The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 504 Killing Contest

The Flaming Qilin called and called for Chu Xun to no avail. To focus on his meditative training, Chu Xun had shut off all his senses. He could hardly hear a word.

The frantic Flaming Qilin could only pace around in anxious circles. He could not go close; he could never be able to withstand the weight of the strange black stone’s force field.

“You can stop calling. He’d never hear you,” a shrill voice echoed from behind. It was the Queen of Elves. She had come when she heard about the Qilin coming here.

She had never once visited this place since her escape fifteen years ago and seeing Chu Xun now in a sitting position sent a jolt of shock through her. The feat alone must have taken Chu Xun great resolve and grit.

Fear began to seep into her as she grimaced at what she had done. If Chu Xun could get out, how would he exact vengeance? The Queen began to wonder if she had done the most stupid thing ever fifteen years ago by tricking Chu Xun.

There was but only one thing she could do: that was to repair the damage that she had wrought by her own hands. Should any danger or harm ever came to Chu Xun’s wives, the Devil would never forgive the Elf race for this.

“Even if he’s awake, there’s no telling if he can get out,” remarked the Queen.

“And whose fault do you think it is?” snapped the Qilin placidly.

“Let’s go,” the Queen said, turning towards the exit. Realizing that the Flaming Qilin was still rooted to where he was standing, she paused and asked, “Do you want to help save the Devil’s consorts or not?”

“You’re willing to help?” the Flaming Qilin uttered, his face perplexed with incredulity.

“For far too long we have sat in the shadows. It’s time for the Elf race to emerge,” declared the Queen. “It’s time to show the world who we are.”

The Flaming Qilin fell silent for one second. There really was no other way. With Chu Xun still stuck here, the Queen was the only one now who could save Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu.

“And what are you waiting for?” the Queen glowered.

Without a word, the Qilin obediently led the way.

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In the meantime, Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu were still speeding across the countryside at full speed.

The sons of the Assembly of Immortals maintained their pursuit with dogged persistence.

The chase had gone for days and even Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu were beginning to feel fatigued from the exhaustion of their True Energy, and the magical herbs they consumed were not replenishing their endurance fast enough.

In contrast, the sons of Immortals remained strong and fast. The pills they brought from their world could easily restore them within seconds.

This filled Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu with trepidation. Sooner or later, the enemy would catch up to them.

“Get ready, Qingwu,” said Jing Hong. “We’ll hide in that city in front and keep our auras hidden. We need to hide.”

Hua Qingwu nodded.

Jing Hong’s hand blurred into a rapid flurry as she quickly weaved another spell. She cast an enchantment on the ground where they passed by and sped towards the city before them, Wentian City.

Her plan worked; Jing Lei and his comrades fell into her trap and were stuck inside her enchantment.

“Blasted enchantments,” Jin Yujie glowered. He had lost count of the times they had been held up by Jing Hong’s enchantments.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu had managed to evade capture only because of the enchantments she had cast to prevent them from catching up.

Even so, for all her prowess in battle, Jing Hong knew little in the skills of using enchantments. She had but only learned some from Chu Xun – some enchantments that were only good at deception at best and could cause little to no harm at all – and none of them could do anything more than temporarily slowing down their pursuers.

“The stage is yours,” said Wang He to Ma Kewei.

Ma Kewei nodded. Among them, he was most skilled in the magic of enchantment. It was he who had defeated the enchantments that Jing Hong had cast all the way.

It did not take long for him to undo Jing Hong’s magic.

“Parlor tricks,” commented Ma Kewei dryly.

Despite his outward disdain, Ma Kewei was actually awed. That an Earthling female could use such a complex enchantment that even he found it difficult to defeat filled him with amazement.

“Their auras… They’re gone…” Jin Yujie said suddenly with dismay.

The golden oil lamp that he used has the added function of detecting auras. It was with the help of the oil lamp that they did not lose track of Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu.

“They must still be near. Let’s go.”

Jing Lei put in more speed and bolted ahead. The rest of his comrades followed behind.

