The Immortal Emperor Returns C354 – Plunder

Proud and yet calm was Emperor Ao, that his mere appearance looked indomitable and intimidating enough.

Boom!

Tidal waves of flames drove forward like a stampede, causing the earth to quake and shake.

Then, as easily as swatting a fly, Emperor Ao swung a hand to slap away everything, casually nullifying Louis's incredible attack.

“ARGHHH!” Louis howled.

What looked like a simple slap by Emperor Ao with his hand caused the magma below Louis's feet to bubble and boil as more ground under his feet cracked and split open.

Bang!

Geysers of magma shot out of the crevices and a gigantic hand slammed down on Louis.

Everyone watching the live broadcast gasped with shock and awe.

“Vermin,” Emperor Ao hissed coldly, “You dare insult Huaxia?”

He lifted his hand and there was Louis, now sank into the ground.

As a warrior who boasts strength and power on par with the Pope himself, Louis's invincibility placed him well beyond the levels of Human Kings. Yet even with such incredible and ungodly might, he looked helpless before Emperor Ao.

Meanwhile, warriors of both the East and the West shuddered with comprehension.

“Why have we not realized that such a monster exists in our midst?!”

Bang!

With a burst of dirt and sand, Louis emerged from the ground, his face distorted with bruises and swellings as he howled maniacally with rage.

As High Prelate to the Holy Temple of the Sun, his very existence was like a god among common man. Yet on this day, he was swatted like a bug into the ground, along with his reputation and face.

In the meantime, all around the West, the Chief of the Dark Guild and the Pope were all watching the broadcast in grim silence.

Many times they had been warned by the predecessors to not take the mysterious Huaxia lightly and never were they to invade Huaxia.

Right at this moment, they began to understand why. The warnings were not just some old wives' tale.

Louis's face twisted grotesquely with malice as he struggled to keep up a dignified appearance. Forcing a drop of his True Blood into the Beacon, he activated the weapon to its full strength.

The Beacon of the Sun God released a blinding surge of golden lights that flooded everywhere, illuminating even the horizons with the brilliance of the Sun.

“O Great Sun God, may You keep Your faithful citizens safe and deliver them from this evil. Let Your light touch every corner of this world that they reflect Your glory.”

Louis offered his most sincere prayers.

“Whoever you may be, you'll die today.”

He only just finished and the Beacon shone brilliantly.

Woosh!

Deep claret-red flames shot out its sprout, forming a gigantic inferno that stretched as far as the sky went and as wide as the vista beyond their line of sights. The avalanche of flames began rumbling towards Emperor Ao.

Emperor Ao merely took in the sight of that wondrous spectacle with an aloof and disinterested stare.

“Watch out, Old Ao!” warned Chu Xun frantically, having tested the terrors of the Beacon's True Flames himself.

But the warning only seemed to have piqued Emperor Ao's interest not one bit. Taking only one hand from his back, he used it to swat at the incoming avalanche of fire.

“What the...” uttered Chu Xun out of concern for Emperor Ao that the flames might hurt him.

Emperor Ao's hand burgeoned into so large that it nearly covered the sky, and the torrent of flames swept into the center of his opened hand.

The gigantic hand clasped into a fist and with not so much as a harmless “puff” and some fumes escaping through his fingers, it was gone.

Huh?!

Even Chu Xun himself looked flabbergasted.

Louis turned petrified like stone with his eyes gawking like a toad's with disbelief. That was True Flames imbued with his True Blood – and yet this stranger had so flippantly seized it like a bug and squashed it into nothing.

It was the same surrealistic sensation shared even by those watching the broadcast.

The True Flames of the Beacon of the Sun God could reduce rocks and even mountains into liquid, that even the infamous Devil Chu Xun fled in its wrath.

Yet this stranger had extinguished it with just a grab of his fist.

Chu Xun felt his lips twitching inadvertently at the dawning comprehension that Emperor Ao was doing it on purpose for his benefit. “Is this a mocking statement intended for me?!” His eyes unconsciously looked up just in time to see Emperor Ao averting his gaze.

“...” Chu Xun fell speechless. “So it is true! He's doing it on purpose!”

Bang!

More molten magma spattered around and the ground shook as another slap came down on Louis, smacking him right deep into the ground.

With a simple grope into the air, Emperor Ao magically summoned the Beacon into his grasp which he gave a cursory look before contemptuously tossing it to Chu Xun.

