The Immortal Emperor Returns C345 – Sacrilege

Claude yanked his dagger from Karl's cadaver and struggled to his feet. His blood-sodden robes clung to his back like a yoke on a bull's neck, heavy with sweat and blood.

“Foul scum like you to dream of killing me? You're simply unbelievable.”

Claude gloated smugly, eyeing Jayce wickedly with the dark-red dagger in his grasp emitting a blood-red glow.

Jayce glared at his foe with eyes bloodshot with hatred. He let loose a guttural howl and tried conjuring more wind blades, but only for his efforts to fail. He was just too exhausted.

Everyone from all over the world watching the live telecast could see with their own eyes.

This battle had inculcated a deeper understanding and insight about the Holy Temple of the Sun. Contrary to their outward appearance, they were not as holy and pure as they purported to be.

On the other hand, the Dark Guild was furious with its members burning with hate and anger and screaming to avenge Carl.

The loss of two of its ten presbyters now had Guild livid beyond comprehension.

Far away in Country Y, Angus had also been watching the live telecast and saw how Claude had disposed of Carl. Grinning scornfully, he murmured to himself, “What a fool, Claude. You should have turned off the live telecast before you employ any of your dirty tricks. What you've done has cost the Holy Temple its reputation, and for that you will pay — no matter you survive this battle or not.”

On the screen, Claude drew closer towards Jayce with piecemeal steps, the dagger in his grasp shining red with malice.

A heavily-weakened Jayce tried desperately to conjure his blades of wind.

Claude gave him no chance; he stepped to the presbyter of the Dark Guild and callously plunged the dagger through his heart.

With that, marked the third casualty among the Dark Guild's rank of presbyters whose might were the backbone of their order and the losses now incurred was a heavy blow to the Guild itself.

The chief of the Dark Guild was beyond madness. Upon Jayce's death, he commanded his remaining presbyters to kill any member of the Holy Temple in sight.

“Two filthy scum,” sniggered Claude vilely, “This is what you get for thinking of doing harm to citizens of the Sun God!”

Clap! Clap!

The raspy clap of hands came from behind. He turned and saw it was Chu Xun.

“Impressive display, Master Claude.”

Claude beamed broadly but then he saw something which made his smile froze.

“What the... You?!”

Claude turned flustered seeing what Chu Xun was playing with like a toy: the meteorite ore manacles.

“This, you mean?” Chu Xun swung the manacles from one end, awfully pleased with himself, “It's very strong, I'll give you that. Took me quite a while to get out of these.”

Everyone had been so focused on Claude's fight with Carl and Jayce, that no one noticed how Chu Xun escaped from his restraints. But judging from the mangled form of the manacles, one could easily guess that Chu Xun had snapped them apart using brute force.

“Well, thank you for the invitation to the Holy Temple, Master Claude. But I happen to remember I have matters to attend to. So I'd be taking my leave now and do tell the Sun God that I shall pay him a visit in due time.”

Whoosh!

Chu Xun hurled the manacles into the air, launching it at such speeds that it screamed through the air like a comet, tearing straight after Claude in a flash.

The Deputy Prelate could hardly believe what he was seeing as his pupils dilated with horror. But he quickly recovered and swung his glowing red dagger at the meteorite ore manacle.

Crack!

The blade of the dagger splintered into shards when it came in contact with the manacle.

Bang!

Then it ricocheted and struck Claude in the head, puncturing his head like bursting a watermelon with a spray of blood-red mist in the air.

The camera caught Chu Xun's smirk before he pounced.

In just mere seconds, he made short work of the remaining acolytes of the Dark Guild.

And for good measure, he even destroyed the live telecast paraphernalia before vanishing.

Frenzied warfare followed between the Dark Guild and the Holy Temple in the following few days with both parties suffering terrible losses after a few skirmishes.

Although, on the sidelines, both parties had not given up their pursuit of Chu Xun as well.

The Dark Guild pillaged and laid waste to several other of the Holy Temple's branch fortresses, leaving none alive.

And as a reprisal, the Holy Temple annihilated several more branches of the Dark Guild too.

Still, as the war went on, Chu Xun was nowhere to be found.

Gradually, the Holy Temple and the Dark Guild began to realize that this was Chu Xun's plan all along: for both orders to wage war against each other.

