken hand of the Zombie chieftain burst into flames and reduced into burning embers and ashes.
“WHO ARE YOU!?” demanded the Zombie chieftain.
“Who?! You’ve been clamoring to meet you earlier, didn’t you?!” Yan Wushuang derided loudly.
“The Devil.”
The Zombie chieftain and Kong Yiming breathed in unison, horrified.
“Right oh! Your so-called fame hustler, the Devil!” announced Yan Wushuang derisively like a television talk show host.
Kong Yiming looked at Chu Xun darkly. “So this is the Devil,” he thought, realizing how he had so easily wounded his two Ninth-grade Human King chaperons.
The Zombie chieftain would have had the same look of restrained rancor as Kong Yiming if not for his tough rock-hard facial muscles which prevented him from showing any mode of expression.
Kong Yiming studied Chu Xun, noticing his handsome looks and regal presence that only served to permeate his mind with intense jealousy. Womenfolk never had the monopoly of passion and infatuation for all things beautiful, more so for the race of Peacocks. Chu Xun’s dashing looks and prowess in battle made him the very paragon of all things better than Kong Yiming.
Never once taking his eyes off Chu Xun, Kong Yiming growled, “I am—”
Crack!
A loud and raspy slap of flesh on flesh cracked like a whip. Kong Yiming staggered backward with his mouth frothy with blood as teeth fell out, the force dislocating his jaw.
“Do you wish to suffer the wrath of the Peacock race, Devil!?” yelped one of the elderly chaperons.
Chu Xun said nothing. He turned to face the older man and his aura burgeoned as he cast forth his attack and a purplish “sha” (literally, kill) glyph barreled at him like a cannonball.
The Formula of Kill!
Boom!
The “sha” rune slammed into the elderly man, causing a huge messy burst of blood and strips of flesh. When everyone recovered from the shock, he was gone. The elderly Ninth-grade Human King had been blasted to bits.
“The Peacock race, eh?” smirked Chu Xun, “Should I be concerned?”
The last remaining elderly bodyguard of Kong Yiming opened his mouth as if to speak, but his voice got stuck in his throat. He had long heard of the Devil’s brutal ways and how flippant he could be in killing anyone who dared defy him, and right now, he had witnessed for himself that the rumors were not rumors at all, but fact.
“Do you seriously think you’re to be spared just because you’re quiet?” scoffed Chu Xun smugly.
Boom!
Demon-slain Finger — Scaring All the Gods and Ghosts by the Third Finger!
Even before the last remaining bodyguard could emit so much as a grunt of pain, he was squashed to death like a crushed orange and the ground beneath him split as if making space for a grave for him.
Buzz!
Innumerable strands of Reincarnation Lines materialized like gossamer spider webs around him. With only his mind, Chu Xun willed the Reincarnation Lines forward, hurtling them like an army of purple snakes and serpents at the Zombie host.
Woosh! Woosh!
Greenish ichor splashed around. The Reincarnation Lines as sharp as a thousand scythes and blades, quartered and dismembered the Zombie hosts like a meat grinder, leaving a ground strewn with severed extremities and decapitated heads with their headless corpses.
“DEVIL! WHY YOU!?”
Watching his own kin being cut down like sickled grain filled the Zombie chieftain with indescribable despair and anger that it could only vent out by howling.
“Don’t worry. Your turn’s coming right up.”
Chu Xun muttered nonchalantly with his hands still behind his back as if he was taking a stroll through the park. The countless gossamer strands hovering around him emphasized his divine presence like a god among man.
One after another, the Zombies tumbled lifelessly to the ground. These were once powerful and ferocious Zombie Kings, yet they were utterly defenseless before the Reincarnation Lines that sliced through them with the ease of a hot knife through butter, cleaving off limbs and heads with tremendous efficacy.
“ARGGGHH!” the Zombie chieftain let loose a maniacal roar and lunged for Chu Xun, its claws bearing down on his head.
Bang!
It stared with disbelief. His only-remaining arm now trembling in Chu Xun’s vice-like grasp.
Urghh!
The Zombie chieftain yelped once more with pain and off came its arm, forcibly torn off his shoulder by Chu Xun.
With the blink of an eye, Chu Xun vanished. He danced around the Zombie chieftain, flitting and skittering all around him with the blinding speed of a cyclone.
His hands were still held behind his back. Yet he whirled around speedily and deftly, delivering one kick after another before the Zombie chieftain could react, eliciting an unceasing litany of bone-cracking sounds that accompanied the never-ending howls of the monster as Chu Xun snapped his leg apart bone by bone.
It did not take long for Chu Xun to make short work of his legs, turning them to nothing but a gruesome mess of greenish ichor and sinews. With only its head and torso remaining, the Zombie plopped to the ground like a slab of meat.
“You should not have come,” hissed Chu Xun.
He delivered one final, brutal kick, ripping off the Zombie’s head from its torso and it rolled on the ground.
Chu Xun wheeled around and his eyes flared with a bright purplish glow.
The Eternal Phoenix Scripture!
A phoenix – a flaming avian heralding an inferno that devoured every inch of the sky overhead – flapped its thirty-meter-long wingspan and dove down, bringing death and destruction.
It swooped down at the host of Zombies, engulfing them in a huge firestorm that destroyed them all, leaving none standing.
“Hey, you! That little peacock! Where are you going? Aren’t you even gonna say goodbye?”
Yan Wushuang caught Kong Yiming trying to escape and teased him loudly. Kong Yiming shuddered and froze, rooted in his steps.
The corners of his eyes twitched uncontrollably as he trembled with fear and panic.