For another hundred miles, they traveled. Still, Jin Yujie’s magical oil lamp failed to detect anything.

“Damn it, we have lost them,” spat Jin Yujie furiously.

They all stood there in gloomy silence. For days they had hunted Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu, only for them to slip past their fingers.

“Wait. Could they have slipped into that city we’ve just passed by just now?” said Yu Xiyuan suddenly, his eyes gleaming with suspicion.

“Doesn’t seem plausible to me,” Wang He shook his head. “We’ve been passing by cities and settlements for the past few days and they made no attempt to find refuge before.”

“What if all that was just part of their feint for the past few days?” sneered Ma Kewei.

“A feint?” the taciturn Leng Rui, who has yet to utter a word finally broke his silence, his eyes flashing with a glow of suspicion too. Then he said, “Let’s go back.”

Everyone understood at last. Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu must have used the enchantments to ensnare them while they circled back around.

The sons of Immortals retraced their steps and chased for another hundred miles. Still, the oil lamp could detect nothing again.

“Damn it!”

Jing Lei cursed aloud as he drove a heavy punch into a huge boulder that looked like it weighed a tonne, destroying it to vent his anger.

The rest of his comrades looked just as sullen and somber. Their hunt had effectively become a fruitless wild goose chase.

“If that’s the case, I say we go on slaughtering and burning. Surely that will snuff the Devil out of hiding.” Jin Yujie’s eyes lit up with malice.

“Well, Wentian City it is then,” suggested Leng Rui. “We just passed by it just now.”

Killing was like a sport to these sons of Immortals and with no objection, they headed towards Wentian City.

Once outside, a gleeful Jin Yujie activated his lamp. The weapon emitted a bright golden glow. He took a deep breath and blew at his lamp.

SWOOSH!

A huge jet of flames shot at the city gates, scorching the ground enough that it cracked and split. Trees and plants caught in the blaze immediately turned into ashes and boulders and rocks all crumbled into pieces.

Rumble!

The gates of Wentian City broke off its hinges and fell to a deafening crash, crushing more than a dozen common people to death with its gargantuan weight. Smoke rose in plumes into the air, signaling the beginning of the carnage as more died in the growing conflagration.

So terrible were the flames of the golden oil lamp that even rocks and stones were reduced into molten lava.

Jin Yujie enjoyed himself so much that he cackled vilely with glee.

So were his comrades; wicked grins spread across the faces of the sons of Immortals as they beheld their handiwork with malicious glints in their stares.

“I hereby sentence you all to death, you vermin who were once our slaves!”

The party began moving deeper into the city, unleashing death and destruction. The earth cracked as more buildings and structures toppled.

Jin Yujie activated his oil lamp again. Waves after waves of flames devoured streets, avenues, and boulevards, torching to death those who had managed to survive the chaos of the buildings toppling all around the city.

Smoke rose from every corner of the city as the flames spread, coiling up the sky like gloomy-dark vines inching upwards that even from tens of miles away, no one could miss the catastrophe now ravaging Wentian City.

“Let’s have a contest to see which among us could get the most kills.” Ma Kewei made the most abhorrent suggestion.

“Then I’m winning this for sure,” guffawed Jin Yujie triumphantly. He blew another gust of air into his lamp, letting loose a huge gush of flames that gobbled up the entire length of a twenty-story tall building. The fire delved into every vent and window it could find, doling out death and carnage with brutal alacrity as cries and shrieks of agony rang out from inside.

Rumble!

A few more seconds passed, and the building crashed down into a mound of debris and rubbles.

“Would you like to guess how many were there inside, Ma?” Jin Yujie asked, grinning proudly.

“Watch me.”

Jing Lei marched forward with arcing electricity bolts coming off his back. He waved a hand and conjured several dozens of lightning balls and hurled them at another twenty-or-so-story building.

Rumble! Rumble!

The ball lightnings each popped consecutively like bubbles, except with thousands, or even million times, more destructive when they struck the building, encasing it in a whole layer of pernicious bolts of electricity that rapidly gnawed at the structure’s integrity until it gave way as cracks began to appear and extend all around its walls.

