Chapter 963 A Madman
The sight was macabre enough for everyone to feel themselves shivering unconsciously.
Not yet a Deity-realm champion, Lei Cang nevertheless was very much the heir to one of the Sons of Lightning. His might as an Upper King-realm Cultivator would have easily had him pegged as one of the best in his generation. Yet here he was, being trounced by Li Mu like a whipped dog. Not one man present could deny feeling unnervingly intimidated.
At the same time—
Plop!
The pair of champions chaperoning Lei Cang crashed to the ground like twin fallen oaks with foaming blood trickling out of their mouths.
They were dead.
The sound of their dead bodies hitting the ground struck every person like a pair of sledgehammers, resonating fiercely with their hearts and minds and stunning them into oblivion.
“L-Li Mu! Y-You filth! What have you done to me?!” a maniacal Lei Cang bellowed throatily as he writhed wildly. Blood swathed every inch of his raw skin as more bone joints erupted with spurts of splintered bones and slick blood spraying out.
Li Mu’s lips curled into a chilly smirk. “What? You thought I was taking pity on you? That’s why I spared you? Or do you think I was too inept to slay you in time?”
“You…” Lei Cang growled, his eyes awash with mounting panic.
“Was it that time?! That was when he did it?!
“He had been thinking of using me as a bomb so that he could deal with my seniors?!
“What sort of devilry is this?! Is this the same Li Mu I encountered before?!”
The petrifying terror now hit Lei Cang worse than the damage Li Mu was still causing him.
In the meantime, Lord Governor of Lauffeuer Jiang Buping stared at Li Mu with a newfound wariness and apprehension as he realized that he might have underestimated this young man. Something told him that there could be more tricks hidden up his sleeves.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
With a couple or more snaps, the last detonations reduced Lei Cang’s very body into nothing more than a sickening heap of bloody human tissue and viscera with the whites of bone scraps peeking out.
There literally was no way for anyone to ignore the putrefying stench of blood amid the gory scene that included the two dead bodies of Lei Cang’s Deity-Realm chaperons. Every champion who had come, and the Drakonids who had the place surrounded, could feel the trickles of angst and discomfort slowly turning into an unstoppable tide that had overwhelmed them without them even realizing how.
Xiao Jianfei stared at Li Mu, his gaze fraught with shock, awe, and dread.
As much as he was shocked at Li Mu’s abilities and deadliness, he did not expect Li Mu to be able to murder not only Lei Cang but even the two servants of Lightning without so much as blinking his eyes.
“What ruthlessness and shrewdness?! But is what he’s doing right!?”
“Impudence, Li Mu! Never in all my years of watching Lauffeuer and keeping this city safe have I encountered such foolish and reckless opposition to the military! You!” Jiang Buping was the first to recover from his shock, given that he was an experienced veteran of the military. “Do you think you’ll be able to escape the judgment of the Military of Man?! The power and authority of the Military reigns for as far as Man’s reach in this world, Li Mu! You will pay for the crimes you’ve committed! There will be no place for you to hide! You will face judgment!”
The rest of the Military’s champions and soldiers all felt invigorated by those rousing words.
Li Mu could be as powerful as he wanted to be, but there was no way he’ll be able to resist the might of the Military!
The military, more aptly known as the Military of Man in the Chaos Battlefield is the single-only entity that reigns supreme over all mankind on the Battlefield; the bulwark of humans’ survival against which armies and terrors of the other races have shattered. Even Imperial Lords think twice before openly declaring a stance against such a powerful entity, never mind a tiny Xenos like Li Mu.
Even Xiao Jianfei could feel the mood of the army surrounding them shifting.
Whatever flaws the Military of Man might possess—a high-ranking officer going astray from his genuine and earliest nature and aspirations, or how darkness and self-interest might have corrupted another—its grassroots have always remained unfailingly steadfast. They do not question orders, doing only what they were told to; and once their morale has risen, nothing would stop them.
Whatever horrors the foes of Man could unleash upon them, these soldiers might fall, but they will never falter.
Li Mu immediately understood this.
“The Military? If the upper echelons of the Military have any eyes for fairness and truth, they would make the correct judgment. But I don’t have that patience. I cannot wait. My judgment falls today. It falls now. Those who were involved in the wicked slaughter of the Trailblazers at the staging station. They will die.”
The rusted sword now hanging from Li Mu’s shoulder gave a hum, emanating a presence that everyone nearby instantly recognized for what it really was: malice so thick that one could almost smell blood.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Li Mu uttered one syllable after another slowly for all to hear.
“NO!” cried Jiang Buping as he finally reacted. But it was too late. The golden silhouette of a blade shimmered into view behind Li Mu and it burst into a flurry of tiny little aureate comets that swarmed the contingent of masked soldiers.
Excruciating cries and howls slashed across the enclosure. In mere seconds, men—masked Drakonids who were deadlier than the ordinary personal guard of Lord Governor Jiang Buping—fell like grass before a scythe. By the time the wailing cries of the Drakonids slowly died, the masked men were all slain.
Everywhere the golden comets flew, men had been reduced to strips of meat and flesh—quartered and dismembered.
“You! H-How dare you!?” Jiang Buping gasped with horror. The Lord Governor might no longer be on the frontlines, but he had seen his fair share of ripped and mangled bodies lying bloody and dead on the ground yet even he could barely confess to having met a person as bold and reckless, if not insane, before. With a finger thrust into Li Mu’s face, he jabbed his hand again and again, so lost for words that he could barely articulate his rage.