“Use this to keep yourself safe. I think you can still use this once,” said Emperor Ao with undisguised disdain, “What a paltry trinket he's using to show off.”

He raised his hand again and brought it down furiously again and again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

He pummeled the ground three more times before withdrawing his hand and returning it to his back. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

As for Louis... He was gone too. Utterly pulverized into mists of blood.

“HIGH PRELATE!”

Orlov and the remaining wards of the Holy Temple wailed.

No one could argue that it was an excellent display of ultimate power and grandeur – to so frivolously clobbered Louis to his death with only three strokes before turning away to leave with all the aloofness in the world – that everyone could only breathe in silence and awe.

“From what depths of which abyss did such a ruthless monster emerged from?”

All around the West, no one could utter anything after watching the broadcast, even the Internet too was as still as a crypt.

Even in Huaxia, everything was the same, especially for the organizations and factions that shared enmity with Chu Xun.

“Goddammit, what a truly horrifying display...”

The Chief of the Dark Guild mused quietly to himself as he stopped watching the broadcast. Next, he summoned every presbyter to the council room.

All around the West, every other faction, militarized orders and organizations as well as factions, including the Knights of the Circular Table, all convened for secret meetings of their own.

With Louis's demise that could spell the end of the Holy Temple, the West was now in chaos.

Whereas in Huaxia, the relevant question was: Who in the world was that stranger?

The only one thing that looked certain: he seemed to be an associate of the Devil.

This would appear that every person related to Chu Xun seemed to be monsters in their own right.

Chu Xun put away the Beacon. “What a shame that this weapon could only be used once,” he thought. Next, his focus wandered to Orlov.

Whoosh!

Chu Xun's figure shot into the air, arcing in a sharp swerve as he came down with his fists on the ready to strike.

Orlov roared defiantly. The death of Orlov had all but robbed him of any will to fight and with the Beacon now in Chu Xun's hands, there was no imaginable way he could ever hope to defeat Chu Xun.

With only two punches, he lay dead on the ground.

The same went for the remaining wards of the Holy Temple and all of the retinue that came. It was their price for intruding Huaxia with ill intent.

In mere moments, the retinue of the Holy Temple who came were all slaughtered with their blood inundating the dried, barren soil.

“Anyone who attacks Huaxia will be killed no matter how far the target is!”

Chu Xun repeated the warning to the live broadcast paraphernalia before destroying everything with another punch and he disappeared.

All in one stroke, the Holy Temple of the Sun became utterly ruined.

Pandemonium pervaded every corner of the Holy Temple and it was Louis's untimely death that was the source of the turmoil.

All that was left were the few remaining Deputy Prelate who managed to slip through Chu Xun's onslaught before.

But everyone in the West knew full well that that was the end for the Holy Temple – they no longer maintained the strength to reign with dominance and supremacy as one of the premier and greatest organizations in the West, to say nothing of the disunity among the Deputy Prelates who each coveted the chair of the High Prelate for himself.

Elsewhere, the Dark Guild had begun talks with various orders and factions, plotting to quarter up what remains of the Holy Temple for themselves.

Two days passed since the skirmish at the borders.

Yet the incident remained the most heated talk on the Internet.

Whereas the protagonist of the whole tale, Chu Xun, had quietly slipped back into the West.

Skulking in the undergrowth of a dense forest, Chu Xun was gazing at a tall and ancient citadel – the main stronghold of the Holy Temple.

When night came, Chu Xun sneak near the citadel like an apparition.

He incapacitated a few patrolling sentries, put on their garb, then he studied the facial appearance of one of them. His facial muscles began to flex and contract until his appearance changed into his.

He then tossed every one of the incapacitated men into an underground sewer before hiding behind a tree.

He waited until another patrolling squad passed by before quietly following right behind them.

The security of the citadel of the Holy Temple was unusually tight.

Chu Xun tailed behind the patrolling squad, all the while keeping his Divine Sense at full projection to envelop the whole citadel.

He was looking for the secret vault of the Holy Temple.

An idea that would have struck horror to anyone who heard it and make their jaws drop and their eyeballs popping out of their sockets.

Then he spied another patrolling squad of sentries coming his way. When both squads brushed past each other, he deftly wheeled around to follow at the rear of the other squad instead.

