The Immortal Emperor Returns C326 – Fall off the Cliff

“What's another way?” Tong Li insisted to know.

The corner of the presbyter's mouth curled into a sinister and wicked look as he breathed darkly. “Kill them all and destroy the bodies and all pieces of evidence.”

The words hit everyone present like a sledgehammer that for several seconds, silence lingered over them and all that anyone could hear was their own breathing.

“We wipe out every single soul that knows about this incident. That way, no matter what ideas Chu the Devil might have, he'll never know about the Brotherhood's involvement.”

They would need to kill everyone. Every single one of them, including the young Wang son, his harem of several dozen girls – very literally, a lot of lives, in short.

Uncertainty danced in Tong Li's eyes as he grappled with what to do.

The presbyters all knew that massacring the people was hardly the object of his distress, but rather, what would Chu the Devil do if he heard about this.

“Chief, there's no telling what fate could befall us even if he accepts our apology. In return, he might make such demands that could ruin us. It is well known that he leaves despair and destitution in his wake and I fear for what remains of our troves after he's done with us, assuming he accepts our apology at all.”

Tong Li's expression turned as hard as stone.

“Give the order, Chief. We will ride for Xiacheng at once and have Kong Junde dispose of the two girls and destroy their bodies.”

With his mind all made up, Tong Li gritted his teeth with resolve and hissed, “So be it then.”

Immediately he gave the order to Kong Junde, instructing him to leave no quarter.

At the other side, Kong Junde reeled with the revelation that there was no margin for error. None at all, or he and all of the Brotherhood would be utterly vanquished.

Whoosh!

Using his greatest speed, he bolted after Tang Rou and Jiu You.

“I think we lost him.” Tang Rou looked back and saw Kong Junde missing.

They had run for more than a dozen lis (one li equals 500 meters) in one go.

“No, we need to be more careful. He's so fast that he'd catch up any time,” said Jiu You.

“But what should we do then?” asked a distraught and lost Tang Rou.

Jiu You looked into the forest of old, trees surrounding them and smiled. “I'll transform back to my true form and you ride on my back. We'll hide inside the mountains.”

Immediately, Jiu You morphed back to being a giant snake.

Tang Rou hopped onto her back.

Back in the form of a snake allowed Jiu You more speed to travel in the woods as she shot through the undergrowth like a long streaking blur of rainbow-colored lights.

Beasts roared and snarled when they sensed her. But knowing she was a monster, and a powerful one at that, none of them dared to challenge her.

But after barely ten minutes since they began weaving through the dense copses of the forest, Kong Junde came chasing after them.

Owing to the large girth of her true form, Jiu You left behind a trail of crushed rocks and fallen trees.

Kong Junde stopped and inspected the trail and was dismayed.

Forests and woods have always been domains belonging to wild beasts and no human would dare lightly tread inside.

What should he do?

In the end, he decided to just bite the bullet and head in. He could not risk Tang Rou and Jiu You escaping or that would spell the destruction of the Brotherhood.

At the same time, Chu Xun was speeding towards Xiacheng; not in a plane, but with all the speed he could unleash.

With every step, he covered more than a thousand meters as Chu Xun used his speed to its extreme, dashing across the lands like a phantom while due to air friction on his skin warming up to very high temperatures.

But inside him, he was burning even more with anxiety. He could not imagine how he would lose his mind if something bad really happened to Tang Rou and Jiu You.

“Gods, I hope you are safe,” he murmured with ice in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Kong Junde entered the woods to hunt down Tang Rou and Jiu You, although he came scurrying back out not long later.

A few Beast Kings had ganged up on him and he nearly died inside. Aggravated, he quickly placed another call to Tong Li.

Tong Li nearly hit the roof when he heard what happened. After giving Kong Junde an earful, he told him to wait for reinforcements.

Jiu You, with Tang Rou riding on her back, had barely ventured deep into the mountains and a huge brightly-striped tiger attacked them before they could even rest.

They had unwittingly intruded into this Beast Lord's territory.

Fortunately for the girls, they were able to handle the Beast Lord together and successfully escaped.

