The Immortal Emperor Returns C240 – The Stampede

Chu Xun looked hardly surprised with a wry grin on his face.

Yan Chong, however, was left stunned. He stared incredulous at Lei Bao and Winsome Widow, wondering what happened.

Then his face took a turn and a vulgar grin broke on his face when he peered at Lei Bao. He knew that the latter had always harbored feelings towards Winsome Widow. Was he trying to force himself upon her and failed in doing so?

Winsome Widow's chest rose and fell as she breathed deeply, and the sight of her unkempt and mussed-up hair, the sweet-scented sweat that slicked her back, and her flushed-red cheeks could make any man forget his manners.

“Lei,” Yan Chong growled depravedly, raising a thumbs-up.

That surprised Lei Bao, who, at first, failed to understand him. It took only a beat, and after seeing the obscene grin on his face, Lei Bao finally caught the gist and grew so angry he nearly lost control.

“You should mind your manners, Lei. Especially in front of a child.”

Struggling to keep his rage in check, Lei Bao snarled in a low voice, “Can't you see, you fool? I was beaten.”

“Of course you're beaten. I can see that real well,” replied Yan Chong, still misunderstanding, “But you should look for a better time than to force yourself on her in front of a child. Do you want His Lordship to punish you?”

“You idiot,” Lei Bao scowled, his temper bursting, “You goddamned idiot, it was that 'child' that you spoke of who had given me a wallop!”

“Huh...” Yan Chong could not quite believe his ears. In denial, he raised his thumb again, “Gods, I never took you for such a good liar.”

Lei Bao's swollen slit eyes almost shot wide as he nearly roared in anger, only to begin grimacing with pain.

Yan Chong spun away and said to Chu Xun, “Shall we depart now, my Lord?”

And Chu Xun nodded slightly.

The company of eight set off together a half-hour later. Alongside Chu Xun, Jiu You, and the trio of Yan Chong, Lei Bao, and Winsome Widow, the latter three each brought with them a member from their respective squads, all of them mid-Human Kings.

With the anomalies occurring everywhere and the rampage of mutated wild beasts, there was no direct line to Longcheng City. They needed to first detour to Guangyang City, a settlement a few hundreds of miles away from their destination where they would have to change to carriages for the final leg of their journey.

It took them one whole day for them to reach Guangyang City. Thrice they were assailed by wild beasts, but fortunately, the flying conveyance they rode on was equipped with the latest defense apparatuses and Chu Xun and his companions needed not to fight.

Settlements around the world had undergone huge change since the anomalies began and more smaller villages had moved to cluster themselves close to larger cities. Before long, the sizes of the cities grew and the once-strange combination of tall mountains, lumbering spires and towers, and high-reaching trees had become a norm for most major settlements.

“My Lord, do you wish to stop here for a day, or should we just continue straight for Longcheng?” asked Yan Chong, beginning to sound like a chamberlain.

“To Longcheng now,” replied Chu Xun.

Chu Xun could not bear waiting any longer to quickly get his hands on the Soul-Curing Flower.

Yan Chong hired a lavish carriage and they sped towards Longcheng without further ado.

Traffic on the roads leading to Longcheng was heavy all the way with scores of travelers and other coaches. Most of the people moving towards Longcheng were all warriors, their purpose undoubtedly the ancient ruins.

They reached almost a hundred kilometers and the scenery around them gave way to barren fields and sparse vegetation that every so often came with the roars of ferocious wild beasts lurking unseen. White bony remains from unfortunate travelers devoured by these beasts littered the sides of the road and some of them were large and terrifying to clap eyes on.

They passed by some dilapidated villages and Chu Xun caught the glimpse of some huge wild beasts never before seen anywhere around the world.

Swoosh!

A sudden unnatural wind blew and huge shadows blotted out the Sun. A gigantic harrier the size of a wide field spread its wings in a swooping descent down. With its talons, it seized an off-road coach and swept it up into midair before releasing it.

The vehicle plummeted to the ground and crashed, exploding with everyone inside dying instantly before they could even understand what happened.

The black monster bird was so large every feather was the size of an adult's palm, each of them giving off a cold metallic sheen. The bird wheeled back down, its obsidian eyes filled with fury.

“Blasted animal,” bellowed a voice.

The shadows of a figure shot into the air, and he punched at the direction of the incoming animal, sending ropes of chains forged of his Inner Breath energies at it.

With its limited mobility due to its size, the mammoth bird could not evade the attack and an explosion struck it squarely in its chest. The wounded bird rolled several times in the air, emitting a few guttural screeches of pain and it fled, flying away.

