The Immortal Emperor Returns Chapter 501

Time passed like a shadow.

Five years had come and gone.

The world speculated and guessed about what happened to the Devil.

Eyewitnesses claimed to see Gao Mohan and the others leaving Yuchi Slope, but none saw Chu Xun.

Thus began the rumors: has something happened to the Devil?

Scores of Immortal-level champions tried prodding Gao Mohan and the others for answers about the whereabouts of the Devil, but they got not so much as the simple shakes of their heads.

But even in the Devil's five-year-long absence, no one dared to offend the forces of the Chu Mansion. Not only were they watched over by the Flaming Qilin and the others, but there was also the duo of deadly but yet gorgeous damsels, Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu, both of whom too were formidable in their own right.

Even so, those who still harbored ill intents upon the Chu Mansion faction were kept from setting their insidious plans into motion only because the Devil's name commanded fear still.

This was hardly the first time the Devil had mysteriously vanished off the face of the Earth and each time he would return, death followed in his wake and all who dared to oppose him would find themselves regretting – immensely.

As for Chu Xun himself, there he was, still inside the cave chamber, still in his long rote workout regimen to regain his freedom. “Left hand… Now my right hand… Now the left hand again…”

Despite the terrifying pressure of the Stellar Core, Chu Xun was already able to straighten his upper body and move his arms freely with one knee on the ground. Every inch of muscle he could move was a sign of the increased strength of his flesh.

Still, that was all he could do – his lower half remained heavy like lead as if he was a cripple.

Chu Xun was now working to regain his ability to sit.

Such was the long journey of rehabilitation. The recovery of the movement of every sinew and muscle needed work, time, and patience.

At long last, after another two years, Chu Xun could finally sit down.

“Finally,” Chu Xun breathed.

He took all the items out of his Storage Ring.

He first planned to start his solitary training and meditation after he had departed the Elf race. But now that he was here, he might as well conduct his solitary training here and now.

He wolfed down the magical herbs, not forgetting seven alien fruits that the Spirit of the Divine Tree had given to him. He only consumed seven because he only had seven portions of pollen. Only after that, he ate the Arcane Fruit that Su Wei'er brought him.

Last but not least, Chu Xun swallowed the Qilin True Blood that he acquired from the Flaming Qilin.

Rumble!

Energies of varying provenance erupted from inside Chu Xun. Anyone else would have already been blown to bits by the sheer force of these energies alone, for Chu Xun carried in his body the Ancestral Dragon's Bone.

He closed his eyes and performed several hand seals as he channeled his powers to assimilate these energies into his own.

Hum!

Chu Xun spasmed with pain as his face twisted with just as much agony. His aura burgeoned and raged like a storm that even the very air inside the cave chamber roiled, warped, and popped in resonance.

Strained rattles escaped his throat. It was too much and he had miscalculated. Perhaps he should not have consumed so much in one sitting. His own body glowed and dimmed like a firefly with the energies trying to break loose, eclipsing even the illumination of the luminous pearls around him.

Time went on swiftly. Another three years flitted by and still, Chu Xun remained in his meditative training with no signs of waking up.

A decade had passed since the Devil was last seen.

The world had completely transformed outside.

More champions of the alien races had emerged.

Ten years might sound too long to some and too short for others. Even so, the Devil's mysterious disappearance had never been forgotten.

The forces of the Chu Mansion remained just as strong as ever, if not very much better than before.

Just two years ago, Jiu You achieved the Immortal Level.

The Chu Mansion now boasted four Immortal-level champions.

The number would have been five if Chu Xun was included but that was enough to make any enemy think twice about attacking the Chu Mansion forces.

Even Yue Fandie, Lord of the Sanctuary of Tetrarchy had attained the Immortal Level a year ago.

To say nothing of the support that the Flaming Qilin, Gao Mohan, and a few other Immortal-level champions had openly declared for.

All that made the Chu Mansion forces powerful in both might and influence.

Especially the Flaming Qilin, whose growth and progress had been nothing less than expeditious.

He even earned himself the moniker of the Raging Berserker.

Traveling everywhere alone, the Flaming Qilin waged enough wars on the alien races for them to harbor just as much grudge on him as Chu Xun.

