Chapter 271 - The Mysterious Mountain!
Chapter 271 The Mysterious Mountain!
The mountain shook, and the earth trembled as the bright whirlpool of golden light stretched for more than ten miles. The golden light that burst out when the mountain exploded looked terrifying as if it could tear everything apart.
Fear and disbelief filled Luo Fei’s eyes. As a Fourth-grade Human King, never had he expected that anyone could possibly hit him and cause him to bleed.
Petrified by fear for several seconds, Luo Fei still found it hard to believe that his nightmare was coming true. Yet, his throbbing arms confirmed to him that his fears were true, and Chu Xun very well possessed the ability to kill him.
As his enemy drew near, Chu Xun raised his fists aloft with a cold look, being ready to deal with the final stroke.
Luo Fei felt his heart skipping a beat, and he roared loudly, channeling what remained of his Internal Breath as he charged at Chu Xun in last-ditch desperation.
Boom!
Another massive eruption of flames and force followed as the two men met, churning up yet another storm that skimmed off at least three meters worth of dust and sand from where they stood.
“ARGGHH!”
Luo Fei flew into the air once more, vomiting blood from his mouth and tumbling pitifully on his back.
Frustration, resentment, and dissatisfaction – all of which were written on his face. He was a Fourth-grade Human King – a paragon of absolute power and strength; yet here he was, beaten senselessly like a dog and he could do nothing to fight back.
Yet he was no fool; he understood the virtue of swallowing one’s pride. With a venomous glare at Chu Xun, he turned and fled.
A Fourth-grade Human King traveled at twice the speed of sound-breaking, an unbelievable speed.
Chu Xun’s figure flickered at where he stood, and he vanished, turning into a flash of light that shot into the sky at twice the speed of sound-breaking after Luo Fei. With his speed, it needed only mere seconds for him to catch up to the escaping Luo Fei. Just as soon as he saw his quarry, Chu Xun fired a purple jet of magical energy at the Human King’s back.
Luo Fei felt a chilly, prickly sensation on his back, and when he turned around and saw who it was, his face fell. Then, he quickly recovered himself and tried swinging his fists to deflect the magical energy coming at him.
“ARGGHH!”
More blood escaped from Luo Fei’s mouth as he careened into an enormous boulder several tens of meters tall, the impact of the collision immediately crushing it into bits.
Chu Xun closed in quickly. His fists raised as he prepared to kill Luo Fei.
But he sidestepped quickly, dashing several hundred meters away.
Boom!
A gargantuan palm-like magical bolt slammed at where he stood before, rocking the ground so forcefully that the earth was split.
Chu Xun looked around and saw a middle-aged man standing not far away with his hands crossed behind his back, fully-clothed in robes and a hood of black. On his hood were embroidered with fine golden threads the motifs of two hideous taloned claws – an image looked creepy and sinister all the same.
“My apologies for my incompetence, First Presbyter.”
Luo Fei struggled to clamber up from his prone position, forcing himself to remain on his knees, bowing deeply to the stranger.
“Your reputation precedes you, Chu the Devil,” said the stranger. With each syllable, the air trembled as if in shock and awe to his very speech and presence, with an occasional pop in the air from his thick, emanating aura.
Chu Xun did his best to suppress his emotion, but he realized one fact: whoever this stranger was, he’s not one he should flippantly trifle with.
“May I introduce myself: Bo Ping, First Presbyter of the Broken Souls Cult.”
“You’ll never save him,” Chu Xun hissed placidly.
Bo Ping looked rather surprised, with only one of his eyes revealed from under his hood. It looked morbid with the red-scarlet shade of blood in it. In a raspy voice, he chuckled, “You really are the same as how they described you, Chu the Devil.”
Chu Xun made no attempt to answer and instead he formed hand seals with one hand.
Rumble!
The air trembled and the fabric of space warped and twisted, and an ancient and colossal aura filled everywhere around them, and a hulking monolith fell from the sky.
“Hmph!”
Bo Ping snorted, doing nothing to mask his displeasure at Chu Xun’s display of belligerence. A hand came out from the folds of his dark robes, and it formed several hand seals too, and the silhouette of a gigantic claw appeared in the sky, reaching over to seize the monolith.
Boom!
An eruption of force swept out when the two collided, stirring up wild winds that gusted furiously around them. Cracks began appearing on the huge monolith of stone before it crumbled and disappeared, and so did the monstrous claw-like silhouette as well.
Chu Xun’s eyes softened. Through the exchange, he had gotten a measure of his foe’s power – a Fifth-grade Human King.
Swoosh!
Chu Xun pounced, dashing forward like a blur of light with his fists held ready to strike.
Bo Ping’s arms escaped his long voluminous sleeves, revealing an eerily pallid-white skin complexion. Stomping his heel hard into the ground, he hurtled forward as well to meet his enemy in battle, his fingers forming claws.
Bang! Bang! Bang—!
A deluge of energy bolts – all fist-like and claw-like – filled the sky, all of them were entangled with each other, causing a litany of deafening explosions with numerous shock and heat waves rippling rapidly away, destroying everything – stones, rocks, trees, and plants – in the vicinity.
