The Immortal Emperor Returns C347 – Border Village Night Assault

One by one, the killings of the Dark Guild and the Knights of the Circular Table peacekeepers who arrived in Country Y left a pall of gloom hanging over every other warrior of the West now still there, afraid that one day, their turn might come as well.

Before long, Deputy Prelate Angus received a summon from the Holy Temple, recalling him back from Country Y.

Angus sighed morosely, feeling somewhat unsatisfied. He was the strongest warrior of the West who came to Country Y as a peacekeeper.

Yet despite his reluctance, after numerous urgings from the headquarters, he finally relented and set off home.

Country Y was left in a lurch. With the Head of State still in critical condition at the hospital and more than half the top echelon of the administration at risk of aneurysm from the dour news that only seemed to be an abysmal regularity, they were at a loss.

Yet that did not stop its “supposed” allies – Country M and all other Western nations – from demanding reimbursement for the losses incurred. Swallowing all pride and self-respect, the battered country surrendered vast amounts of funds and resources to please and satisfy them.

Then again, sympathy only seemed all the more elusive with warriors of Huaxia hurling more jeers and taunts at Country Y for its failure.

The lavish estate and luxurious red wines could do little to quell Angus's sense of dissatisfaction and vexation. He really felt reluctant leaving just like that.

“Worthless trash,” he cursed, smashing a wine glass into the wall, breaking it into countless little glittering shards.

Flames of anger and loathing burned in him for the warriors who died. As a person from the West, he found dying on foreign soil a most distasteful and demeaning way to die.

His phone rang suddenly. He glanced at the screen of his cell phone and saw the name “Louis Krieg” appearing and recognized it as the High Prelate of his order and he quickly answered the call carefully with more reverence and respect.

When he ended the call, he no longer frowned. He stood up and went to a mirror, his hands brushing up and down his robes as if to smooth out an inexistent wrinkle as a smile returned to his face and he left the estate.

He barely left for about a half-hour, Chu Xun arrived. He scanned the grounds of the estate with his Divine Sense and finding nothing, he murmured, “Gone, eh?”

Then he caught the broken wine glass lying on the floor with shards littered everywhere, then he saw the opened bottle of wine still left uncorked, and his eyes flashed with deliberation.

At the same time, at the borders between Huaxia and Country Y, was a figure dashing speedily like an apparition.

At the lodging in the border village which housed the Dragon-slaying League, the courtyard outside was nothing but pitch-black darkness.

Angus vaulted over the wall and landed gently on the ground. Then he feigned a cough.

Hum!

Light came flooding across the whole courtyard.

Yan Wushuang and Yi Xiaosu were the first to appear.

They knew better than to be careless. “Whoever this is, no one had noticed him coming before he coughed! This intruder must be powerful!”

In mere seconds, the rest of the League swarmed the courtyard.

Angus looked around with a warm and benign smile. “You must be Yan Wushuang, a friend of the Devil, no?”

“And you are Angus, Deputy Prelate of the Holy Temple of the Sun,” growled Yan Wushuang with a steely voice.

“I'm honored to be known,” Angus managed a slight bow. Then he saw Tang Rou and motioned at her, “Is she the Devil's woman?”

Veiled with a thin, gossamer white gauze, Tang Rou felt her face flushing with a pinkish shade even as she realized that it was hardly appropriate given the situation.

“So the information is accurate,” muttered Angus.

“What information? Who gave such information?” demanded Yan Wushuang coldly.

“Word came from the Holy Temple, saying that you are all hiding here. But who supplied that information to us, that I'm afraid I don't know,” replied Angus with hardly any untruth. “One could expect that the Devil has a great many enemies and if truth be told, you Huaxia people tend to carry backstabbing predilections.”

Yan Wushuang kept silent. It was no secret that the League has been putting up here, but it wasn't anything public either and Angus would not have known if no one from Huaxia had betrayed them.

With his warm smile twisting into a bleak one, Angus said, “I'm sure you know what the Devil did to us – destroying our branch fortresses, killing our members, and not to mention several of my colleagues. Can't say I share the same pain you're feeling right now.”

Swoosh!

A ray of light shot from the sky, as if it was a response to his threatening tone.

A huge ray of light – a long, blinding Sword Qi – reaching more than thirty meters long, its burning luminescence lighting up the night sky, came dashing down and smiting hard at Angus with zero mercy.