The Qilin hardly cared about how the alien races saw him. Taking a leaf out of Chu Xun's book, he would go around challenging their champions to duels which thus far had resulted in his long string of triumphs and just as many dead opponents in his wake.

That forced the Lost Races to avoid contact with him, although they hatched a great many ideas to try to remove him from play.

On this day, five champions of the Lost Races had banded up together to launch an assault on the Flaming Qilin's stronghold, Qilin City. Unable to hold up against their collective might, the Qilin was wounded before he managed to flee.

At the same time, another offensive was carried out on Tianlong City. The stronghold of the Tianlong Mansion was breached and destroyed with its forces all scattered and killed. Defeated, Jiu You was forced to abandon her foothold there and brought what remnants of her forces that she could salvage to Qianlong Mountain.

At the city square of Gujiang were Wu Keyin and his three lackeys whom Chu Xun had turned into beacons that had been alight for more than a decade and would remain so for the years to come.

Five Immortal-level champions arrived, hoping to save Wu Keyin and deliver him from his ten-year-long torment and ignominy. But none of them could undo the enchantment that Chu Xun had left there and the news that Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu were coming forced the champions to retreat before they arrived.

All these were telltale signs that showed that the Lost Races were planning something against the forces of the Chu Mansion.

The ill tidings did not seem to end. Another grim news hit cyberspace: the Faith of Divine Radiance was attacked.

The Master of the Faith Gao Mohan was reported to be missing.

It was no secret that the alien races were behind the attacks and clearly, they were fearful of the Devil and they wished to find out about him from Gao Mohan.

Another five years streaked by like the blink of an eye.

That marked the fifteenth year since the Devil mysteriously vanished.

The entire world was engulfed in grim and tense conflict even as the anomalies continued. The tectonic plates underground never stopped shifting and more champions of the alien races emerged by the thousand on a daily basis, lighting up the beacons of war for the impending showdown.

Until one day, the residents in the east witnessed an incredible phenomenon.

The bright blue sky and the sunny weather vanished all of a sudden, replaced by a howling windstorm as a huge vortex opened right in the middle of the sky like a giant monster about to devour Earth.

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A gigantic hand reached out from inside the vortex and the weather turned gloomy in its advent. Flashes of lightning streaked intermittently within the plumes of cumulonimbuses that gathered overhead and bolts of high voltage as thick as a tree trunk rained from the sky, bombarding the giant hand furiously.

Boom! Boom!

The earth shook as one after another, countless lightning bolts slammed into the giant hand, tearing and ripping off flesh and skin with every blast, eliciting a scarlet deluge of blood falling from the sky.

The giant hand flinched and winced with white sparkles flashing all around it, inadvertently knocking down hills and mountains while also leaving deep and terrifying moats in the ground.

The gigantic hand was trying to defend itself, as the world could clearly see. But it was also plainly obvious that it would not be able to hold up long against the relentless bombardment. The lightning bolts were blasting off chunks of flesh and skin off the hand that one could even make out the whites of its bone peeking from inside.

Finally, the huge giant hand hit Earth. It opened its palm and six smug-looking young men stepped out from inside.

All six youths bent on their knees to the gigantic hand.

“Go, and do not disappoint us,” rumbled a voice from inside the vortex.

The hand gradually withdrew back into the vortex, but not without flesh and viscera still peeling off the hands that by the time the hand was passing through the vortex, it was nothing more than empty bones.

The hand vanished into the eddying currents of the vortex before it too was gone and so did the lightning and wind storm as well.

The six young men stood at the summit of a tall mountain and looked around. They peered at each other and discussed before they decided to move together.

Elsewhere, the residents were wondering if the strangers were aliens from some unknown domain.

Apparently, someone managed to record video footage of what happened and shared them onto the Internet, and comments speculating what was going on all said the same thing: these six men must be from the Assembly of Immortals.

“Good Gods… The Devil had imprisoned that Immortal offshoot Wu Keyin for eternity at Gujiang. If these six strangers are from the Assembly of Immortals, they'd surely lock horns against the Chu Mansion forces.”

“Let them come. The Chu Mansion has the support of so many Immortal-level champions. I would hardly think these strangers would dare to directly challenge them.”

“Let's see what happens next. We still don't know what these strangers are up to?”

