The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 272 What A Huge Spider!

Spurts of golden shafts hung in the sky, each carrying indomitable and destructive power of its own.

Bo Ping cried out in agony and rage. If only he could have Chu Xun grounded into dust, he cursed quietly.

Without the protection of his stone brazier Sacred Relic which Chu Xun had destroyed, hundreds of golden energy bolts swarmed in on him like a hive full of bees, perforating him with zero mercy, reducing him to nothing but a mangled and bloodied heap.

“ARRRGGGHHH!”

He let loose a bestial howl before magically conjuring a deep scarlet-red war banner. He swung it furiously with what might he still had and from the puddle of his own blood. A macabre vapor in the deep-red hue of blood rose and formed into a magical barrier, keeping him behind to protect.

Chu Xun’s eyes however caught something else: an obsidian-black ring on Bo Ping’s finger.

A Storage Ring.

To his astonishment, the Bloody Banner was a Top-grade Immortal Weapon and an evil one at that. He could feel as if his blood was rushing to escape from his own body when Bo Ping was waving it.

More golden shafts rained from the sky. But instead of piercing down like a thousand spears, they pummeled savagely at the blood-red mist, creating only massive shock waves but none of them were able to penetrate the magical barrier.

It seemed that everyone had had their own fair share of adventures and fortuitous encounters, Chu Xun observed quietly.

He narrowed his eyes and charged, swinging his golden staff hard on the magical barrier of the Bloody Banner.

Rumble!

His hit caused only a ripple on the red, misty surface of the magical barrier. It was useless.

He began to fully appreciate the potent defensive capability of this Immortal Weapon. What a waste for Bo Ping to have it, he mused sourly. It might be evil in nature, but there was no denying its remarkable sturdiness.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT, CHU THE DEVIL!? YOU WANT US BOTH TO DIE HERE?!” Bo Ping bellowed. The more he realized, the more he felt Chu Xun was a madman who, even in such a grim situation, never wavered from wanting to kill him.

“You’re thinking too much,” muttered Chu Xun frostily, although he was burning with greed. He wanted to have Bo Ping’s Storage Ring and he daresay Bo Ping must have hoarded great treasures or tools inside.

Chu Xun’s golden staff shone, the Immortal Qi imbuing it swirling more quickly and vigorously. Lifting it over his head, Chu Xun brought it down again fiercely.

Bang!

Bo Ping felt the banner shuddering wildly in his hands. The golden bell that Luo Fei used before was also of similar grade – a Top-grade Immortal Weapon too, but Chu Xun was able to destroy it.

The Bloody Banner might be of greater quality compared to the bell, yet all the difference would amount to nothing before the golden staff fashioned from the tail bone of the Ancestral Dragon.

Bang!

Chu Xun spun the staff over his head for another round and pounded hard again on the red misty barrier. The Bloody Banner shook again, only more wildly, but more golden shafts slammed into Chu Xun, injuring him as well.

“Do you not fear death, Chu the Devil?!” Bo Ping screamed, already half-mad. The magic of the Bloody Banner might be protecting him, but with Chu Xun hammering incessantly on it, stirring up one shock wave after another, he could hardly gain any respite much less heal himself. In fact, the waves were causing more internal damage to him and he bled even more.

Unfazed, Chu Xun brandished his staff again and again, battering on the barrier of the Bloody Banner with dogged ruthlessness.

The Bloody Banner trembled uncontrollably and the blood-red mist barrier defending Bo Ping began to thin as if it would crumble any time.

“Y-Y-You! H-H-How dare you, Chu the Devil!” Bo Ping bellowed, helpless and exasperated. His tightly gripped on the handle of the Banner, and he waved it frantically at Chu Xun.

The red misty barrier vanished. The blood congealed instead into a mass of blood that shot straight at Chu Xun, assuming the image of a demon’s head.

Purplish glows flared in Chu Xun’s eyes. The Bloody Banner was indeed a powerful item, he acknowledged. He had not been wrong; whenever it was used, he could feel as if his own blood was answering to its call.

Whoosh!

Chu Xun swung his staff heatedly and gold-purplish sparkles trailed behind its movements like a tail.

Bang!

The demonic conjuration slammed into the golden staff and was effortlessly destroyed.

“ARRGGGHHH!” Bo Ping was screaming. With the magical barrier of the Bloody Banner momentarily undone when he was waving his banner, a few golden energy bolts drove through him, rendering him even more maimed.

Ignoring everything, Chu Xun continued clubbing at the reconstructed red mist barrier with all the ferocity he could muster.

Bang! Bang...!

Again, the Bloody Banner trembled violently and the mist-like barrier began to thin.

