The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 397 No Use to Man or Beast

Cold and harsh as steel were those words that escaped Chu Xun’s lips. His message was clear: submit and live or die.

“Brazen pup, do you not know Death even when it’s already upon you?” smirked Long Kai.

“I take it that you’re refusing to obey?” said Chu Xun, cold and expressionless.

Long Kai scoffed and nocked an arrow on his bow.

Whoosh!

A two-meter long cast-iron arrow wailed like a banshee as it wheezed towards Chu Xun.

“HOW DARE YOU!” roared Long Qingquan with rage.

Chu Xun waved him down, but his eyes betrayed a hint of malice.

Clank!

The iron arrow shattered into pieces with just a simple swat by Chu Xun with his hand before it even came near.

Everyone gasped. What incredible strength!

“Ao left you in my charge, so I’ll be making the decisions here.”

Before he had even finished, Chu Xun disappeared in a bright flash, bolting up towards the crest of the hill.

Long Kai could not believe it. Chu Xun was just too fast.

“Take him down together!” cried Long Kai to his cohorts.

Some of the men nocked their arrows and three arrows came streaking towards Chu Xun.

The rest of the men followed suit, putting their arrows on and sending a hail of more than a dozen arrows flying through the air.

Clank!

Chu Xun destroyed the arrow Long Kai fired at him and flitted past the arrows like a wraith, evading them effortlessly.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The hail of arrows struck a couple of huge boulders weighing at least several hundred kilograms, smashing them into bits while driving deep into the ground.

But Chu Xun was just too quick. With a couple of breaths, he reached the top and before Long Kai could reload his arrow, a purplish jet of energy came blasting at him.

Long Kai let loose a belligerent scream as he channeled his powers. A bright glow of white enveloped him as he raised his three-meter-long bow and swung it furiously at the purplish jet of energy like a baseball bat.

Boom!

A terrible explosion erupted at the top of the hill, causing winds to toss as a pulse of fume and dust burst out. The force of the impact threw Long Kai backward and he nearly tumbled and rolled off the edge of the tall and precipitous cliff of the hill.

“Impressive powers, but do you think being a Ninth-grade Human King makes you invincible?” growled Chu Xun with ice in his voice, “I’ve killed my fair share of the likes of you.”

As quickly as a bolt of lightning, Chu Xun lunged with his fist clenched and he swung it, firing another energy blast.

Long Kai emitted a bestial howl and he threw himself forward, swinging his bow like a club at Chu Xun’s head with incredible force.

Bang!

Another pulse of shock wave rippled from the point of impact, but Long Kai reeled with disbelief. Chu Xun had caught the huge bow with just one bare hand!

Boom!

Then came the reprisal. Chu Xun’s right fist came out of nowhere like a lightning strike from atop, slamming into his chest, penetrating past his protective aura like it was nothing and the blow came as deafening as a sonorous hit on a drum.

With an anguished shriek, Long Kai crashed to the ground with blood spewing from his mouth as he tumbled down the slopes of the hill.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

More two-meter-long arrows bore down on him with shrill screams ringing through the air.

Unfazed, Chu Xun stared at the arrows and lifted a hand. With unthinkable speed, precision, and agility, he caught every single arrow by their shafts.

He nocked the arrows and pulled hard at the string of the bow.

The bow was Long Kai’s and the arrows from his fellow rebels.

Whoosh!

Chu Xun released the bowstring and the arrows he fired vanished into slivers of light.

“ARGGHH!”

A piercing scream came from the knolly crest of another hill nearby. The arrow Chu Xun had fired drove deep into one of the rebels’ chest, the astonishing force blasted a gaping hole while tossing the cadaver several hundred meters away.

Long Yi and his men were rooted to the spot, petrified with bewilderment.

Long Qingquan and the rest of the elderly seniors were stunned with their mouths hanging.

It was the first time Qi and the rest of the children witnessed anyone dying. Terrified, they began wailing and caterwauling in fear.

The cold and expressionless Chu Xun nocked another arrow and aimed it at another rebel at the top of another hill.

His face spasmed with horror and before he could say anything, Chu Xun fired the next volley.

The rebel summoned his magic and a similar white glow cloaked around him as his aura burgeoned. Desperately, he gripped his bow and hewed it hard at the arrow coming straight at him.

Bang!

Both bow and arrow met, but the bow was blasted off by the awesome force the arrow carried.

“URRGGHH!”

The collision did little to deflect the arrow. It lanced through the rebel’s throat, sending him hurtling lifelessly in the air before crashing down several hundred meters away too.

