The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 506 Fightback

By the time the Queen of Elves and the Flaming Qilin arrived, the sons of Immortals were gone.

“A Charm of Pyromancy Conveyance.”

The Flaming Qilin looked grim as he uttered those words.

The Queen nodded quietly, confirming the Qilin’s findings; the sons of Immortals had retreated with such a tool.

As members of races that have survived since the early epochs, they knew things that most people today did not.

As heir to the long-lost knowledge and secrets of the Qilin race, the Flaming Qilin could identify a Charm of Pyromancy Conveyance.

Meanwhile, Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu could not believe their eyes when they saw the Queen of Elves.

“Hong Ling?!”

Jing Hong called hesitantly.

The Queen looked surprised to be addressed as such, but she recalled how flabbergasted Chu Xun was when he first saw her.

Evidently, the Flaming Qilin noticed their reactions too. One reason Chu Xun fell for the Queen’s chicanery fifteen years ago was that she shared the same striking resemblance to a friend. That must be this Hong Ling that Jing Hong just mentioned.

“She’s the Queen of Elves,” the Flaming Qilin explained hastily.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu stared blankly at them. “This woman is the Queen of Elves?!”

“But how could two people look so alike?!” blurted Hua Qingwu with shock.

“But anyway, thank you for coming to our aid,” Jing Hong uttered, recovering from her bewilderment.

The Flaming Qilin said sharply before the Queen could respond, “Heal yourselves quickly.”

Hua Qingwu was quite heavily wounded although Jing Hong managed to come through relatively unscathed, the women quickly sat down to channel their powers and recuperate.

“What a lucky man,” observed the Queen as she marveled with awe at the beauty of Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu.

She waved a hand and conjured an enchantment, an Elf magic that healed very quickly. A light-green-colored dome of light appeared and enveloped around the women.

The enchantment repaired Jing Hong’s minor wounds in just hours, allowing her to channel her powers to help Hua Qingwu too. The latter would take another two hours until her wounds too were fully healed.

“Once again, we thank you so much for your help,” Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu said again.

The Flaming Qilin shook his head, “Don’t mention it. In fact, it was she who—”

The Queen of Elves cut him off, grinning, “We are friends of Chu Xun. Saving you is the least we could do.”

“Now hold it right there. You don’t speak for me here,” scoffed the Qilin, “I’m not friends with the Devil. In fact, I’m a rival of his. As for you, I doubt if the Devil will think of you as a friend too.”

The Queen fluttered her eyelashes at the Qilin with a dangerous and cool voice, “The only reason you’re not yet dead for spouting such nonsense is that you’re a Qilin, one of the Sacred Beast of the ancients.”

“Say whatever you want,” snapped the Flaming Qilin, “at any rate, the Devil’s no friend of mine, and nor is he a friend of yours too. You’ll never be a friend of his.”

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu could only share dubious stares. They could not understand a word at all.

“Urm, Qilin, do you know where Chu Xun is now?” asked Hua Qingwu.

Chu Xun and the Flaming Qilin were part of the expedition that entered Yuchi Slope and the latter must know what happened to Chu Xun when he failed to reappear, the very same enigma that has haunted the world for more than a decade.

“Ask her,” the Qilin thrust a finger at the Queen.

As an Earth Immortal champion, the Queen was very likely one of the strongest entities on Earth.

The barbed remarks the Qilin was saying had already left her in a bad mood and the pointing of his finger at her was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Bang!

With just a simple wave, the Queen sent a blast of Internal Breath that sent the Qilin into the air for more than a thousand meters.

“Insolent pup,” grumbled the Queen.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu could only stare dubiously in silence. “The Qilin had found the Queen to help us, but they do not seem to be mingling well? What in the world is going on?!”

“Chu Xun is with us,” said the Queen, “he’s in meditative training, and I’m afraid he cannot be out now.”

“As long as he’s still fine.”

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu uttered in uncanny unison.

“And you are both consorts to the Devil?” asked the Queen curiously.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu nodded.

“So that mongrel pup does have a way with women. Not only does he have two beautiful ladies as wives, but both of them are also even as close as sisters,” the Queen remarked quietly.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu shared a quick look and grinned.

The Flaming Qilin came limping back with a scathing glare at the Queen.

“Watch your tone, little Qilin,” warned the Queen testily. “You will do well to remember that I am aware of your courtship of Wei’er and how crucial my approval would be to you both.”

Instead, the Flaming Qilin lifted his chin and declared proudly, “As if a true man like me would worry about something as mundane as getting a wife?”

The Queen’s face darkened at the statement, and even Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu found themselves disagreeing with him too.

“Are you being serious, Qilin?” the Queen’s warmth plummeted several degrees.

“I— Uh…” the Flaming Qilin was about to say something else when he realized how stupid he was.

In his frustration, he had inadvertently portrayed himself as an unfaithful and promiscuous person.

“Get out of my sight before I lose my temper! GO!” the Queen spat with venom, “if only that silly girl sees how stupid she has been in pinning her hopes on you!”

“No! I— Uh…” the flustered Qilin found himself fumbling with his words. He loved Su Wei’er with all his heart, despite the things that he had spoken rashly without thinking at all.

“Such haughty words you speak, great Qilin. In that case, it’s obvious that the Sacred Maiden of the Elf race would hardly be a fitting match to someone of your stature and convictions,” hissed the Queen coldly, her true fury beginning to surface.

That sent the Qilin into fits of panic. He feebly peered at Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu, hoping vainly that they might speak something on his behalf, then he remembered the distasteful glances from them, and that only seemed to set him off the edge.

“Wait a minute, that’s not what I meant! I swear—”

Bang!

The Queen fired another jet of energy that blasted him away into the distance again.