Chu Xun clenched his fist and swung hard, firing a purplish energy blast at the scarlet translucent barrier.

Boom!

The Bloody Banner exploded and Chu Xun could have sworn that he heard the shrill wails of demons or spirits in the eruption.

More golden shafts came teeming over them. Bo Ping dragged his wearied and battered self to his best to escape the blows, but to no avail; blood squirted out from everywhere, accompanied by his incessant shrieks.

Gorily blood-soaked himself, Chu Xun at least could defend himself. Waving his golden staff to deflect away the golden shafts raining on him, he dashed towards Bo Ping with his fists raised up to strike.

“Chu the Devil... You’ll pay for this...” With his death so terrible beyond imagination, Bo Ping cursed venomously, coughing out another gulp of blood.

“ARRGGHH!” The Fifth-grade Human King howled again. Without the protection of the Bloody Banner, he looked no better than a blood-drenched honeycomb with more golden shafts boring more holes through him. The fact that he was still alive, all thanks to the unbelievable endurance native to Fifth-grade Human Kings, was a marvel upon itself.

“Let’s see who’s going to die first,” remarked Chu Xun sardonically, batting away another golden shaft before he lunged at Bo Ping.

Boom!

Wrecked, maimed, and impaired, Bo Ping could not so much as stand still than defend himself. The golden staff swatted at him like a fly, sending him flying into the air and a few golden energy bolts hurtled by, nearly hitting his head.

Giving chase, Chu Xun caught up to him and swung his staff again, batting him like a baseball in midair.

Boom!

With another agonizing scream, Bo Ping crashed into the ground with half of his body sunken into the ground, a bloody mass of flesh and viscera.

In his voice, there was anger, frustration, exasperation, and resentment.

“Chu the Devil... You’ll die... You’ll die in a way so terrible that you’d hope you’re never alive at all...”

Bo Ping cursed with as much bitterness as what a vengeful spirit could have.

Never had he foreseen such fate to befall him, a Fifth-grade Human King. Instead of coming to rescue Luo Fei, he was going to die too instead.

But Chu Xun carried on his rampaging streak with hardly heed at all to Bo Ping’s outbursts.

Boom!

Sand and dust permeated the very air in the surroundings as the ground continued splitting. Bo Ping spewed more blood, and he was sinking deeper into the ground.

Flailing his staff to smack away any golden shafts that came near, Chu Xun inched slowly towards Bo Ping. With lightning-quick reflexes, he reached for Bo Ping’s hand, feeling eager to strip the Storage Ring off his fingers.

Being no stranger to deceits and intrigue, Bo Ping knew what he was after. He roused up his Internal Breath and fired a blast at Chu Xun.

Chu Xun easily avoided the attack, but it gave Bo Ping the chance he needed to free himself from the ground. He slid the ring off his finger and grinned wickedly, “So this is what you’re after, Chu the Devil?”

Chu Xun twisted his lips into a sardonic smirk, “What I want is your life.”

Before he even finished, the golden staff came arcing over in a deadly curve, bearing down on Bo Ping.

Boom!

Bo Ping wailed again in pain, belching more blood as he tumbled some distance away.

Woosh!

Blood jetted out in the form of fine red droplets and Bo Ping let loose another howl; one of the golden shafts came down just in time to slice off his arm.

Chu Xun dove just in time and seized the severed arm – the arm in which the fingers still held the Storage Ring.

All with no effort at all, Chu Xun mused gleefully.

He removed the Storage Ring and tossed the broken arm as he would with a sack of filth, and it was quickly shredded by a volley of golden shafts like sharks in bloody water.

“Give it back!” Bo Ping yelled hoarsely, still teetering to dear life despite his grievous wounds.

“If you want it, come get it yourself,” Chu Xun hissed frostily.

Dragging himself like a wounded dog on the ground, Bo Ping did his best to stay low, although a golden energy bolt would shoot dangerously close to his head every now and then, nearly killing him.

“You filthy scum, Chu the Devil... You’ll pay for this... I swear...”

Glaring down at his foe coldly, Chu Xun stepped up to him and the golden staff slammed down with a boom.

Crack!

Bo Ping’s spine cracked into splinters with a series of sickening crunches of bones breaking.

“I might die, but not before you do,” Chu Xun muttered before raising his staff and batted Bo Ping away like a golf ball.

“ARRRGGGHHH!”

Bo Ping’s final cry of defiance and anguish turned out to be a short-lived one as his already-mangled body was quickly slashed into ribbons in just a matter of seconds.

“Seems like yours is terrible enough,” Chu Xun remarked ironically. His arms neither stopped nor stayed; he now fully devoted all of his facility to swatting away any golden energy bolts now coming for him.