No one could have been able to see their movements. They were both just too quick, and things visible were only the salvos of purplish and white energy bolts colliding into each other.
Bang!
The two collided for an instant before they shook each other loose.
A wry smile twisted at the corners of Chu Xun’s lips.
“How dare you!?” Bo Ping snarled for the first time, no longer putting up a calm demeanor as an angry wave of aura swept from him.
Chu Xun maintained his cryptic simper – he had managed to force Bo Ping away from Luo Fei, placing himself between them and the latter now completely in his mercy. But he would show him none. He turned around and fired a blow.
Luo Fei, his face now white with terror, raised his arms futilely to defend himself against the magical bolt.
Crack!
A husky, ear-splitting howl from him drowned away the horrendous sounds of bones breaking. The blast crushed the bones of his arms before barreling straight into his chest.
“Urgh!”
Deep scarlet-red blood poured out of Luo Fei’s mouth; his chest completely caved in.
Bo Ping bolted at Chu Xun, who spun around and fired a salvo of more than a dozen fist-like magical bolts at him.
Bo Ping frantically parried away the projectiles with his Internal Breath imbuing his fists as he grunted with effort and fury.
Chu Xun flicked a finger and shot another magical bolt as dangerously thin as a blade, aiming it at Luo Fei’s throat.
He quickly rolled around to evade the shot, having abandoned all his dignity and pride.
Chu Xun’s lips twisted sardonically and he flicked his fingers again and again, firing more bolts that whistled through the air at him.
Luo Fei rolled around the ground, much to his ignominious chagrin, but the bolts pierced through his body and his back, dealing him more pain.
“Urgh!”
Blood sprayed everywhere as his head plopped finally to the ground and so ended his anguished cries. In the end, the Fourth-grade Human King failed to evade the never-ending fusillade of sharp-tipped magical bolts which finally managed to slice through his throat, beheading him instantly and leaving him sprawled dead in the middle of nowhere.
“Chu the Devil...”
Bo Ping growled, his temper on the brink of losing control. He had come to rescue Luo Fei, only to witness his death unfolding right before his own eyes.
A thick aura of malice emanated from him.
Chu Xun said nothing, responding merely in a simple manner: he lifted a hand and smote hard, firing a thick volley of Hong Meng Immortal Qi at Bo Ping.
Bang!
With his Inner Breath burgeoning, Bo Ping raised a hand too and fired his own shot. His energy bolt collided with the Hong Meng Immortal Qi missile and both disappeared in a terrible explosion that churned up enough sand and dust into the air.
“I’ll tear you into pieces for this, Chu the Devil!” Bo Ping snarled. With hardly any reservations nor regard for his own safety, he lunged at Chu Xun.
Swoosh!
A golden bolt of light came as stealthily as a cat, but with the speed of a lightning bolt.
Surprised, Bo Ping sidestepped away, hoping to evade that golden bolt. But his shoulder erupted with blood pouring like a spring suddenly and a grunt escaped his lips before he knew it.
Even Chu Xun was surprised himself. He looked quickly at where the shiny golden bolt came from and saw a gash breaking wide like an eye that opened vertically over the mountaintop and it was this eye that had fired the bolt which injured Bo Ping.
And before he could make out what it was, the eye gleamed with a shiny brilliance and fired another bolt – only this one was intended for him.
Chu Xun moved quickly away for a hundred meters.
Bang!
The golden bolt hit the spot where he once stood on, blasting a huge crater several meters deep.
Chu Xun looked up again and to his astonishment, more vertical eyes opened beside the first over the mountaintop and each fired golden bolts, raining destruction over Chu Xun and Bo Ping simultaneously.
Chu Xun evaded as quickly as he could, flitting from hither to thither so quickly while leaving mirages of himself everywhere on the field.
The same went to Bo Ping, who lunged and pounced in an erratic manner to evade the onslaught.
The rain of gold came down with hardly any ounce of mercy, threatening to perforate the crust of the Earth.
At the same time, the number of vertical eyes continued multiplying over the mountaintop, each of them relentlessly firing destructive golden bolts into the air, their burning luminescence lighting up the evening sky.
With no other choice, Chu Xun unleashed his quickest speed. He jerked around frantically, desperate to avoid being hit although he nearly was for at least a few times.
“ARRRGGGHHH!”
A harsh bellow came from Bo Ping; another golden bolt had speared through his shoulder.
Chu Xun could not help but gasp with shock. Whatever those were atop the mountain, these golden bolts they fired were just too powerful. Fifth-grade Human Kings had the physical endurance that not even armor-piercing missiles could do anything to defeat them, yet these golden energy bolts were able to penetrate Bo Ping’s defenses like a hot knife through butter.
Whoosh!
Just as his mind strayed off for a split-second to think, a golden bolt whizzed past his throat, missing him just by a hair’s breadth. It astounded him, and a cold sweat broke out all over him.
This deadly deluge of golden bolts was just too dense and too wide for them to escape unscathed from.
They both had only their speeds to rely on.
Bo Ping let loose another defiant roar as fired a blast of Internal Breath to deflect away some of the bolts, only to have three of the bolts lancing through him instead.
