The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 294 Intrusion and Ambush

Surviving Zang Fengling’s most powerful attack.

No other feat could have so fully and truly attested to his invincibility.

Every single warrior watching the duel was left gaping with disbelief and speechlessness.

Chu Xun strode straight towards Zang Fengling and stretched out a hand, grinning, “Give it here.”

That jerked Zang Fengling back to life, but not without rage and anger flooding into him. This bumbling nobody had survived his blow?!

People would remember his name from this day, and he had just become a rung on his ladder to renown.

“You really are invincible indeed,” Zang Fengling feigned a praise, “You’ve won my admiration!”

There was no way he could back out of this – not when so many pairs of eyes trained on them. Gritting his teeth, while grimacing quietly at his loss, he stuffed the Ginseng into Chu Xun’s hand.

“I suppose I should also thank you for staying your hand,” the beaming smile on Chu Xun’s face growing broader.

That remark almost had Zang Fengling spewing blood with ebullient frustration. He knew full well if he stayed his hand, or not. And apparently, so did the many pairs of eyes around them.

Chu Xun’s words were clearly trying to mock him.

“You’re hurt, friend,” said Yan Wushuang, deciding that he should extend an olive branch. It would be invaluable to make the acquaintance of an independent warrior with such invincible might, “If you don’t mind, I can have my people prepare a room for you to rest and recuperate.”

Chu Xun rubbed and massaged his chest, mumbling, “Wow, it really hurts. Thank you, Master Yan, but I think I’ll take my leave now.”

He wheeled around and strolled away, with everyone gawking quietly at him.

With his departure, so went the life and exuberance of the atmosphere in the hall.

Zang Fengling, with unbridled malice, watched Chu Xun left until he was nowhere to be seen, and he got to his feet. With a crisp salute, he said, “I’m afraid I have some business to attend to, Yan. I suppose I’ll take my leave too.”

“Patience, Zang,” Yan Wushuang stopped him and said, “I need you to be my witness. Let us see who shall be the lucky winner who will leave with this Lotus leaf today.” He knew that Zang Fengling, having lost a prized possession and his reputation marred, wanted to give chase and murder Chu Xun.

“Yes, Zang. Please stay. Sit with us and join us in watching this contest to its end,” Yao Baiyue quipped in as well.

With two people matching him in reputation and cultivation imploring him to stay, Zang Fengling found it inappropriate to decline and therefore, he could only sit down and swallow his defeat sourly.

More so, with the contest going on with hardly any thrill that could eclipse Chu Xun’s duel with him.

Just as soon as Chu Xun traipsed out of the gates of the Yan Family residence, his sickly-pale face flushed back to rosy red of vigor and his aura mounted back to his usual levels. A wry grin curled at his lips and he vanished, dashing towards the woods far away.

...

Bright little stars speckled the black expanse of the night, huddling around a simple gossamer moon.

The meeting at the Yan Family residence had long ended.

A wraith-like figure streaked towards the residence, unnoticed and unhindered by any of the residence’s sentinels.

It flitted as quickly as lightning, and as purposeful as a hunter, methodically avoiding every patrolling squad of guards marching around in vigilance.

It did not take long for the figure to arrive before the hallowed grounds of the Yan Family, a building named Yanling Chamber (literally, the Magical Chamber of the Yans).

A pair of Second-grade Human Kings were outside, keeping watch the entrance while they meditated.

With feet as light as leaves, the figure drew close to the entrance quietly, producing a long jet pole in his grasp.

Clank! Clank!

Just two raspy clangs and the two Human Kings collapsed before they could even know what happened with huge angry-red swellings on the back of their heads.

Mercifully, these men were both Human Kings; their heads would have been blown to bits if they were any weaker than Grandmasters.

The dark-hooded figure peered at the swellings on the two fainted men and chuckled, “My apologies, chaps. I’ve struck a tad too hard!”

But if anyone familiar were nearby, they would have immediately guessed who the stranger was: Chu Xun.

The almost-ton heavy thickset doors that constituted the entry leading inside the Yanling Chamber towered more than a dozen meters tall.

Chu Xun gave a rough shove and the door yawned ajar, allowing Chu Xun to slip inside and push the door shut from within.

It turned out to be a threshold that connected two different worlds. Chu Xun found himself staring at the insides of a luxurious palace and what’s more, the spiritual energies swirling inside were thick enough to suffocate.

