Chapter 390: Chapter 390
A cold glint flickered in the Emperor’s eyes. “Even you couldn’t find him?”
“Indeed not,” Lu Xuanxian said, still lofty, still pleased with himself.
“We came to offer sacrifice, yet it seems we must first play hide-and-seek with someone.” Off to one side, Zhao Gutong let out a razor-edged coquettish laugh. He drawled out in a sickly, sweet voice, “Then let’s snare our little Peeping Tom, shall we? Your Majesty, grant me leave. I’ll flush him out myself.”
The Emperor nodded. “Very well.”
The man in red funeral robes, Zhao Gutong, flicked both sleeves. Paper effigies whirled into the air, each swelling into a sword-riding Immortal, male and female alike, a dozen in all.
The paper sword Immortals fanned outward, combing the forest.
Circle after circle they searched, then drifted back and slipped into Zhao Gutong’s sleeves.
His face tightened. With a bow to the throne, he said in that nauseatingly silky voice, “Your Majesty, the spy may not even be here.”
Lu Xuanxian let out a booming laugh, voicing his disagreement. “WRONG. I can tell. He’s right here!”
The Emperor’s brows knit. Behind him, 8,000 bear-helmed riders tensed as one. Blades at the ready, murderous intent rolled off them like surf.
This was the Flying Bear Army, the Emperor’s personal blade, now under Lu Xuanxian’s command.
With the grand general at their head, almost no one in the realm dared bar the Imperial road. But when the cavalry rested, they were vulnerable to individual assault. It was fortunate that they had the protection of powerhouses like Lu Xuanxian and Zhao Gutong, or else the regiment would already be a memory.
“Gentlemen,” the Emperor asked, “who do you think our lurker might be?”
“At the very least a powerhouse of the Five Elements Alliance, a heavenly master of the Daoists, perhaps even a deva of the Buddhists. It’s certain that he’s hiding, biding his time…” Zhao Gutong mused softly with a smirk.
The beautiful silver haired youth, Peng Mingyi, laughed. “If he wants to watch, let him watch. Perhaps he’ll like what he sees and join us, help us reshape the world.”
Lu Xuanxian chuckled, swept the area once more with his senses and came up empty. “Deep waters, this one. Don’t jump to conclusions, Imperial Tutor.”
The Emperor’s gaze slid over his entourage. Every last one of them were monsters, apex predators of the continent. Yet not a single one could sniff out this mouse skulking nearby.
Impossible… Ridiculous! He clicked his tongue, his confidence taking an unexpected dent.
He thought for a moment, then said gravely, “The ritual must proceed. Be ready to strike if he dares to attack.”
The Emperor approached the mass grave, set up an altar, laid out offerings, lit incense, and began to chant prayers for the realm in peril, for the Nine Loyal Souls, for peace, and for full bellies and warm clothes for the people.
Li Yuan, hidden in the trees, found it hard not to laugh. Burn, pillage, butcher, and then claim that you’re the army of justice, slaughtering for tomorrow’s peace. How touching…
He kept his eyes lowered, but soon a faint metallic note reached him, followed by heavy footsteps echoing from the depths of the mass grave, the very ghost servant of the ancient hero he had glimpsed before.
It appeared the mass grave was indeed a special ghost domain, a royal trump card, piled up not just by this dynasty but by all the thrones before it. That wronged hero down there was likely a loyal soul who’d traded his life for a ghost body to stand eternal guard.
Such loyalty left Li Yuan unmoved; fame was all it bought. If not for glory, why drag your own men to death with you? He doubted every last subordinate volunteered for the honor.
Still, he hadn’t expected the Empire’s ace to be a ghost domain. And if the Emperor spoke of Nine Loyal Souls, it likely matched the nine provinces of the Great Zhou, meaning each province hid a similar mass grave ghost domain. Different purposes, different rules, but all of them were royal back-ups nonetheless.
Li Yuan was turning the revelation over in his head when a jolt of danger slammed into him. His head snapped up.
A flare of light, fiercer and faster than a shooting star, howled toward him.
“FOUND YOU!” Lu Xuanxian’s triumphant laugh rode the wind.
Li Yuan’s pupils tightened. He’d been watching the Emperor’s ritual, and at last Lu Xuanxian had pinpointed his position. His whole world filled with meteor-bright radiance.
In the meteoric glare, he glimpsed a terrifying silhouette, a lone figure gripping the very tip of a halberd’s shaft. The weapon carved a blinding arc through the air, whistling toward him with murderous force.
The speed was absurd, leagues beyond Li Yuan’s own. The five kilometer stretch of forest vanished in a blink; one thought and the blow was there.
Li Yuan didn’t dodge. He wanted to test himself, see whether he could end this in a single stroke. If he scored a kill, all the better; if not, he would withdraw.
He raised two fingers, activating his chaotic ancestral seal and channeling pure Yang flames throughout his body.
Immediately, a cloak of darkness fell around him, driving back every ray of light and the incoming gale. The shadow swelled into a man-shaped giant standing over 10 feet tall.
Lu Xuanxian was as fierce as a tiger. He hadn’t even reached his target yet, but the pressure of his charge shredded trees and split boulders. Heaven and earth howled; all creation panicked. Only that towering shadow stood unmoved at the heart of the maelstrom, an eyesore of stillness.
“Shield the Emperor!” Zhao Gutong shrieked.
The 8,000 Flying Bear soldiers snapped their blades up, locking shields into a battle wall. Peng Mingyi watched, smiling, refusing to retreat behind the line. The Emperor remained well protected and utterly confident in Lu Xuanxian.
Lu Xuanxian had shared that confidence…until a heartbeat later.
From the windless, lightless shadow burst a lance of scarlet, as radiant as the Sun itself and just as searing to the eyesstar. Behind the red flare surged power without limit, like a tide of molten fire released from a broken dam.
Through the glare Lu Xuanxian finally saw it—not a legendary weapon, but two human fingers.
“Impossible…!” The grand general’s throat bobbed; his pupils pin-pointed.
The fingers flicked once; heaven and earth split apart.
BOOM! A deep-crimson beam ripped past, cleaving forest and mountains in half. Dust rose in thunderclouds; every witness stood slack-jawed. Peng Mingyi slipped behind the others, taking appropriate cover in case his life truly was in danger.
At last a figure staggered from the flaming ravine—armor half-melted, hair singed, and panting hard.
Lu Xuanxian rejoined the entourage outside the entrance of the mass grave, eyes blazing warily at the distance.
The Flying Bear Army, Zhao Gutong, and Peng Minyi all stood at full alert.
More time passed before the smoke thinned.
“He’s gone,” Lu Xuanxian croaked.
“Who was it?” the Emperor asked.
“I don’t know.” Lu Xuanxian could only shake his head.
“Stay sharp,” the Emperor warned. “We’re at the final stage of the plan.”
Li Yuan’s strike had failed to kill, so he simply withdrew. This update is available on n͟o͟v͟e͟l͟f͟i͟r͟e͟.net
That said, it wasn’t because Lu Xuanxian himself was too formidable. When his blow landed, he saw torrents of deathly cold Yin energy gush around the grand general, proof that the man was tied to some ghost.
Without that barrier, Lu Xuanxian might truly have died today.
Sure enough, this age belonged to ghosts. The vaunted Grand Union of Yin and Yang existed only to fatten ghosts.