The golden energy bolts had ripped right through the jet of Internal Breath like it was nothing!
Chu Xun thought mournfully, “Who had I angered this time?! Whatever this place is, it is absolutely more than meets the eye. Something strong, powerful, and terrifying must lurk at the top. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be attacking on its own.”
Bo Ping could never have looked any more miserable in his life. Bloodied and wounded with his robes now in tatters, never had he anticipated such indignity to ever befall one as prestigious and honored as a Fifth-grade Human King. The perpetual barrage of golden bolts never stopped and never dwindled, allowing him no respite to recuperate nor heal.
Woosh!
Another bolt came by, shearing a lock of his hair as how a blade would when passing through leaves.
More golden bolts barreled at him like a hive full of wasps.
Chu Xun labored to avoid the blows, but the golden energy bolts were just too quick. He managed to evade the rest of them, but one came close to hitting his throat. Angered and vexed, he lashed out with a burst of his Immortal Qi.
“Urgh!”
Chu Xun grimaced with the pain as his fist erupted in a spray of blood before a shrill, ringing clang ensued. The golden bolt was gone. It was not able to penetrate his bones – the bones of the Ancestral Dragon now imbued into his.
Instead of scowling at his wound, Chu Xun chuckled with joy instead. He flicked his wrist and summoned his golden staff – the tail bone of the Ancestral Dragon.
Clang! Clang!
He brandished the staff, swinging it in a frantic frenzy, parrying away every energy bolt that came at him.
Bo Ping, however, looked utterly dreary. More wounds appeared all over him and to his dismay, the wounds could not heal quickly. If prolonged, he could die from the loss of too much blood, if the golden energy bolts did not finish him first.
He cast a quick, cursory glance at Chu Xun, and what he saw only filled him with rage and frustration.
There was Chu Xun, waving his golden staff easily with only one hand, looking casual and lackadaisical.
Bo Ping decided to retreat, hoping that he could get out of the firing range from the eyes above the mountaintop. But they seemed to have read his mind; more golden bolts came, predicting his movements and barring his way of retreat. That forced him to skirt around the mountain while he looked for more avenues of escape.
“Am I going to die here?!” A dismal thought loomed in his mind.
He conjured a stone brazier ornately carved with strange, ancient runes. He channeled some Internal Breath into it, and the strange object projected a large mirage of itself that cocooned him inside.
A Sacred Relic of middling grade.
Chu Xun observed, his eyes reflecting the golden gleam of the bolts he deflected away.
Clang!
A golden bolt slammed into the mirage-like magical barrier of the brazier, only to elicit a burst of protesting sparks.
Clang! Clang!
More golden bolts pounded at the image of the stone brazier, and it began shaking convulsively. Bo Ping injected another spurt of Internal Breath into his Sacred Relic, and the shakes stopped.
Still deflecting and parrying away the golden bolts, Chu Xun’s staff glowed suddenly with a brilliant luster, and he slowly moved nearer towards Bo Ping.
Seeing this, Bo Ping felt only trepidation and distress. He snarled at Chu Xun, “What do you want, Chu the Devil!”
“You’ll know soon enough,” Chu Xun smirked, the corners of his lips twisting into a sinister glee.
He came near and hammered hard on the stone brazier as furiously as he could with the golden staff.
Bang!
Like the deafening toll of a bell, the strike caused ripples of shockwaves.
Reeling with shock and rage, Bo Ping could only watch as his brazier suffered attacks from the bolts of golden light and Chu Xun all at the same time. The Sacred Relic began shaking in his hands as its mirage that was the defensive barrier began to shrink, wobbling as if it could be faltering any second.
It was hardly a smooth breeze for Chu Xun as well; as he banged his staff relentlessly on the stone brazier, a golden bolt slammed into his shoulder, and warm blood burst like a fountain, and he grunted at the pain.
Gritting his teeth, Chu Xun intensified more Immortal Qi on his weapon; the purplish glow coating the golden staff grew thicker, and he swung it as hard as he could on the stone brazier again.
Bang!
With that attack, coupled with a few more blows from the bolts of golden light, the defensive barrier of the stone brazier crumbled and disappeared, and the actual Sacred Relic still in Bo Ping’s hands shattered into useless bits of stone.
“Urgh! Arghh!”
Blood burst out of Chu Xun fell in varying places. It was the sturdiness of the Ancestral Dragon’s tail bone that Chu Xun had relied upon to destroy Bo Ping’s stone brazier, while he endured the shocks of the impact on his own.
Terrified out of his wits, Bo Ping did not know what to say or how to react, and in his stupor, another golden energy bolt drove right through him, jerking him into fits of screaming pain.
“You’re mad, Chu the Devil!”
Bo Ping cried with grief and indignation as he struggled to recover from his shock and anger.
Chu Xun merely simpered quietly. Getting slightly wounded was a fair price for whatever-it-was’ help in killing Bo Ping.
He realized that he had been underestimating the Broken Souls Cult. If Bo Ping, a mere First Presbyter of the Cult, was already a Fifth-grade Human King, then what about their householder? What about his lieutenant or even his personal guard?