The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 328 Safe Recovery

It looked very far, with a long path flanked by thick and ancient woods.

From where did Tang Rou and Jiu You entered?

Chu Xun searched as he ventured deeper into the woods until he finally saw the large trail left by Jiu You in her snake form.

It must have been dangerous indeed that Jiu You felt it necessary to reveal her true form.

Chu Xun dashed through the forest.

At the same time, he projected his Divine Sense as wide as he could for tens of thousands of meters.

There was no indication of any aura of Tang Rou’s or Jiu You’s aside from the presence of several powerful Beast Lords.

Chu Xun streaked quickly for a few kilometers until he stopped. He suddenly noticed a few auras – strong and formidable ones.

At the same time, Chai Yi and his men were at the bottom of the chasm searching for trails of Tang Rou and Jiu You. They had reached the bottom only to find a puddle of blood, but both girls were missing.

“Hunt them down! They must be gravely injured at least, so they won’t be far,” snarled Chai Yi.

Goddamit, how could they have survived a fall from so high a spot?! Chai Yee seethed with rage and malice.

But he was true that Tang Rou and Jiu You were still near; with Jiu You unconscious and herself injured, Tang Rou could barely move far while carrying Jiu You with her.

She had found a hole and was just hiding inside it with Jiu You, keeping her aura concealed.

Luckily for them, being a Cultivator of the magic and immortality and a demon, their auras were different from usual warriors and Chai Yi and his men failed to detect them.

“Wait, I found blood,” shouted a presbyter of the Brotherhood.

Chai Yi and his men stacked up around the presbyter and saw that the blood was still wet. He cast a long, sweeping gaze around and said coldly, “They must be nearby. Search everywhere and don’t miss any spot!”

Tang Rou could feel her heart jerking. Through her Divine Sense, she could feel Chai Yi and his men approaching the cave.

“There’s blood here too,” said another man who found their blood.

Chai Yi piercing gaze looked around and found the cave just a hundred meters away.

Everyone followed his gaze with wicked smiles broke across their faces.

The six men surrounded the mouth of the cave.

Sensing that Chai Yi and his men just lurked at the entrance of the cave outside, an anxious Tang Rou looked at the unconscious Jiu You.

The cave system was nowhere near long or deep, reaching only as deep as ten meters or so and much undergrowth blanketed the floor of the naturally-formed cavern.

Tang Rou had placed Jiu You in the deepest most corner of the stone cavern and hid her under a pile of fallen leaves and branches.

Surrounding the entrance of the cave, Chai Yi was about to give the word to enter when his phone rang suddenly.

He tapped the “Answer” button and what he heard almost made him drop the phone.

“The Devil has found us! He knows that the Brotherhood is hunting his sisters and he’s coming!” said a presbyter of the Brotherhood tasked to hunt down the harem women.

“When did he find out?” barked Chai Yi.

“It’s— ARGGGGHHH!” A horrible howl frightened Chai Yi into fits.

Almost immediately came the cold, frosty voice of a woman, “How brazen of the Brotherhood! It seems you’ve forgotten who are the rulers of Xiacheng. Having committed such monstrosities, you should expect that even if the Devil spares you, we will not.”

The voice made Chai Yi shivered with fear as his greatest fear came true: even the Xia Family was involved now.

Such a perfect plan was ruined by the hands of a bunch of fools! Even pigs would have done a better job than these idiots when their job was only as simple as hunting down a few helpless girls! This is all on Kong Junde! It’s all his fault! If he hadn’t screwed up, we wouldn’t have been in this debacle at all!

With the Devil now learning the full truth and the Xia Family entering the fray, woe had unquestionably come to the Brotherhood.

What now? Chai Yi asked himself desperately.

“What’s going on, Presbyter Chai?” asked one of his colleagues.

“The Devil is coming. He’s learned about everything,” muttered Chai Yi darkly.

That wiped the smiles off everyone’s faces and the men stirred uneasily.

“What should we do now?”

They began to look agitated, distressed, and worried. But one might think it understandable; no one can remain calm when the most notorious madman with the bloodiest reputation of the lands is hot at his heels.