There was little doubt that Angus was not here at such an hour to chat, and Yan Wushuang decided to attack using his most powerful technique.

Unfazed, Angus's entire person shone brightly like the Sun, engulfed in red-hot, blazing fire. As if imbued with powers bestowed by the Sun itself, he fired a jet of searing flames at the incoming attack.

Boom!

The explosion kicked up thrashing winds sending forth waves and waves of heat, sending up more explosions that turned the night into day.

The blast caught a few lesser warriors of the League, sending them reeling backward with internal injuries.

The tenements nearby began to wobble and crash. These crudely-constructed structures could hardly withstand such force, and many toppled and others caught up in flames.

As the fire grew in strength and intensity, incessant cracklings filled the air as the tongues of the flames reached to lick at the sky.

“It is said that Huaxia people are a race of culture. Is this your brand of hospitality?” said Angus with hardly any displeasure in his voice as he took in the sight of the ravaging conflagration.

Yan Wushuang's eyes flashed with uncertainty and wariness. Angus's strength was way beyond his expectation – an Eighth-grade Human King, at the very least.

Yi Xiaosu looked no less tense himself. With a quick look towards Yan Wushuang, they nodded as one.

“Protect Miss Tang and go!”

Yi Xiaosu barked at the others before lunging at Angus with Yan Wushuang in tow.

The Deputy Prelate of the Holy Temple merely chuckled, hardly perturbed at them both. Looking as placid as ever, he summoned his powers and fired another burst of searing flames as hot as the Sun's very own, causing the air to sizzle and warp.

Bang! Bang!

With only two punches, he sent both Yan Wushuang and Yi Xiaosu flying.

The difference between Angus's rank and theirs could never be made up just through sheer greater number alone.

“Dammit, what are you gawking at?! Fly!” glowered Yi Xiaosu when he saw the others still petrified around him.

“If we're running,” said Le Dayong, stepping past him, “We're running together.” With that, he charged at Angus like an angry bull.

Hardly bothered, Angus raised his slender, fair arm. Then with a speed no one could have thought possible, he drove it like a lance, spearing straight through Le Dayong's defenses like a hot knife through butter and impaling him through his chest.

Arghh!

Blood spattered everywhere.

“NOOOO!”

Together, Yi Xiaosu and Yan Wushuang shrieked with horror, but also helplessly.

Still wearing a gentle countenance and a polite smile, Angus withdrew his arm, holding aloft a still-beating heart.

His polite suaveness, contrasting against his callous barbarity, painted a sight so grotesque that everyone present could barely suppress a shiver.

Bang!

Le Dayong's hulking but lifeless corpse crashed to the ground, kicking up sand and dirt.

“RUN! GODAMMIT, RUN!”

Yi Xiaosu screamed what could be his final order to his men, his eyes red and bloodshot with rage before he threw himself again with reckless abandon at his foe. Imbuing his Internal Breath unto his hands, he clawed furiously at Angus, trying to maul at him.

Still clutching Le Dayong's heart, Angus casually raised another arm.

Bang!

The air grew taut and rigid with the rising intensity of energies and another bang accompanied the blow that hammered into Yi Xiaosu, causing him to cough up more blood. But before he could fall backward, Angus seized his hand.

Sizzle!

Steam rose from the part of Yi Xiaosu's hand which Angus was holding.

“ARRGGGHHH!” howled Yi Xiaosu with agony.

“Ah, yes. Does the Devil not seem to like barbecue food? Here's a grilled human hand. I'm sure it's to his liking,” said Angus. There was not even a gleeful sneer from him, only the same benign, but unsettling grin. The heat of his magic did not stop rising as Yi Xiaosu's hand was roasted alive.

“Ah, I almost forgot. There's roasted human heart too. Let's hope he'll like it, eh?” said Angus as red flames of the Sun burst to life on his left hand and the human heart of Le Dayong in his grasp began sizzling.

There was no mistaking it: Angus really is a sadistic monster.

“LET HIM GO!”

Yan Wushuang roared as he lunged, firing another energy bolt from his sword.

Angus flung an arm, launching the fully-grilled human heart hurtling through the air and struck the energy bolt, but with the human heart destroyed too.

“ARGGG!” That drove Yan Wushuang into madness. In a manic streak of hysteria, he charged at Angus.