They fled up the crest of a mountain and after making sure that there was no Beast Lord nearby, they finally stopped for a brief respite.

Jiu You reassumed her human form. Blood poured from the wound on her calf, but with the help of the many magical herbs and shrubs she carried with her, the girls could see to the injury quickly.

Tang Rou also helped channel some of her powers into Jiu You to help her heal.

With her help, Jiu You recovered quickly.

“What do we do now?” asked Tang Rou, feeling herself to blame. With the loss of her cell phone, they had no ways of reaching Chu Xun.

“Let's rest here for now. The Beast Lords around here can help keep those people away for now,” said Jiu You.

But a few hours later, the reinforcements of the Brotherhood arrived.

Leading the team was a Sixth-grade Human King, Chai Yi, and with him another four Fifth-graders.

“Presbyter Chai,” bowed Kong Junde.

Chai Yi stole a glance at Kong Junde's bedraggled appearance with disdain.

“They got in from here?” he pointed at the trail on the ground.

Kong Junde nodded.

“Let's go in then and hunt them down.”

“Presbyter Chai, can I leave the hunt to you and your team? I need to go and get rid of the others who knew what happened,” said Kong Junde.

Chai Yi waved a hand. “There's no need for that. Another team is already handling that matter.”

They entered the dense forest, audaciously projecting their auras to the fullest as Human Kings.

Chai Yi's aura was the strongest among them, and it drove every Beast Lord either away or into hiding.

Roar!

A gigantic ape as tall as a mountain came storming out of the thickets and stood in Chai Yi's way.

Boom!

But with just a wave of his hand, Chai Yi blasted the Fourth-grade Beast Lord into bits.

Such was the power of a Sixth-grade Human King.

And after that, not a single Beast Lord dared to cross their path ever again.

No animals achieved the rank of Beast Lord during such chaotic times without developing intellect comparable to that of human kinds and naturally, they knew better than to pick a fight they could not win.

Before long, Chai Yi and his men finally came to the mountain where Tang Rou and Jiu You were hiding.

Jiu You had not been careful enough; it was the trail left by her large girth that had practically led the pursuers right to them.

“They must be just nearby. Search carefully,” barked Chai Yi.

“Gods, no, someone's here!” gasped Tang Rou hushedly.

“It must be Kong Junde and his people,” Jiu You's little face tensed like a strung-up wire.

“They have closed off all exits,” said Tang Rou after using her Divine Sense to look around, “They have six men in total.”

With their exits downhill completely shut off, all the remained for them was a precipitous fall down a steep cliff.

Jiu You's face glowed with delight suddenly. “Prepare to leave. I'm turning into my true form, so hold tight to me.”

Jiu You become a large python and Tang Rou leaped onto her back.

“There they are!” Kong Junde shouted when he saw them.

That stunned Chai Yi and the others. Expecting to find two girls, they saw an absurdly-huge python instead.

“That snake's one of the little girls! She's a snake demon!” pointed out Kong Junde hastily.

Chai Yi and his men floundered quietly with amazement. None of them could believe that a beast could turn into human form.

“GO!” Chai Yi hooted.

All six men raced up the slopes.

But Jiu You slithered in the direction of the cliff, only to leap off its ledge with its scales scraping at the hard, jagged stones on its edge, sending sparks flying around.

A cliff so steep that would have been dangerous for any human, but not for Jiu You who slithered her way down so easily as if she was moving on flat ground.

“Trying to run, eh?” smirked Chai Yi.

Boom!

A powerful blast of Internal Breath came at Jiu You, who, with her ponderous size, could hardly evade it and the blast struck her squarely.

It was a blow from a Sixth-grade Human King; one that Jiu You could hardly withstand unscathed.

With Tang Rou still clinging to her back, she plummeted into the chasm below.

Boom!

The entire mountain shook when Jiu You's large mass smashed into the bottom of the chasm, reducing rocks into dust and fell trees like bundles of jackstraw and the ground split underneath her.

Being significantly lighter, Tang Rou came down right after Jiu You, crashing into a large rock and destroying it into smaller pieces.