The six young men traveled together, talking and laughing as they walked in no hurry at all.

A huge throng of warriors followed behind them, eager to know their plans. “What is their purpose for coming here? How powerful are they?”

“Wait a minute. That seems like the territory of the Priory of Square Eight up ahead,” uttered one of the warriors.

“Yeah. It would seem like they are looking for lodgings.”

The youths casually entered the city.

But before the throng of warriors trailing far behind could catch up, the din and clamors of carnage and battle erupted from inside the city as the smokes of war rose up into the sky amid fire and blood.

“What on earth?! Did they start a fight with the Priory?!”

The warriors rushed into the city at once only to be welcomed by a sight that made the very blood in their veins run cold.

The once-thriving city was gone and in its place, a spread of debris and rubbles with no one left alive. Man or woman, child or infant, the entire city had been massacred.

Fires burned still and structures never stopped collapsing. The very air they breathed reeked with the thick and nauseating stench of blood caught inside the city walls.

Horrified, the warriors rushed into action and began to save whoever they could find.

Alas, after ransacking the whole city, they could find no survivors.

The governor's mansion was destroyed, and the Priory's stronghold was pillaged with every member – from the Master to the least important acolyte – slaughtered like dogs.

“Goddammit!” cried one of the warriors. Being warriors who were no strangers to war and carnage, this was brutality of such proportions that not even they could stomach – especially when even common people were senselessly butchered.

“Those scum,” breathed another warrior under his breath, his eyes red with rage when he found the blackened corpse of a poor little girl barely four or five who had died being trapped in a fire.

Corpses – mangled and mutilated – strewn everywhere showcased the callousness of the six youths with the rest of the deaths caused by the fires.

Footage and pictures of what happened were uploaded to the Internet, causing a furor that demanded vengeance.

“KILL THEM ALL!”

“ALIEN SCUM! GO BACK TO WHERE YOU COME FROM! EARTH DOES NOT WELCOME YOU!”

“If only the Devil can come back. I'd like to see him turn these scumbags into beacons that would remain alight for thousands of years too.”

Aside from the alien races, virtually every human warrior who saw the extent of the strangers' savagery could hardly rein in their anger.

Barely three hours later, another news rocked cyberspace. Another city was gone – utterly ravaged and laid waste – with every warrior and common folk murdered.

More pictures of the grisly aftermath circulated on the Internet.

But that was not the end of the atrocities. News came every few hours, heralding more ill tidings of the sacking of another city.

There was not a man who was not angered. Whoever these strangers were, they were launching deliberate attacks on every human settlement they could find, causing more uproars from every human warrior on Earth to cry and roar for their blood.

By the following morn, a fifth city fell. The passing of these six strangers was just as every bit as destructive as the plague of locusts. Nothing – not even a blade of grass – stood living in their wake.

These strangers entered every city in their path and killed the people inside for sport. Finally, someone had managed to catch on the photo that one of the six wielded a golden oil lamp that could emit jets of flames that incinerated anything as far as a hundred miles.

Much of the dead from all five cities that they had sacked must have been burned alive using this weapon.

By the third day, the six strangers finally broke their silence. They took a warrior hostage and used him to send word to the people outside.

The message was clear: they wanted the Devil to come to them and submit himself to them or the killings would go on.

Chu Xun was given one day to surrender.

But no one knew where he was – not after fifteen long years.

In the end, the city's inhabitants were massacred as well.

The long string of carnage infuriated the top official. Right after the execution of every inhabitant in that fifth city, the top official immediately ordered a nuclear missile to be fired at the city before the strangers could retreat.

In a deafening boom, the rising mushroom cloud of radioactive debris wiped out the entire city.

Peals of cheers and whoops came from virtually every corner of the world in celebration of the destruction of those monsters.

But the revels were short-lived; the strangers appeared unscathed the next day, occupying another city and they used hostages to send word again, calling for the Devil's surrender in 24 hours.

And this time, with the citizens of the city held as hostages, the top official could not launch any nuclear attacks.

Chu Xun could not appear, but the Flaming Qilin could sit still no longer. He set off at once, proclaiming his intent to avenge humanity by killing those strangers.

At the same time, so did Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu as well. They felt it was their duty to fight his wars in his absence.

Chapter end