Finally, the Holy Temple and the Dark Guild came to an uneasy truce. All hostilities would be suspended until Chu Xun was found and killed.

On that note, all the nations in the Western world resumed the hunt for the Devil.

“But where in the world is he?” That was the very question that loomed in everyone's mind.

For more than seven days, no one had caught even a whiff of him.

Warriors of the West launched relentless salvos of expletives, taunts, and curses at him;

While Huaxia warriors reciprocated the favor in the same manner.

Wars had been waged for less and the bitter enmity between both the East and the West culminated into another verbal warfare.

Then out of nowhere, Chu Xun logged on to his account and uploaded a photograph.

In the picture was a long, ornately-tailored white episcopal robe, and it was vandalized with nasty scribbles of drawings all over them. Drawings of tortoises.

It took only seconds for people to recognize the robe and the entire Internet plummeted into unbelievable silence.

It was the papal robes of His Holiness the Pope of the Sacred Diocese of Country V.

Country V and the Sacred Diocese, the greatest and hallowed entity of all Christendom.

“But this…”

“Goddamn indeed,” thought everyone.

“What has he done this time?! This is sacrilege!”

More news came later from Country V, saying about a terrible battle within the walls of the city-state that nearly saw the centuries-old papal apartments topple because of the shock waves from the fight.

Needless to say, everyone knew what happened: that could only be Chu Xun fighting the Pope himself.

The Chief Official needed a moment to fully process what he heard before he finally sighed and smiled bleakly, “What a brazen rascal.”

Only, “brazen” seemed too soft a word to describe the gravity of vandalizing the Pope's papal robes. The mere act itself was tantamount to declaring war against the entire world of the West.

And to save face, nations in the West did their best to make sure word of this incident was kept tightly sealed, although rumors continued swirling beyond the walls of Country V.

It was said that the howls of the Pope could be heard echoing across all of Country V, showing how angry he was at that time.

But what about Chu Xun and what happened to him? That was the most relevant question.

Was he killed by the Pope or did he escape? But if he really did manage to flee from no less than the Pope of Sacred Diocese himself, then that would be a most unbelievable feat indeed that would seriously rock the world.

Days passed without any clarification from the Sacred Diocese, the governing body of County V and no one had seen Chu Xun since then.

Back at Huaxia, the Broken Souls Cult emerged with a statement, “The Devil has been slain by His Holiness the Pope who had beheaded him.”

Then another came from the Sifang Sword Sect, saying, “There is no way that the Devil could be stronger than His Holiness the Pope. Rest assured that his corpse must be utterly destroyed by now.”

Long Feiyang of the Tianlong Fort appeared in person, declaring openly, “Long has the Devil wrought countless evil and wicked deeds. It won't be long before I go to attack the Chu Mansion to mete out justice!”

Having no doubt that Chu Xun was deader than a doornail, many more organizations with enmity towards Chu Xun came forward.

But Yue Fandie of the Sanctuary of Tetrarchy made a stern declaration of his own, “The Broken Souls Cult, the Sifang Sword Sect, Tianlong Fort, and the rest of you scum out there: attack the Chu Mansion and I shall see to it that you will be wiped out too instead.”

“Bunch of beaten dogs! Have you forgotten how you have been routed by the Master himself! How dare you begin barking in his absence! Come if you will, the Chu Mansion will never back away from a challenge!”

“Filthy pipsqueaks who only know how to strike from the shadows! Come and we'll make sure this is a one-way trip for you lot!”

In the end, even Wu Busi, Yan Yi, Yan Chong, and many others of the Chu Manor joined in the spat.

The warriors of the West immediately realized their chance and they began rousing up both sides, hoping that this might spark an infighting amongst Huaxia warriors.

Having stirred into chaos by Chu Xun, especially for the Dark Guild and the Holy Temple which his contrivances had caused terrible casualties to both sides, the warriors of the West hoped that the Huaxia domain of Martial Tao would also be thrown into equal disarray.

Still residing at Country Y, the two godsons to the Pope of the Sacred Diocese released a statement on the Internet, announcing their intent to invade Huaxia and kill everyone related to Chu Xun.

After all, the duo had been most infuriated after the whole debacle at Country Y. The Sacred Diocese and the Pope were the absolute pinnacle of their belief system and Chu Xun's intrusion into Vatican City and his vandalizing of the papal robes was just as insulting as maddening for them both.