Everyone who had seen what happened could not help but feel their backs prickly with fear. Whoever it was, the stranger was undoubtedly a Ninth-Grade Grandmaster. Yet even his great strength could neither injure nor harm the gigantic hawk one bit and driving it away was the most that he could do.

Roar!

A gargantuan black bear emerged from the dense thickets, lumbering at tens of meters tall, charging quickly like a black cyclone. Tongues of foul energies imbued its sturdy hide, enabling it to stomp up to a Range Rover and knocked it over.

It lunged. Brandishing its razor-sharp claws, the beast easily ripped off the roof of the coach and clawed out the three helpless warriors inside and chomped down on one of them like he was a slab of meat.

The warriors were by no means weak nor uninitiated. Yet, in the face of the monster bear's ferocity, they could find not even the will or power to resist and the poor dead warrior's comrades, frightened beyond wits at the grisly manner of their friend's death, wallowed in a fecal pool of their own making.

Before the monster bear could sink its fangs into one of the remaining warriors, the snarl of an elderly man stopped it who threw himself forward and fought against it. After a fierce battle, he finally managed to drive it away, but not before taking a terrible swipe at his shoulder and blood poured profusely from the brutal lacerations.

“Gods, these beasts are getting more dangerous by the minute,” Yan Chong observed.

“What do you mean?” asked Chu Xun.

“We've had our fair share of hunting these beasts down before. At first, any team with a First-Grade Grandmaster leading them could easily strike down these animals. But it has only been a little more than a year, and now, I guess even an Eight-Grade Grandmaster should count himself lucky to emerge with his life still intact.”

The elderly man who had been the salvation of the two warrior survivors was exactly that: an Eight-Grade Grandmaster and he was so close to losing an arm.

“Skulking in the deep recesses of the wilderness and mountains allows these beasts to encounter various rare resources and opportunities that helped them become stronger quickly,” said Winsome Widow.

“Once, these beasts would try to avoid us humans. But now, they hunt and attack us like predators on prey,” added Lei Bao with a sigh.

Chu Xun mulled in silence. “With the quick shifts occurring around the world, is this actually a blessing or a curse for us?”

Suddenly, in a distance ahead, flames shot up the sky in a terrible explosion that shook the ground. Distracted, Yan Chong nearly ran the carriage into the one in front without looking.

“Let me go have a look,” he said. He got off and leaped on top of the roof to have a better vantage point.

Everyone else disembarked their vehicles, curious about what happened too.

Boom! Boom!

More explosions ensued.

“We need to get off at once, my Lord,” said Yan Chong when he came back, sounding rather grim.

Chu Xun got out of the carriage quickly and they looked into the distance and what they saw made their expressions shift.

Far ahead, they saw a frenzied blur of black, all of them being an infinite gob of beasts rushing together.

“Th-That's... a stampede...” screamed a warrior from his perch atop a carriage roof.

“It's a stampede! RUN!”

The entire highway had hundreds of carriages and coaches and nearly a thousand warriors, to say the least.

But coming towards them was a never-ending, blackened mob of frenzied beasts that stretched far away into the horizon that was accompanied also by flying predators overhead.

The huge stampede numbed everyone with shock and panic.

Rhinoceroses the size of hills and barrows charged at the front like armored chariots, their horns gleaming dangerously at several meters long. One after another, they effortlessly tossed aside any carriages in their way, storming through the explosions that ensued with reckless abandon.

With the herd of rhinoceroses as vanguard, the rest of the stampede behind kept up; a multitudinous stream of bloodthirsty beasts gaining more and more speed.

Routed, scores of warriors panicked and ran. Screams of horror and shrieks of pain intertwined into cacophonic chaos.

Chirp!

A bald eagle, with wings spanning more than tens of meters wide, leveled the crest of a hill with a wave of its wings, eliciting a landslide causing more devastating damage.

Out of the boughs of the woods, a woodpecker the size of a dining table, with feathers brilliantly-colored like a rainbow and a long, slender beak, flew out and it bore down on the warriors with an unfriendly glint in its eyes.

Puff!

A fountain of blood burst in midair with feathers spread in the air like confetti. The woodpecker was in the gigantic bald eagle's way and had been torn to shreds.

The bald eagle reigned like the lord of the skies and all other flying beasts knew better to escape its wrath.

It screamed down like a bolt of lightning, skimming just over the surface of the ground, kicking up sand and dirt in its wake.

A few Seventh-Grade and Eight-Grade Grandmasters rallied as one and attacked in unison, throwing forth martial skills and magic bolts forged of their Inner Breaths at the monster bird. Sparks flew from their attack, followed closely din of metal on metal, yet still, the monstrous bald eagle flew on, hardly wounded nor its feathers ruffled at all.