Tang Rou grunted in ache and blood flooded out of her mouth. Her shoulder hit the rock when she came down and the impact broke her arm so painfully that she teared up.

Jiu You was back in her human form; her lithe little frame lying motionless amongst the rock with her face completely white, no one could tell if she was only unconscious or she was dead.

“Jiu You!” Tang Rou cried, panicking. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she dragged her injured self towards her friend.

“They should be dead by now, Presbyter Chai, no?” Kong Junde peered down the bottomless abyss.

“This mountain is more than a thousand meters tall. No one can survive such a fall, unless they're gods, maybe,” smirked Chai Yi. He breathed a sigh of relief, happy to know that the loose ends were all finally tied up.

“I'm going down, Presbyter. We need to destroy the bodies,” said Kong Junde.

“What's the hurry?” sneered Chai Yi smugly, “For all we know, the fierce beasts might already have begun feasting on their corpses.”

“Wise insight, Presbyter Chai,” observed Kong Junde flatteringly, bowing.

Chai Yi chuckled, “Nevertheless, you're right – we need to go down and take a look. Just in case. We cannot let anything go wrong.”

Everyone felt the same cold chill running up their spines. No one would want to be careless with anything that involved the Devil himself.

With that, all six of the men began moving downhill.

Meanwhile, Chu Xun was rushing as fast as he could towards Xiacheng. He had been racing for one thousand lis (one li equals 500 meters) and the exertion was wearing him out.

But he was so anxious that he could not afford to stop.

But where in all of Xiacheng was he going to find Tang Rou and Jiu You? That, he had not the slightest clue.

Without much thought, he leaped up a tall building.

“HEAR ME, ALL OF YOU! NO MATTER WHICH ORGANIZATION YOU BELONG TO, I'LL DESTROY YOU AND EVERYONE WITH YOU IF YOU DARE HURT MY SISTER! I SWEAR IT! I WILL LEAVE NOTHING ALIVE!”

With his Hong Meng Immortal Qi, Chu Xun sent a sonorous warning like a powerful loudspeaker across the whole city, his voice rolling like a powerful tidal wave towards all corners of Xiacheng.

With no notion at all of who or what is hunting Tang Rou, it was all he could do.

All of Xiacheng stirred with every single warrior in the city startled by the voice. Who was that with such an overbearing tone?!

Most of all, the rulers of Xiacheng, the Xia Family.

Xia Boyan, the head of the Xia Family, was alarmed.

“Gods in Heaven, who's that?! What an imperious voice, warning not only something or someone, but every warrior in Xiacheng!?”

That was Xia Boyan's youngest daughter, Xia Miaoyu.

The appearance of the youngest daughter of the Xia Family seemed rather contrary to how gentle and soft her name might sound. Standing at a hundred and seventy-five centimeters tall, the beautiful young woman, clad in her suit of light armor, looked more like a dashing young knight than a demure lady.

And with a talent that far outstripped the rest of her siblings, she achieved the rank of Fifth-grade Human King.

“Must be some arrogant fool, I don't doubt,” smirked Xia Boyan. Throwing his head back, he roared back using his Internal Breath, “Who dares to make waves in Xiacheng?!”

For thousands of years, the Xia Family kept Xiacheng in peace and he would never allow anyone to wreak havoc here.

“Who are you?” asked Chu Xun. Sensing the man behind the voice wielded incredible powers made him rather curious.

“Xia Boyan of the Xia Family.”

Their long-distance conversation through the air shocked every warrior who heard them.

“My two sisters are in danger here, Master Xia. Please help me find them. I will ensure that you will be most generously compensated,” said Chu Xun.

Without waiting for any response, he continued, “Fellow warriors of Xiacheng. Please let me know if you know anything about my sisters. I shall see that you are generously rewarded.”

A good many warriors scoffed at the message.

“Who are you?” Xia Boyan asked suddenly.

“Chu Xun.”

The utterance of the name left every single warrior in Xiacheng stunned beyond speech and belief.

Chapter end