“Quickly make up your mind, dammit, Presbyter!” urged Kong Junde, panicking.

“Let’s run,” suggested a presbyter, his confidence wavering.

“Run?” smirked Chai Yi with a hint of resignation, “Where else can you run to?”

“How about taking the girls and use them as hostages?” said another presbyter.

That restored a sparkle in Chai Yi’s eyes. Indeed, it might work. With Chu Xun looking so angry and worried about these girls, they must be really important to him.

“Let’s do it. Take them, but don’t harm them,” Chai Yi gave the order.

The words barely left his lips when a white flash of light shot from inside the cave, speeding away.

Stunned, it took a split-second before Chai Yi and his men could react.

“GO!”

All six of the men chased after Tang Rou.

Gravely wounded, running was all Tang Rou could do. She was doing it to lure the men away from Jiu You, whom she left in the cave, while hoping that she could put as much distance between them and her as possible.

But her wounds kept her from using her top speed, and she barely made the thousandth-meter mark when Chai Yi and his men caught up with her.

“Stop, girl. We won’t hurt you,” said Chai Yi, trying his best to put up a kind look.

But Tang Rou knew better than to trust him. She channeled her powers, hoping to make another break for it, only to aggravate her injuries instead and she collapsed, coughing blood from her mouth.

“Trust us, girl. We won’t hurt you,” said Chai Yi, distressed by the sight of her being injured. She was their last hope; without her, they were all as good as dead.

“Take her,” commanded Chai Yi.

There was no way Tang Rou could resist with her being as weakened as she is. Two presbyters of the Brotherhood came forward to apprehend her.

Bang! Bang!

Two able-bodied men suddenly blasted into two morbid plumes of musky-red mist.

The sudden and grisly manner of their deaths petrified everyone that their hearts skipped a beat.

To their astonishment, when they panned their gazes back to Tang Rou, someone was right beside her.

“Big Brother Chu Xun...” whimpered Tang Rou with joy and relief, her eyes tearing up. The sight of Chu Xun set her fully at ease as she breathed weakly, “Jiu You’s injured. She’s still in the cave just ahead. Go save her, Big Brother.”

With that, Tang Rou, who had been struggling to her utmost to remain until now finally fainted in Chu Xun’s arms.

Chu Xun’s cold, frosty glare could have frozen even a mountain, but when he looked at Tang Rou, it was full of warmth and tenderness.

He put some magical herbs into Tang Rou’s mouth for her to chew and injected copious amounts of Hong Meng Immortal Qi into her to help her digest the herbs and enhance her healing.

Chai Yi and his men never looked more dismal before.

They would be fools deserving nothing more than their deaths if by now, they still failed to guess the identity of this stranger before them.

“I-I-Immortal Chu... P-P-Please... Have mercy...” Chai Yi could clearly hear himself mumbling with his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

The rest of his remaining three men were already feeling their knees failing them and Kong Junde most of all felt the worst – he was already showing the whites of his eyes and it was all he could do to keep himself from fainting.

The Devil had been able to survive the onslaught of the elites of the Broken Souls Cult, the Sifang Sword Sect, and any other factions that dare oppose him and routed them all instead. If anything, the presbyters knew how meager their powers were compared to those who foolishly tried to oppose the Devil before.

Regret and dread were all that swirled in the backs of their heads.

“It was he—” Chai Yi thrust a finger at Kong Junde and said, “It was he who wounded your sisters! The rest of us had no part in it.”

That almost made Kong Junde’s heart stop as he spun around to glower at Chai Yi, “Dammit, you betrayed me!”

“It was you who had hurt his sisters! You need to take responsibility and own up to your mistakes! Don’t expect us to help you shoulder what you did!” snarled Chai Yi in return.

“Yes,” quipped another, “It was he who had injured your sisters. We’re only here to provide assistance.”

“Really! Once we knew that they were your sisters, we rushed here at once. But Kong Junde had dealt his blows too forcefully and she’s already so injured when we arrived.”

The other two members of the Brotherhood decided to abandon Kong Junde as well.