With his last arrow, Chu Xun took aim at another rebel.

Whoosh!

In one flash, the arrow was gone, tearing across the sky like a comet.

“ARGGHH!” came the defiant roar of the portly rebel from the top of another knoll. He threw himself off the ledge, hoping that he could escape the arrow.

“URRGGHH!”

The iron arrow hit him in the waist, spearing him with so tremendous a force that the impact quartered him into halves, splashing blood everywhere.

And he went silent – silent and dead.

Right at that very moment, all everyone could do was breathe quietly.

“KILL HIM! HE’S OUT OF ARROWS!” Long Kai’s frantic screams echoed in the hills. He was still down with a cavity in his chest from Chu Xun’s blow which had fractured much of his ribs and messed up his insides.

Panic, fear, and indignation were all he could feel. He could see by now that this young man was no push-over and coldblooded enough to kill without hesitation.

A cry came from another hill as a rebel acknowledged the call. He loaded his arrow and pulled his bowstring as tight as he could and fired the shaft at Chu Xun.

The arrow came with enough force to perforate a boulder five hundred kilograms.

Placidly, Chu Xun tugged at the bowstring without an arrow, pulling the string as far as he could before releasing it with a vibrating twang.

Whoosh!

He had not any arrows, but instead, a purplish arrow-like bolt shot from the bow.

Bang!

The iron arrow collided head-on with Chu Xun’s purplish energy bolt and what happened next left everyone speechless: the purplish arrow-like energy shaft sliced through the iron arrow like a hot knife through butter from the tip, dismembering the arrow shaft into four long, broken pieces that began falling from the air.

Bang!

A shower of blood rained down. Chu Xun’s purple energy-forged arrow hit its target and erupted into a huge explosion, blasting the remains of the rebel into a sickening deluge of blood and viscera.

Everyone held their breaths as shivers ran up all over them.

Long Qingquan and his fellow elderly seniors quickly shielded the Qi and the children and kept their eyes covered from watching the grisly and morbid scene.

Whoosh!

Chu Xun fired another purple energy bolt using the bow.

Bang!

The blow killed another rebel, reducing him into another gruesome explosion of gore. Even the iron bow he was holding was destroyed into splinters.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

More purplish bolts shot into the air, lighting up the sky with sparkling glitters like fireworks.

But the beautiful display of lights resulted only in horrendous fates for the rebels; the bolts rained down death on every single one of them that not even their remains could be found.

“P-please, Master Chu Xun! Please! Have mercy! We yield!”

Of the dozen or so rebels that looked to Long Kai as their captain, only three remained, shaking down to their very bones as they threw themselves to the ground for cover, begging for their lives.

Chu Xun held aloft the three-meter-long bow with steely frost in his gaze, his fingers drawing the taut bowstring so tightly that the bow was practically groaning. Any more force and the cast-iron bow could snap.

“Ah, I forget. I have a moniker that everyone in the outside world knows of: the Devil.”

Whoosh!

Chu Xun let go of the string and another purplish bolt soared into the air and another rebel was killed.

“Please, Master Chu Xun! They have been fools! But please, I beg for mercy!”

Long Qingquan cried anguishedly. Never in tens of millions of years had anyone from Silver Dragonsville being so callously shot down one by one like wild dogs before.

“For ages, you’ve enjoyed Emperor Ao’s protections and benefices in a domain of your own. An environment where you have been safe without threat or disturbance from others. A hidden paradise. Yet instead of gratefulness, you’ve grown restless and became rebellious. A sacrilege where there can be no absolution.”

“Perhaps you’ve been too peaceful and too complacent and you’ve begun to forsake the traditions and teachings of your forebears to worship Emperor Ao. This makes you no use to both man and beast. If you must know, alien races have begun emerging in the world outside and mutated wild beasts now trample upon the livelihoods of the people outside. Life is hell out there. The things that many would give to have a safe haven like what you have, I wonder.”

“And since you no longer appreciate the gifts you have been bestowed, you have forfeited your lives and your place here. To some, I can be as benevolent as a deity. But to you, I am the very incarnation of the real Devil itself.”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two more bright jets of light shot into the air.

Bang! Bang!

So ended the lives of the two remaining rebels, blasted into nothingness.

Long Qingquan’s lips quivered as if to speak, but his voice failed him at the horrific sight unfolding before his ancient eyes.

Chu Xun leaped off the crest of the hill and strode towards Long Kai.

“All those deaths are your responsibility,” said Chu Xun unemotionally.