With the Holy See now spearheading the movement against Chu Xun and Huaxia, the Holy Temple of the Sun, the Dark Guild, the Knights of Circular Table and many other orders and organizations involved all pledged their support.

These factions shared one common goal: to invade Huaxia and destroy everything and everyone involved with Chu Xun.

Bowing to their influence, the Broken Souls Cult, the Sifang Sword Sect, and all other Huaxia organizations that shared enmity with Chu Xun began lauding their support for the Western movement to eradicate everything pertaining to the Devil.

Such treasonous deed sent all Huaxia warriors into madness. Chu Xun was nevertheless a fellow countryman to all of Huaxia and supporting the warriors of the West in their crusade was nothing less than betraying one's own brethren — a transgression no Huaxia warrior would ever look kindly to.

“HOW DARE YOU, BROKEN SOULS CULT! YOU SNIVELING RATS WHO ONLY LURK IN THE DARKNESS! COLLUDE WITH THE WEST AND WE'LL FIGHT YOU TO THE END!”

“To think that you even call yourselves Huaxia citizens, you all of the Sifang Sword Sect! Here you are, conniving with the West to harm one of our own! Traitors like you lot don't even deserve to be called humans!”

The treachery of the Broken Souls Cult and its cohorts roused a veritable mass riot that even people who were hardly related to Chu Xun began to clamor with discontent and anger.

“Are you really sure that the Devil is dead, you idiots of the Tianlong Fort? Are you not afraid that the Devil might appear one day and decimate the lot of you,” smirked one.

That somehow rang with truth. No one could speak for certain if Chu Xun was really dead and up until now, everything on the Internet could just be as credible as a heap load of baloney.

Undeterred, the godsons of the Pope were so determined that they were already on their way towards Huaxia.

On the other hand, Yan Wushuang's eyes burned with cold fury. The members of the Dragon-slaying League were just as furious as he was and the entire league rode quickly towards the border to intercept the Pope's godchildren.

At the borders, the proud godchildren of the Pope organized a live telecast to broadcast to the world their invasion into Huaxia.

Not far away from the border was the huge calligraphy script that Chu Xun left on a rockface for anyone who dared to step uninvited onto Huaxia soil: Those who offended Huaxia are bound to be punished no matter how far they are!

The vainglorious heirs to the Pope aimed the camera at the words and scoffed sardonically, “The Devil. Just a little ant that hardly deserves any sympathy. Those words of his do not merit to be here. I'll let the world see how I destroy the words of the Devil.”

A Seventh-grade Human King nearly Eighth-grade, the godson of the Pope was a dashing golden-haired young man in his smart episcopal robes.

He drew his sword and it glowed as if answering its master's call to battle, and he charged forward. With each step, his stature seemed to grow as he soared into the air like a hawk, firing a few Sword Qi bolts.

The dazzling rays of light smashed into the cliffs where the engravings hung from.

But instead of being destroyed from the blast, the glyph-like words began shining with a mysterious light and the air reeked of malice and blood suddenly.

Buzz!

All nine words began shining brightly together and Sword Qi bolts appeared out of thin air and rained mercilessly down on the Pope's godson.

No one could bear to watch. Right before everyone's eyes, the doted godchild of the Pope was reduced into mere scraps of blood and viscera with only his agonizing cries echoing in his wake.

His godsibling, the other young man who had been recording everything live was petrified. The hands that held his cellphone were shaking so convulsively that the phone nearly fell and his heart nearly stopped.

Run. That was the only one word that appeared right in his mind at that very moment.

And then, the live telecast stopped.

Yan Wushuang and his comrades were just scaling over the mountains at the border when they arrived just in time to see the back of the Pope's remaining godson fleeing away.

A still silence lingered over the Internet as soon as the live telecast was cut short before all hell broke loose right after.

Those words were left by Chu Xun and it was no secret that Chu Xun's prowess with employing barrier and field-type enchantments was the world's very best.

And as guessed by some, what killed the godson of the Pope was none other than an enchantment.

A powerful enchantment in the form of the nine wordings engraved on the face of the cliff that Chu Xun had left here and its destructiveness could easily slay any Human King below Eighth-grade with barely any difficulty.

Chapter end