Rumble!

Finally, the building crashed down as well, kicking up a dust storm that swept several meters tall. None inside survived.

“I’d say Jing Lei wins this round,” said Leng Rui.

“How did you figure?!” Jin Yujie yelped incredulously.

“Because Jing Lei used his own powers while you relied on your Sacred Relic. Ask the others what they think,” said Leng Rui.

“I concur. Jing Lei wins the round,” agreed Wang He.

Even Yu Xiyuan admitted as much.

A dissatisfied Jin Yujie glared at them. “All right. Use your Relics too then!”

“Allow me,” Wang He said. He pointed at another building not far away. “That looks like a school.”

He produced a talismanic strip the length of his hand and activated it. The strip of paper shone with the brilliance of the sun.

The talismanic strip rose into the air and levitated right over the school. Then millions of tiny shafts of light shot out of the paper strip, enclosing the school in a long and giant cone of light rods.

RUMBLE!

The talismanic strip spun abruptly, twisting the cone and crushing the building inside, causing it to burst like an orange in a crusher.

Wang He withdrew his talismanic strip and beckoned to Jin Yujie, “Your turn, Jin.”

The latter looked around. There were a whole lot of buildings that he could choose from, but none of them could match the school in the number of people it housed.

“All right,” he said at last, ending with a sneer. “I yield. But what a shame that you have to use the treasure of your house, the Talisman of Destruction for a purpose so trivial.”

An indifferent Wang He hardly minded the jibe. “At any rate, I won. Those vermin should consider this an honor to die because of a weapon of such incredible might.”

The sons of Immortals saw the brutal slaughter of innocent lives as nothing more than thrilling fun, making the atrocity even more appalling than the war crimes that Fusang State had committed so many years before.

A few of the warriors who managed to survive the onslaught recorded what they could and uploaded everything onto the Internet.

“Gods be good, is there really no one who can give these Immortal whelps a good whipping?”

“I’m going to Wentian City. Is anyone with me? I’d give them death, or die trying!”

“What about the other champions of Earth? Why isn’t anyone standing up to these filthy savages?!”

The entire Internet bubbled with anger and indignation as netizens from all around the world cried for vengeance, yet no one could actually do anything more than expressing their resentment and fury through their keyboards.

Those with the power that could match these sons of Immortals pretended not to notice anything.

While those with the fervor to try something were lacked the means to make a difference.

The collective might of the Flaming Qilin, Jing Hong, and Hua Qingwu was no match to the sons of Immortals and their appetite for blood and gore discouraged anyone else to lift up arms against them.

Yet, the more humans backed down, the more arrogant and ruthless the sons of Immortals became.

Even common soldiers and troops gave more help than what the warriors, great families, and even powerful sects and warrior orders did.

At the very least, they had been doing their best to evacuate the city while throwing themselves into harm’s way.

The Brotherhood of Destiny, the warrior order in charge of the security of Wentian City, had fled the minute they heard wind of the invasion.

Jing Lei and his comrades entered Wentian City through the eastern gates. Advancing towards the west, they had sacked almost every inch of the city, amassing countless more casualties.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu were just taking refuge at the western gates and they had begun helping with the evacuation, at the risk of being discovered.

A number of warriors had grouped into volunteer squads to assist with the evacuation too, working in tandem with the troops garrisoned there.

“There are just too many people. Many more won’t be able to escape in time,” Jing Hong’s face was flushed with distress.

A huge mob of people trying to escape became a chaotic human stampede that clogged the exits from the city. Many lost their footing and fell in the crowd, only to have themselves trodden by the panicking horde and were crushed to death.

Jin Yujie leaped to the top of a tall building and looked into the distance, catching sight of the human stampede trying to flee the city. He broke into an evil smile.

“I finally found a way to win you, Wang.”

Seeing the huge swarming mass of common people jostling with each other to get out of the burning city had given Jin Yujie a vicious idea that would enable him to best Wang He’s feat of killing a school full of school children.