Long Kai’s aghast face writhed with disbelief, discontent, resentment, and remorse.

“Kill me!” he cried, closing his eyes.

“I might spare you,” said Chu Xun suddenly.

Long Kai’s eyes blinked open, replete with hope.

“Thank you for your mercy, Master Chu Xun! I, Long Kai, hereby swear fealty to you! Your wish shall be my command or let Heaven strike me—”

“URRGGHH!”

In a purplish flash of light, blood spattered to the ground and Long Kai’s head fell off his torso, his eyes still wide with incredulity.

Every pair of eyes, fraught with horror and bewilderment, turned to Chu Xun

“Instead of feeling angry and regretful for the deaths of his companions, he became so overjoyed with hope at the slightest hint of survival that even I find disgusting. A person who had forsaken Emperor Ao and his own comrades will never win my trust,” said Chu Xun to the headless corpse of Long Kai frostily.

“Clear up the mess and assemble here in fifteen,” Chu Xun ordered Long Yi.

“At once, sir!” responded Long Yi without any hesitation.

Chu Xun gave an approving nod, satisfied with Long Yi’s quick compliance to his orders. He would have immediately killed him on the spot if the latter had but only showed one moment of doubt.

No point calling the Silver Dragon Guard elite if they would even hesitate in following simple orders.

Even though Chu Xun was nowhere near pleased with the present crop of the Guard.

Long Yi did as he was told, leading his men to clear up all the dead bodies strewn everywhere.

Chu Xun took the time to stride towards the lake to examine the Spirit Flux. Magical liquids like this usually did not come in huge supply. In fact, the Spirit Basin at Yan Wushuang’s family estate reached barely several meters wide, producing only a scarce amount of Spirit Flux yearly.

Chu Xun projected his Divine Sense. His astral projection dove deep into the bottom of the lake where he found a Spirit Vein right underneath the lake. The proximity of the Spirit Vein allowed the production of such vast amounts of Spirit Flux and that must be why Emperor Ao chose this spot to relocate the forebears of the Silver Dragon Guard here. Knowing that the Spirit Vein represented the source of the strengths and powers of the people of Silver Dragonsville, Chu Xun decided against doing anything to tamper with it.

He turned around just in time to see Qi and the children peering at him fearfully behind Long Qingquan’s back. They ducked frantically when they saw him looking at them with fright.

“Come,” Chu Xun waved at them.

Qi and his friends stood frozen with horror spasming on their faces. Chu Xun was no longer the Nice Big Brother who once saved them.

“Go on, Qi. Master Chu Xun will never hurt you,” urged Long Qingquan.

Still shivering, Qi and his friends shuffled uneasily over in slow piecemeal strides.

“You think that I’m too brutal, don’t you?” said Chu Xun to the children, sitting beside the lake.

But Qi was a boy with a mind of his own. Chu Xun had killed those men just now with the indifference of a butcher slaughtering some chickens. It was the first time he witnessed something as merciless and gruff as this.

“This is the first time you see people dying?” asked Chu Xun.

The children all bobbed their heads.

“Do you know how good and peaceful is life here?” sighed Chu Xun morosely, “People die as easily as flies in the real world outside. By the hundreds and thousands, in fact. Just not long ago, a Peacock monster came out of nowhere and killed more than a hundred thousand people. A wolf-like monster killed just as many people in one single night too. The blood of those people flowed on the streets like rivers. Can you imagine how horrible is that?”

The children’s eyes went wide as they listened. They could not comprehend how many was a hundred thousand people, only that it must be a whole lot of people.

“Those fools just now. They wish to venture outside. But what if people outside find out about the existence of this safe haven because of them? What will happen to your village? What will happen to your parents, your brothers and sisters, and your friends? They might die, that’s what.”

The children bobbed their heads again, struggling to understand.

“You’re still children,” chuckled Chu Xun, “It’s not fair to expect you to understand these things. But remember what I say. Perhaps when you grow up, you’ll understand you need to be decisive in eliminating bad people, and just as steadfast in protecting good people that need your help.”

“I know!” squeaked Qi suddenly, “Pi and I and my friends are good people. That is why you saved us, is that it Big Brother? Uncle Long Kai had turned bad people, that is why you had to kill them. Am I right?”

Chu Xun chuckled and nodded.

“I’ll be like you, Big Brother. When I grow up, I’ll keep the good people safe and kill all bad people,” vowed Qi firmly.

Chu Xun stroked his hair. “Then you’ll have to work hard. You need to be strong enough to come with me on quests to defeat bad people.”

The children nodded their heads fiercely.