He tried retreating slowly as he whacked at one golden bolt after another. But the golden shafts – or rather, this mountain, or whatever it was – seemed to have a sentience of its own. Another volley of golden shafts flew over him instead, barring his retreat as if reading his mind.

Thousands of meters away from the mountain, the warriors whom Chu Xun had rescued and who were fortunate enough to stay safe watched from afar. From their positions, all they could see was the never-ending hailstorm of golden shafts and nothing more.

“I wonder how Immortal Chu is faring inside,” wondered one of the warriors that Chu Xun rescued earlier aloud.

“Look at that storm of golden bolts raining down... No one can possibly survive that... Not even a Human-Immortal. For all we know, Chu the Devil might have already breathed his last in there,” said another voice.

“Fool, what do you take him for? Since when had you ever heard of him losing?”

“You’re right. If he can save us, what makes you think he can’t save himself too?”

Chatters and debates began droning amongst the horde of warriors watching the events.

But Chu Xun was now between the anvil and the hammer. Bashing endlessly at the golden shafts with his golden staff while basking in the sparkling trails that followed its every motion was the most he could do for now.

What should I do?

Chu Xun raked his mind, gravely in need of a solution.

His gaze panned up and fell on the huge mountain. Since he could not retreat, why not march forward head-on?

Swinging his golden staff defensively, he began moving towards the great mountain.

When he got up the mountain, he channeled his Hong Meng Immortal Qi, imbuing it into his weapon and he smote one of the vertical eyes.

Boom!

A terrible shock wave of gold rippled from the point of impact.

Crack!

Chu Xun’s powerful blow managed to yield a long, deep gash on the eye.

Encouraged by the outcome, Chu Xun bashed again and again at the vertical eye.

Boom!

With a burst, the vertical eye erupted, having been decimated by Chu Xun.

Despite the joy of glimpsing success, Chu Xun nevertheless beheld the rest of the eyes with a dismal gloom; there were just too many eyes, even though he possessed the ability to destroy any of them.

He set his sights on another vertical eye and pounced at it, pounding his golden staff at it.

Then the unexpected took place: the vertical eye closed suddenly, vanishing into thin air. Missing it just by a split-second, Chu Xun hit the ground instead, and his hands throbbed numbly with pain as a result.

“Ah...”

A deep, booming but disembodied groan reverberated suddenly around Chu Xun.

It came out of nowhere, leaving Chu Xun startled and spooked.

He did not hear wrongly; the voice did indeed come from this shining mountain.

“Who, or what, are you?” Chu Xun asked tersely. His grip on his staff tightened as he reeled with disbelief at the fact that the mountain was alive.

“Ahhhh...”

The sighing groan came again and the mere rumble of it was enough to make Chu Xun’s hair stand.

“WHO ARE YOU!?” Chu Xun demanded again. His hands were beginning to be slick with sweat.

He could very well just destroy anything dead or not living. But something alive, that was a wholly different story. With a mind of its own, he might not even be able to escape if he failed to defeat it.

Just then, the thousands of vertical eyes closed suddenly, and the devastating deluge of golden shafts finally came to an end.

But before he could react, a fine golden threat burst from the ground, coiling around him and incapacitating him.

Boom!

In his panic, Chu Xun released a powerful burst of Hong Meng Immortal Qi. As his body convulsed uncontrollably at the sudden eruption of concentrated energy from within himself, he could feel his 206 bones vibrating and his insides pulsating violently as if in resonance.

Only, it was all for naught; nothing he did could free him from the bounds of the golden threads.

The fine threads of gold tugged suddenly, yanking him off his feet and hurling him a thousand meters away.

Chu Xun was still dazed at the toughness of the golden threads. The Hong Meng Immortal Qi he embodied was more powerful than usual True Energies, yet it could do nothing to damage these threads.

Boom!

The ground shuddered so greatly that the surrounding peaks nearly collapsed on their foundations.

Chu Xun no longer wore his usually placid composure; instead, he gawked with amazement as the huge mountain now shining in gold began moving. It began rising and rose tens of meters into the air.

And that was not all; the mountain even had legs! Eight long, golden legs that soared into the air like skyscrapers, lifting up the huge mountain. Whatever this thing was, it began to move and each time a leg moved, the earth would tremble as if in fear.

The horde of warriors who survived the first onslaught watched from afar, their mouths wide in bewilderment and horror.

Not even Chu Xun himself could refrain from feeling awed and shocked. He might not be as dumbfounded as the warriors, but he could not hold back his heart from pounding hard and fast.

“What a huge spider,” he murmured.

It was no mountain at all, but a monstrously behemothic spider in gold.

Never had he seen any spider so huge and gargantuan before in all of his three-thousand-year lifetime in the other dimension.