Chu Xun projected his Divine Sense and scoured through every nook and cranny of this cavernous gallery.

He remembered Yan Wushuang mentioning that the Yan Family owns an Spirit Basin and within it was where the Soul-nourishing Lotus kept.

Spirit Basins appear only over Spirit Veins and that meant that the Yan Family residence was sitting right over one. In fact, this very Spirit Vein must be stronger and larger than the one Chu Xun owned at Qianlong Mountain, or else there would not be any Spirit Basin here. To have enough spiritual energy to manifest into Spirit Basins, the Vein would have to be at least a thousand years old.

The Yan Family has really landed on its feet by finding this Spirit Vein. Small wonder why they enjoyed such perpetual prosperity and strength.

Like a dome his Divine Sense grew and expanded, enveloping the entirety of the Yanling Chamber, and to his astonishment, he picked up the presence of ten more powerful people inside, all of them Third-grade Human Kings and beyond.

But the presence of the guardians inside would hardly serve to encumber him; with his Divine Sense, he could easily pinpoint their location with tremendous accuracy.

Additionally, the Human Kings were not clustered together. sparing him the tedium of heavy work.

The Yanling Chamber was just so wide that it was built like a long, gargantuan gallery fit for giants with two Human Kings at every interval of a thousand meters.

Chu Xun concealed his aura and glided over the polished floors of the huge gallery like a ghost for about a thousand meters before he stopped before the thick column of a granite pillar, one that would need more than just a few people with arms outstretched to reach around it.

In the shadow of the huge stone column, sat a Third-grade Human King meditating quietly.

Clang!

His jet pole came down hard on the Human King, rendering him unconscious.

His colleague – another Third-grade Human King – heard the noise and he sped near to check, only to discover his fainted partner and opened his mouth to yell a warning.

Clang!

Another blow with the jet pole came down hard on the back of his head and he too fainted as well.

“Apologies, boys,” Chu Xun murmured and dashed down the gallery to deal with the next pair of Human Kings.

Clang! Clang!

Without any difficulty, Chu Xun successfully dealt with the next pair of Third-grade Human Kings.

No other intruder could have dispatched the Human Kings with such ease, even with the help of Sacred Relics. Yet it was Chu Xun, who had his fair share of battering people with his staff, that even an elderly warrior of the Tribulation Transcendence stage had once fallen prey to him before during his time in the foreign dimension.

Chu Xun traveled further down the gallery, putting down more Human Kings with his black staff, unleashing his mastery of his quarterstaff to its greatest potential.

He traversed through one gauntlet of Human Kings after another, leaving at least ten watchers unconscious in his wake, among them included a pair of Fifth-grade Human Kings and all of them now lying with a huge red swell rising furiously on the back of their heads.

The Spirit Basin would be just a thousand meters further ahead, Chu Xun knew, and it was heavily guarded in four different directions by four Sixth-grade Human Kings.

That would be difficult. All four of them were too close to each other.

A fleeting blink of inspiration struck and Chu Xun allowed his footfalls to be heard.

“Who goes there!?”

All four of the Human Kings stirred, their eyes opening and flaring with cold fury. Two of them sprang up and sped towards where Chu Xun was.

The granite pillars were so huge that not even four to five people could actually ring their arms around it. The Human Kings split up, each to either side of the stone pillar. One of them discovered a Human King that Chu Xun had rendered conscious earlier, yet before he could raise any alarm, he sensed a blow coming at him.

Clang!

It came so fast – so fast that before he could even react, the jet-black pole came banging on his head and he began seeing stars and felt dizzy.

Chu Xun sighed. The pole was something he found when he passed by a construction site. As he feared, it really was useless against high-tiered Human Kings.

But if one stroke was not enough, why not another?

Clang!

With another blow to the back again, the Sixth-grade Human King collapsed to the ground with two swells burgeoning on his head.

“If only you would just go down with one stroke,” Chu Xun grimaced quietly. “Don’t blame me, friend. You asked this yourself.”

Yet Chu Xun wondered if this Human King might spring up to life if he could hear his thoughts.

The other Sixth-grade Human King heard the commotion. He came over and found his colleague now on the ground.

Chu Xun bolted around the stone pillar to ambush him from behind and the black iron pole came up again.

The Human King was still reeling in shock when he heard the air screaming. He frantically dove forward, but he was too late.