The eagle retaliated. It spread its wings and flung out tens of thousands of feathers like arrows and bolts, slicing and maiming the Grandmasters into gruesome ribbons and mists of blood and viscera.

Boom!

A powerful Sword Qi bullet came screaming through the air, setting off a string of sonic booms on its way and slammed into the giant eagle.

A Human King had entered the fray.

Clank!

A mist of blood came from the bald eagle's right wing and the air was filled with the fluff of its feathers stained red by the blood that gushed out of a hideous wound caused by the Sword Qi attack.

The wounded beast let loose a harsh, high-pitched screech thick with hatred and anger. It flew away, but not far away. Circling up overhead, it waited for another opportunity to strike.

“We should withdraw now, my Lord,” urged Yan Chong. It was dangerous to try to stop the stampede head-on, even for one as powerful as a Human King.

“Let us go then,” agreed Chu Xun readily.

And the company immediately retreated to safer grounds.

Only, it did not take long for the retreating crowd to succumb to more panic when more beasts began assailing the travelers from both flanks of the highway.

The attacks came very quickly. A leopard with golden hide, reaching at least three to four meters in length, could easily make leaps tens of meters long. Like a golden bolt of lightning, it zapped among the horde of travelers and warriors and easily ripped open the stomach of a First-Grade Grandmaster, leaving him a nasty and bloody wound.

Next, it swung around and pounced at another Grandmaster. Only this time, before it could do more damage, it was struck down with a direct blow to its head.

Not far away at a dozen meters away, a pack of wolves with a greenish hue to their gray coats of fur, every one of them almost the size of oxen with sharp fangs and fierce, penetrating gazes, massacred scores of warriors in just matters of seconds, leaving a macabre scene of blood and gore.

But with the help of more than ten Grandmasters, the wolves were quickly exterminated.

Roar!

A giant black-backed gorilla, at least ten meters tall, pounded its chest as it released a feral roar. It began charging forward, sending a carriage in its way flying with just a single punch.

Its eyes were a complete scarlet shade of blood and drool escaped hungrily out of its mouth when it set its sights on a female warrior and it swung its large, furry hands at her.

“Insolent beast.”

Unbeknownst to it, beside the female warrior stood an Eighth-Grade Grandmaster. The elderly maven took into the sky and slapped a fist from afar, sending a sharp jet of white light that shot straight from the center of his palm at his quarry.

The gorilla vented a roar of rage and allowed his chest to take the blast. It emerged unscathed after an explosion, only to swing a fist the size of a table at the elderly man in retaliation.

Bang!

The old man flew, careening into a heap on the ground churning mouthfuls of blood.

The wild, bipedal beast pounded its chest triumphantly and seized the female warrior before she could escape and shoved her into its mouth.

“Lei Bao,” ordered Chu Xun quietly.

Lei Bao immediately understood his lord's wordless command. He flew into the air with his fists raised aloft, brandishing a lightning bolt in his grasp and he sent it down like a javelin, striking hard at the gigantic gorilla's arm.

Blood sprayed into the air with a sickening sizzle of flesh burning and the gorilla howled with agony. With the pain shooting up its scorched, blacked limb, the gigantic gorilla could only release its hold and the female warrior fell down until Lei Bao caught her by the arm and tossed her far away to safety.

Roar!

The gorilla roared incessantly again and again, slowly falling into a maniacal frenzy. Blood filled its eyes and its nostrils flared with a hateful aura.

Lei Bao snarled and took into the air once more. He punched twice into the air in quick succession and blasted two ball lightning. The pair of lightning given spherical forms darted at the giant gorilla and exploded.

Boom! Boom!

Two deep-sounding explosions told Lei Bao that his missiles had found their mark. The gigantic gorilla's head was no more. Bloody mists swirled around the headless corpse of the monster gorilla before it ultimately crashed to the ground, and the ground burst opened at its sheer weight.

Despite its ferocity, the giant gorilla's strength was equivalent only to Eighth-Grade Grandmasters and all it took was a Human King to decimate it with ease.

More yapping came. A pack of hyenas was rushing their way, all of them at three to four meters in length, each hardly shy in baring their sharp fangs, and their furs were standing upright as if ready for battle.

Lei Bao lunged at them with all his lightning magic blazing. A miniature storm came and passed with numerous thunderclaps and lightning blasts and in the end, the entire pack of wild dogs was reduced into a slimy muck of blood and flesh.

Chapter end