He had always believed that Chu Xun found his fame through deception and theatrics. The race of Peacocks had not made themselves known to the world then and Chu Xun only became famous because he reigned supreme in a world where no equal had yet emerged.
But nothing about the rumors were true. Nothing at all – for the Devil was even more brutal and savage than the rumors ever gave him credit for.
“Wait, Devil! I have done no wrong to the Sanctuary! Why did you kill my kinsmen!?”
“What’s this, little peacock? Are you using the strength of your race as a threat towards us?” scoffed Yan Wushuang, “Weren’t you acting all high and mighty earlier? Did you not want to take Chu Xun’s woman for yourself just now?”
Kong Yiming’s lips twitched with annoyance. “I will slaughter this loud-mouthed idiot with my bare hands one day!”
Feigning a smile, he said hastily, “You’ve misunderstood me, Master Yan. I’m sure you know how perilous and intense it was just now. The Zombies were crying for your blood. Saving this lady was the best I could do.”
“Really? So all that was only an act of kindness and compassion?” asked Yan Wushuang with apparent disgust.
“Let Heavens be my witness. Gods forbid the Zombies would have slain every one of you if allowed to. Hence, I did what I could to save as many lives as I could,” lied Kong Yiming impassively with a loud voice.
Yan Wushuang and everyone around stared at him, their eyes bewilderedly large like eggs. “What a shameless scum! He could sprout lies with a straight face!”
“Aren’t you a kind and compassionate one,” scowled Yan Wushuang sarcastically.
Kong Yiming responded with merely a tacit simper. He bowed to Chu Xun, saluting by clasping his fist, and said, “Long I have heard the great name of the Devil and so I have personally come to meet you and convey my respects. Little did I expect to chance upon this carnage and I had hoped to save as many lives as I could.”
Chu Xun stared at him frostily, hardly amused, even though no one could tell what swirled in that mind of his. He looked at Kong Yiming and uttered, “Your true form – is it a peacock?”
Kong Yiming shivered and answered, still holding his salute, “It is.”
“And how did you assume human form?” asked Chu Xun. He was genuinely curious for that Jiu You managed to assume human form only through a magical pill Emperor Ao cooked up himself.
“With the help of the Tree of Transfiguration,” revealed Kong Yiming.
Chu Xun said nothing. He heard of that name before. Trees of Transfiguration were a form of mutated magical trees whose fruits allowed beasts to assume human form after ingesting them.
“Are there many Trees of Transfiguration?” asked Chu Xun. The Trees would pose another problem: there was no telling who could be a transformed beast or not if wild beasts could easily transform and infiltrate human society.
“Not really. We only know of one in the Boundless Forest in the far northeast,” Kong Yiming said candidly.
Chu Xun nodded quietly, knowing for a fact that there must be more than one such Tree.
“I heard peacock meat can be tasty,” blurted Chu Xun.
That sentence sent intense fright and nerve-wracking fear into Kong Yiming. Aghast with terror, he screamed, “What are you talking about, Devil?!”
Boom!
A purplish jet of energy caught Kong Yiming squarely and he crashed to the ground with a squeal with many-colored feathers bursting into the air like confetti.
The blast injured Kong Yiming enough to force him back to his original form – a huge twenty-meter-long peacock.
“Are you serious in wanting to make us your enemies, Devil?!” screeched Kong Yiming frantically in the air.
“Is this really how a peacock looks like? Looks more like an old hen without her feathers,” teased Yan Wushuang. Kong Yiming had lost much of his feathers because of Chu Xun’s blast.
“You should not have come,” hissed Chu Xun with malice.
“I can go wherever I want to, Devil! There’s no way you’ll stop me, a member of the Peacock race!” countered Kong Yiming angrily. He flapped his wings and several thousands of his feathers rained down like arrows.
The razor-sharp feathers glinted like steel in the sunlight, its sheer vast number threatening to rain blood and death down on every survivor below.
He fired his arrow-like feathers and cried shrilly, “Taste the wrath of the Peacock race, Chu Xun!”
With that, he wheeled around and sped away.
Buzz!
A wide canopy of light opened in mid-air like an umbrella and the feathers of steel rained down and bounced off its surface harmlessly like raindrops. Chu Xun stared coldly into the distance and he kicked with his heel. He vanished instantly like a sliver of light. He reappeared at the crest of a mountain and he took another jump that reached almost a thousand meters, landing at the top of another mountain.
Kong Yiming stole a glance backward and the sight of Chu Xun hot on his heels sent enough shock and anxiety through him to turn him into a frightened chicken.
With another leap into the air, Chu Xun swooped down on Kong Yiming like a hawk on its prey, smashing him into a cliff.
With only his will, Chu Xun activated another spell: the Demon-slaughtering Palm!
Boom!
Kong Yiming howled pitifully with pain. Virtually every bone in his limp body was shattered as he plummeted from the sky, smashing into the ground with a huge explosive boom that destroyed the earth below.
“You cannot kill me, Devil! I am a Noble of the Peacock race, the fourth son of the King of Peacocks! Killing will only doom you and your kind!” begged Kong Yiming profusely, his limbs shaking ceaselessly with fear.
Chu Xun smirked, “It is you and the race of Peacocks who have doomed yourselves.”
He raised a hand, amassing enough energy to condense into a saber with a purplish translucent blade. Still hanging in mid-air, he swung his saber of light without mercy, hacking off the peacock’s head and causing a gigantic gush of blood that sprayed for several dozen meters as the peacock’s lifeless head as large as a boulder rolled ponderously to the ground.
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