“Here I'm coming, secret vault! Wait for me!” Chu Xun almost screamed aloud with glee when he found where it was.

Chu Xun used the same trick to switch to other patrolling squads until he finally got closer to the direction of the secret vault.

Unlike most other Huaxia forces, Western warriors often have their secret vaults very carefully hidden and kept guarded with traps.

The secret vault of the Holy Temple laid just underground.

Chu Xun succeeded in infiltrating the citadel by following the patrolling guards until he finally deemed it safe enough to detach from them.

Unless there was someone else just as powerful as Louis, no one would detect his presence so long as he prevented raising alarm.

There he found the great hall of the Holy Temple citadel, a lavish and wide chamber with a vast roof far overhead upheld by many mighty pillars hewn of stone.

These granite pillars turned out to be a great boon to Chu Xun, for they allowed him ample cover to slip from one pillar to another.

Using the changing of the guards, he tore away from the stone pillars and streaked across the hallway to the end, and pushed himself past an ornately-furnished set of doors.

“WHO GOES THERE!?” yelled a voice inside.

That nearly almost struck fright into Chu Xun. Why would anyone set guards inside the chamber instead of outside?!

Fortunately, they were only lowly-ranked acolytes which Chu Xun quickly eliminated by firing two quick shots of purplish energy bolts to silence them before they could raise the alarm.

With the distractions gone, he began studying the chamber. It was one furnished meticulously with careful planning, one very wide and lavish too.

Then he caught a glimpse of a photo on the wall and realized this was Louis's room, and he grinned.

The entire room was clearly been ransacked – the tabletop was an utter mess, and the wardrobe, the bed, and all furniture looked as if someone had moved them before.

Chu Xun stared at the two acolytes he just killed. These two must be thieves who came in the night to steal whatever they could find. But they would never have such courage, if not at the behest of one with enough authority. A Deputy Prelate, perhaps?

“Gods, next winter might come before you'll even find anything,” grumbled Chu Xun. He walked to another corner, shifted away the large working desk, and removed the carpet beneath.

He stood there and a spurt of Hong Meng Immortal Qi escaped out his feet and down underground. Then he heard a metallic click, and the ground below began groaning.

Chu Xun stepped aside and the tile under his feet began shifting away to reveal a gaping entrance.

With glee, he paced down the stone-hewn steps into the underground.

As the patters of his footsteps bounced off the passage walls, the oil lamps blazed to life one after another, illuminating the way ahead.

“Wow, voice-activated oil lamps? That's high technology,” breathed Chu Xun as he strode.

Before long, the cold glint reflected by the low light off the hard surface of a sturdy and huge iron doors greeted him. Chu Xun looked around. It towered as tall as three meters and two meters wide in breadth.

With his Divine Sense, Chu Xun first made sure there were no traps.

“That's rather sloppy. So sloppy that I hardly feel any satisfaction at all,” he griped softly.

For thousands of years, the Holy Temple endured and remained glorious and triumphant against the torrent of Time. No one had ever dared to think of plundering its vault, until today.

The door was forged of the finest iron plates as thick as ten centimeters.

Chu Xun stepped to the door and released another spurt of Hong Meng Immortal Qi to destroy the password-operated lock inside.

“What a disgrace, that a warrior like you to rely on technological means,” scowled Chu Xun quietly with unmasked disgust for Louis.

He pushed open the thickset door of iron and stepped inside. What he saw made his eyes twinkle jubilantly.

Mounds and mounds of treasure and gold – amounting to at least a dozen tonne – loomed all around the vault chamber. Such was the wealth hoarded by the Holy Temple after thousands of years of reign and supremacy. The sheer brilliance of the gold itself was enough to blind Chu Xun.

Heaps of Sacred Relics, magical herbs and elixirs, magical fruits and even flowers littered every corner of this two-hundred square-meters room.

“Mustn't be too polite then,” Chu Xun muttered as he rubbed his hands excitedly.

Then he stopped, his eyes attracted by the sight of something else – a couple of jars made of jade sitting on a stone altar. He strode over and unlid one of them. As soon as he peeled open the covering, a supple but rich glow of red burst out and flooded the whole subterranean chamber, turning up the temperature and illuminated the room.

“Could this be it?! The Sacred Dew of the Sun?!”

Chu Xun's eyes never looked any hungrier. He whisked the jars all up into his Storage Ring ravenously.

Chapter end