Frustrated, a fuming Kong Junde bellowed, “You wretched double-crossing bastards! Hanging me out to dry, eh? I’ll die, but I’ll drag you all down to Hell with me!”

“Immortal Chu!” he shouted suddenly, “It was our leader, Tong Li, who ordered—”

Bang!

Kong Junde was cut short before he could finish; Chai Yi attacked him suddenly, sending him flying into the air.

Such was a stroke by a Sixth-grade Human King – and one with unreserved malice too – that the blow destroyed all of Kong Junde’s insides and once he hit the ground again, he winced and jerked and was dead.

“Please trust nothing that craven said, Immortal Chu. He knew full well that he would never escape death, so he intended to implicate us into his own devious schemes. The Brotherhood has only the deepest respects for you and your exploits and so we would never seek to harm your sisters,” Chai Yi tried to explain hastily.

“Yes, yes, yes! Yours is a name that everyone in the Brotherhood adores and reveres. We came here quickly once we got word of your sisters’ plight. Trust us. Kong Junde knew he could not escape death, so he wished us to join him in death as well.”

Tang Rou was so heavily wounded that there was damage to her heart and nerves and it would take time for her to heal – days or even weeks for a full recovery.

Chu Xun waved a hand and cast an enchantment around Tang Rou, enveloping her in a magical dome that helped with her healing.

“What makes you think I care?” Chu Xun’s voice came suddenly with the stillness of a taut bowstring about to fire its arrow; his voice was so tense and dangerous that made Chai Yi and his men shiver.

None of them could grasp what Chu Xun was trying to say.

“What makes you think I care since all of you are going to die anyway?”

Chu Xun lunged.

Boom!

The first powerful blast of Hong Meng Immortal Qi reduced a presbyter of the Brotherhood into a mist of viscid blood.

Bang!

The next blasted another presbyter into sickening scraps of flesh and viscera.

There standing the last man, Chai Yi, who wished to resist, but every ounce of his courage had all but left him.

Chu Xun had something else in mind for him: tens of thousands of Reincarnation Lines shot and entwined around him, shredding him into mincemeat so fine that even his bones were gone.

But it was not enough. Killing just so few of them seemed hardly enough for Chu Xun to fully vent the anger and malice in him.

He hurried towards the cave where he found Jiu You.

Having fallen from the cliff in her true form, Jiu You had broken almost every bone in her body and the fall had virtually messed up her insides.

Chu Xun’s anger boiled vehemently.

He treated Jiu You with his arcane magic. He used a large amount of middle-grade magical herb to help reform her bones before using much of his Hong Meng Immortal Qi to restore her insides to their original state.

That took several hours until Chu Xun was finally convinced that Jiu You was finally stable with no worries of having lasting implications once she woke up.

Finally, Chu Xun emerged from the forest with Tang Rou and Jiu You safely recovered.

Xia Miaoyu arrived with her men just in time to meet him.

Chu Xun left Tang Rou and Jiu You at the Xia Family residence to recuperate.

Chu Xun thought of giving them some magical fruits. But not knowing what could happen, he thought that risk allowing them to ingest the fruits might only do more harm than good.

On the other hand, Xia Boyan came visiting with many potent concoctions of his own.

“Thank you so much,” Chu Xun expressed his gratefulness to Xia Boyan and Xia Miaoyu.

“Nay, Immortal Chu,” smiled Xia Boyan, “The honor is mine to receive you as a guest. This is an honor beyond any man’s wildest dreams.”

But Chu Xun knew full well that he owed a great debt to the Xia Family.

He cast enchantments around Tang Rou and Jiu You so as to accelerate their healing rates.

“Master Xia, can I leave my sisters with you? There is something I wish to attend to.”

Xia Boyan gave a knowing look to his daughter, who unfurled a map and showed it to Chu Xun.

Chu Xun pored over it and saw the location of the stronghold of the Brotherhood of Seven Stars already marked for his benefit.

“Thank you so much.”

He took the map and left.

Xia Boyan watched Chu Xun leaving and sighed, “While one might seek escape from Heaven’s iniquity, there is no escaping the price of sin. The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”