“Don’t ever let me see you again,” she growled with rage.

The Qilin crashed more than a thousand meters away before he got back to his feet and began walking back.

“You’d best just go. The Queen is angry and she’ll listen to nothing you say,” a sympathetic Hua Qingwu told him using telepathy.

The Flaming Qilin halted his paces with undisguised regret on his face.

“I feel like killing someone,” glowered the Queen, boiling with rage.

There was nothing Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu could do besides trading faltering glances.

“How about we go hunting for those Immortal whelps?” said the Queen suddenly.

Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu could not have been any more congenial to the suggestion. The countless lives lost in the massacres of the cities the sons of Immortals destroyed were precisely the reason why they should pay for the horrors they had unleashed.

“Wait!”

Hua Qingwu accessed the Internet to post a new thread in the forum, asking for information about the whereabouts of the sons of Immortals.

With the hatred sowed into them by the senseless butchery, the warriors of Earth were only too happy to report what they knew about the sons of Immortals – especially when someone was willing to hunt them down.

In mere moments, responses began flooding in, informing that the sons of Immortals were just sighted a half-hour ago at another city several hundred miles away – Baiyu City.

All three women sped as fast as they could towards Baiyu City.

Hours later, they arrived and the first thing they did was to scale the highest spire of the tallest building in the city.

“SHOW YOURSELF, IMMORTAL WHELPS!” the Queen of Elves let loose a roar of such force and magnitude that it sounded like a crack of thunder as even towers and buildings all shook as if in fear.

The warriors in the city all reeled with terror at first, then grins broke upon their faces. “Finally! Someone is here to put a stop to the sons of Immortals!”

Jing Lei and his comrades were still in the city when they heard the thunderous message. Their faces twisted with incredulity.

“Gods be good, they’re as persistent as a bloodhound!” Jing Lei muttered with building anger as electric bolts crackled all around him.

“Stay your anger, Jing Lei,” hissed Leng Rui darkly with restrained calmness. “Mask your auras to prevent being detected. They won’t find us, not with so many people in this city.”

“Are they hiding?!” Jing Hong and Hua Qingwu made the realization at exactly the same time. They projected their Divine Senses and began combing through the city from east to west.

But despite a thorough search, they could not find any traces of Jing Lei and his cohorts.

“They must have something that helps to keep their auras hidden,” said Jing Hong quietly.

“Master of the White Feather Guild! Show yourself!” bellowed the Queen.

Moments later, an elderly man with white flowing beard and hair came to them, introducing himself as the Master of the Guild.

He looked evidently surprised to find that the hunters pursuing the sons of Immortals were in fact three ladies with ravishing beauty.

But the Queen emanated a stern presence and a soft but stirring aura powerful enough to make the Master convulse with discomfort as his blood simmered in resonance to her powers.

“My respects to you, senior,” the old man bowed hastily, identifying the Queen as an entity of great seniority and age despite her looks.

“Dispatch every man in your guild. I want those Immortal scums to be found immediately,” barked the Queen with a commanding voice that easily crumbled any resistance.

The Master of the White Feather Guild could hardly proffer any objections when he could hardly tolerate the Queen’s aura alone. Especially when the Queen’s purpose was aligned to his – to rid the city of the threat of the sons of Immortals.

At his behest, every acolyte in his command was sent out with scores of local warriors volunteering to join in the hunt as well.

The evil that the sons of Immortals had wrought made them the most hated enemy on Earth, that even the common people did what they could to help as well.

“Damned insects!” Jing Lei lashed with uncontrollable rage.

Unbeknownst to the people outside, the sons of Immortals had taken refuge in a dingy little tenement with the corpses of its occupants – a family of three – strewn on the floor.

“I thought that idiot Wu Kejin said that the Devil’s the only one we have to worry about! From where did this horrible hag come from?!” blurted Wang He.

“Bloody misinformation, I don’t doubt. We’ve underestimated how far our former serfs have come,” Yu Xiyuan observed darkly.

They had been so victorious and triumphant when they first arrived on Earth, killing and slaying every human like crushing ants into tiny bits. Yet here they were now, skulking and hiding like a bunch of cowards.

“I say we go out and deal with her now! I’m sure that if we work together, we’ll bring her down!” Jin Yujie glowered sinisterly.

“Don’t be brash, you fool. That woman is most definitely an Earth Immortal champion. Without our Relics at full strength, we could very well lose,” said Leng Rui, the mastermind of the group that his comrades relied on.

“So are we supposed to just hide in here?” grumbled an angry Wang He. As sons of Immortals and the representatives of their great houses, their very actions reflected the dignity as elites of the Assembly of Immortals, and hiding like mice inside a shabby little hut seemed hardly a credit to their names and family.

“Patience. We’re only hiding temporarily to bide our time, not because we’re afraid,” urged Leng Rui with what sounded like a feeble attempt to quench the displeasure of his comrades.

“What about the rest? When are they coming?” asked Yu Xiyuan.

“Any time now. I expect they will be here in days,” Leng Rui’s eyes flashed with scheming malice as he grinned suddenly, “They say Kuang Zhan is representing his family.”

“That madman?!”

Jing Lei and the others all yelped with shock.

Leng Rui nodded. “Between the strength of that psycho and the powers of our Sacred Relics, I’m sure we’ll win even if it’s against an Earth Immortal-class champion.”

“Very well. We’ll just lie low for a few days until the others arrive,” said Wang He as he struggled to control his anger. An evil smile formed on his face, “When the time comes, we’ll have the last laugh when we slaughter the lot of these vermin.”

“And don’t forget to make contact with the Lost Races. The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” remarked Leng Rui with a malicious smile himself.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The sound of a fist pounding on the timber of the door made the smiles on their faces freeze.