Not only Chu Xun wielded might that far outstripped his, Chu Xun’s skills and experience in fighting with poles and quarterstaves would have easily rendered even Sixth-grade Human Kings unconscious, if not for the terrible brand of weapon he now used.

Clang!

A jab of pain shot up his head so greatly that he felt his vision darkened, and before he could wheel around and face his assailant, another blow came when he barely finished his spin.

Thud!

He crumpled and fell on his fainted colleague.

“Mercifully, they have this huge pillar that allows me to play hide and seek with them,” Chu Xun thought, amused.

But there were two more Human Kings staying closely beside the Spirit Basin, and they were both wary and alerted.

“Yan Nan, Yan Bei! Where are you?! What’s happened?!” yelled one of them.

Yan Nan and Yan Bei? As in the Nan (South) and Bei (North) of the four directions of North, South, East and West? Are they quadruple brothers?

With that, Chu Xun had an idea.

Moments passed until someone – the watchful sentinels couldn’t see clearly who it was, either Yan Nan or Yan Bei – appeared from the back of the stone pillar with his head lowered. “All is fine, Brothers,” said the person.

“What of Yan Nan?” asked one of the brothers by the pool.

“Third Brother? He’s speaking to someone. It’s something about training,” said Yan Bei ambiguously.

That seemed to relax both Yan Dong (East), and Yan Xi (West). It was usual for younger juniors to come asking for advice about training and cultivation of magical powers.

Yan Dong and Yan Xi sat back down and resumed their meditation, keeping close to the Spirit Basin. Scintillating spiritual energies, in the form of mucous-like liquid, swirled handsomely inside the Basin and each moment gone not making full use of the rich energies radiating from the Basin would really be a wasteful sacrilege indeed.

Yan Bei circled around to his seat and sat down.

Clang!

With a crisp knock followed by a dull thud, Yan Dong crumbled to the ground.

Yan Xi jerked his head, channeling his Internal Breath in full alert.

Clang!

But he reacted one split-second too late; the sharp pain twanged from the back of his head and everything went dark, yet already strengthened by his Internal Breath, he did not fall.

Clang! Clang!

A whirl of steel and thuds that resulted in the iron pole now bent and crooked, even Yan Xi collapsed at last.

“Gods, you shouldn’t have tried to resist. Just go down, for Heaven’s sakes,” grumbled Chu Xun, shaking his head.

“The Yan Family has reigned supreme in these parts for far too long, Yan Wushuang. Look at your kin; they have grown lazy and complacent. Let’s pray that they will learn their mistakes after today and be more careful. I’m also doing this for you, I hope you realize. What if it was an evildoer instead of me who sneaked in? So, I guess some reward should be a fair exchange for this lesson, eh?”

As he mumbled, his eyes wandered to the shimmering pool of liquid-like spiritual energies and he could not quite peel his eyes away.

The Spirit Basin was nowhere near the size of an actual lagoon basin of water, but rather, just a little pond with barely a bucketful of liquefied spiritual energy known as Spirit Flux which only grew painfully slowly. If he was right, Chu Xun reckoned that this pond only existed after a long wait for thousands of years.

And this little Spirit Basin was at most only one cubic meter in size. The syrupy spiritual energies in deliquesced form undulated lazily on the glistening surface of the little pond with swirls of white mists snaking around above. One single deep breath was enough to invigorate and refresh one and restore one to fullness.

And sitting in the center of the water, was the little Soul-nourishing Lotus sticking out barely a half-meter over the surface with its leaves and petals all sparkling brightly with life. The shrub gave a little throb and glittering ripples spread on the surface of the Spirit Flux, a resplendent and beautiful sight to anyone beholding its splendor.

“Well, gotta say I’m sorry, Yan Wushuang. I’m sure your family’s no shortage of treasure and valuables, considering how much wealth and power the Yan Family holds. So, I hope you won’t mind me borrowing this Lotus. Don’t worry, I’ll have it returned as soon as possible,” mumbled Chu Xun vainly to assuage his scruples. He had found Yan Wushuang a likeable fellow the last time they met.

Chu Xun weaved a quick spell to protect the Lotus and he plucked it out of the Spirit Flux and stowed it away.

He was just about to leave when he stopped short.

“Well, might as well, eh mate?” he took out dozens of chests and began emptying the Spirit Flux from the pond.

It did not take long until the Spirit Basin was almost empty with almost all of the Spirit Flux stored inside his jade chests.