Angus stared frostily at Yan Wushuang speeding towards him and slowly raised a hand. He fired another red jet of ray, blasting Yan Wushuang so forcefully that he vomited more blood.

Angus chased after Yan Wushuang.

“ARRGGGHH!” Yi Xiaosu's painful shriek tore through the air. Angus did not release his hand even as he sped after Yan Wushuang, ripping the utterly roasted right hand off his wrist with just his momentum and speed.

Angus screeched to a stop almost as soon as he heard Yi Xiaosu's screams. Looking genuinely surprised, he said gently, “Gods, I'm so sorry. I forgot I'm still holding your hand.” He waved the hand still holding Yi Xiaosu's broken hand and another red burst of light ignited and reduced the severed hand into blackened soot.

Bang!

Angus fired another jet of searing flames, blasting a dent in Yi Xiaosu's chest.

“As friend to the Devil,” said Angus as he renewed his gaze on Yan Wushuang, “You shall help pay for his sins.”

He stormed at Yan Wushuang.

Swoosh!

A white bolt of light streaked out of nowhere.

Angus stopped in his heels and his powers churned inside him, enveloping him in a cloak of red light. With a harmless sizzle, the white jet of light dissipated before it even got close to him.

He turned away and set his sights on the tactile figure of the woman in white standing in the pale, milky glow of the moon. A strange sense of curiosity and interest suddenly impregnated his mind, “I wonder how the Devil's very own consort looks like?”

“I admire your courage,” said Angus to Tang Rou.

Tang Rou said nothing. Knowing fully well that her powers would make no difference, she attacked nevertheless. She could not allow herself to see Yan Wushuang being killed while she did nothing.

Angus strolled towards Tang Rou. “Let's see if the Devil's woman possessed such beauty that would even make the world quake?”

Swoosh!

Tang Rou fired a True Energy bolt.

Yet before it could reach Angus, the searing blaze of the Sun's flames emanating from the Deputy Prelate dispelled it. The gap between their powers was just too great.

“TOGETHER!” screamed a voice, rallying the rest of the League and everyone threw themselves at Angus.

Bang!

Warm blood gushed and spattered on the ground; one of the League's warriors fell with a hole right at the center of his torso caused by one of Angus's scarlet-red death rays.

Boom!

Another explosion erupted as Angus summoned his powers to invoke a blast of heat wave that pummeled into more than a dozen men, tossing them back with blood pouring from their mouths.

There he stood, Deputy Prelate Angus of the Holy Temple, as invincible and indomitable as a god.

A tenacious Tang Rou channeled her True Energy once more, mustering what she could and fusing them into one energy bolt that she hurled with all her strength at Angus.

Boom!

The shroud of red glow that engulfed Angus flashed brightly for one split-second, and Tang Rou crashed backward with a mouthful of blood bursting from her mouth as if she had been struck by a lightning bolt. As she fell, the thin veil fell from her face, revealing her ravishing beauty.

Stunned by her beauty, Angus could neither speak nor react for seconds. He had always thought Huaxia women vulgar and abject, but for this moment, he knew he had been mistaken.

The woman before him was even more beautiful than the Goddess of the Sun in the legends.

A thought loomed in Angus's mind suddenly.

Boom!

Another warrior of the League died, roasted alive into ashes by a jet of flames of the Sun.

“Worthless filth,” remarked Angus dryly. That filled Yan Wushuang with hysterical rage. He let loose a bestial howl and dragged his wounded self up and lunged at Angus.

Boom!

But Angus easily delivered another blow that hit Yan Wushuang like a battering ram, causing him more grievous injuries that even more blood came gushing from his mouth before Angus wrapped his fingers around Yan Wushuang's throat with seemingly impossible speed.

“Beg me,” hissed Angus placidly, looking at Yan Wushuang wincing in his grasp, “And I might show you mercy.”

“Pfft!” Yan Wushuang spat a mouthful of froth and blood at Angus.

Angus stared at his quarry with a gaze that froze the air around him. He tightened his grip and Yan Wushuang's throat crackled a soft but perceptible sputter – his neck was going to snap.

“Let him go or Big Brother Chu Xun will kill you for this,” Tang Rou struggled to her feet. Angus had spared her intentionally.

Angus panned his frosty gaze to her and displayed an amiable smile that contrasted his brutal disposition, “I can let him go, but only on one condition.”

“What condition?”

Angus's eyes flashed with hunger. “That you agree to be my woman.”

Chapter end