The champions and the men of the Lord Governor’s personal guard retreated at once.
None of them wished to be faced with such terrifying skills and destructive power. All of them were scared.
“Li Mu, you madman! What has possessed you?! The Military will have your head for this! Men! I WANT THIS MAN TAKEN DOWN—DEAD OR ALIVE—AT ALL COSTS! Hold him here before our reinforcements arrive!” a livid Jiang Buping screamed, his eyes wide and red with seething anger.
As an experienced veteran and Lord Governor of this city, he would not sit on his hands and watch Li Mu wreak havoc with impunity! Try as he might flee, Jiang Buping knew that he could not falter against a foe like Li Mu!
Li Mu stared at Jiang Buping. “At all costs, eh? You have courage—however foolhardy it might have been—but I applaud your nerve nevertheless. To think that you could still issue such threats when you’ve clearly lost… Never mind, I’ll just chalk it all up to your old age for making such an ill-advised judgment. You don’t like you’re colluding with that no-use, worthless pile of bat droppings called Lei Cang, so I’ll spare you. Just this once. You will have a closer look into this incident and you’ll find out how wrong you’ve been.”
Li Mu recalled his swarm of tiny little aureate bolts that all flew back to him, conjoining into a gigantic blade more than twenty meters in length whose presence and appearance were enough to make the men suffocate and crumble to their knees.
RUMBLE!
Li Mu swung the gigantic weapon furiously into the air. With a crack reminiscent of glass being shattered, the invisible forcefield intended to keep Li Mu trapped in here burst into thousands of shards each bearing glowing runic glyphs before they dissolved into the air and were gone.
Li Mu seized Xiao Jianfei’s shoulder.
“That’s our cue to go.”
He grunted, his very self breaking into hundreds of images resembling himself. Each and every single one of these doppelgangers looked exactly like Li Mu and together, they leaped into the air and bolted in different directions.
Combat Craft – Phantom Break!
A combat technique Li Mu learned during his time at Molderad.
None of the champions and men of the Lord Governor’s personal guard knew what to do. Rooted to where they were standing in sheer bewilderment, they did not know which of these Li Mus was the real one. All of them just looked so perfect and real…
“TAKE THE ONE WITH XIAO JIAN—”
Jiang Buping’s bellow died halfway.
At least half of the decoys were carrying Xiao Jianfei—or at least, the images of him—as well! “What kind of technique is this?! How is he able to produce afterimages not only for himself but even the person he’s taking with him!?”
All attempts by the Lord Governor’s force to thwart, defeat, and apprehend Li Mu had fallen into total shambles. The men and the champions of the Lord Governor’s personal guard could try, but nothing they do could—would thwart Li Mu’s flight.
The men looked around and surveyed the aftermath of their botched operation—the many Li Mus vanishing into the distance, the ground scattered with the dead bodies of the masked Drakonids and the two Servants of Lightning, as well as the sickening heap of bloody mush that was once Lei Cang. What was initially believed to be an easy and smooth endeavor turned out to be a miserable failure.
The commotion was gone with Li Mu’s escape.
The night breeze gusted over the utterly silent enclosure, despite it being still so crowded with armed sentries and champions.
“What now, sir?”
The captain of the guard asked gingerly.
Jiang Buping recovered from the initial shock and cracked into a weary grin. “Have Joint Staff draft a report. I want every detail documented, including a full reassessment of Li Mu’s strength and power. Send word to the XO of the Drakonids General Nie. Ask him to take over the hunt for Li Mu. This is no longer within the Lord Governor’s power and ability to handle.”
The division of defensive and administrative duties is usually clearly defined especially in cities as large as Lauffeuer, where the administration of the city was managed by Jiang Buping as Lord Governor while the defense was handled by the garrisoning Drakonid cohort which was led by General Nie Tao, the executive officer and second-in-command of the Drakonids.
“At once, sir!”
The captain of the guard withdrew quietly.
Seldom had Jiang Buping looked so sour and glum.
The Lord Governor of Lauffeuer wearily waved to his men, “Off you all go then.”
The champions and sentries all withdrew like a receding tide.
Leaving only Jiang Buping alone with his trusted advisor Liao Zhi.
A burly forty-year-old with a dark complexion and a small mustache with a tiny goatee to boot, anyone could have easily mistaken Liao Zhi for a crude butcher in the market when he was actually a very intelligent and perceptive person full of ideas.
The air overhead the battered enclosure of the court complex was still swirling with the residual spiritual energies from the fight earlier.
Jiang Buping scoffed at himself. “What do you think, Liao?”
“I say we watch,” Liao Zhi muttered impassively.
“Are you saying that I should just keep myself out of all this mess?” Jiang Buping said, “But I’m Lord Governor of this city. What happened here happened under my watch and Lei Cang brat is the student of one of the Sons of Lightning. Surely you can’t expect me to really sit out a kettle of fish as messy as this and believe that there would be no consequences?”
Liao Zhi did not reply to the question. He produced sugar-coated haws, and chewed on one of them. “What do you think of this Li Mu, sir?”
“A madman,” Jiang Buping responded curtly.
Crunch. “Mmhmm… Tasty. Just a madman, sir?”
“A madman with the deceptiveness and deadliness of a viper,” Jiang Buping added.
He was reminded of how Lei Cang was spared by Li Mu back inside the torture chamber inside the subterranean dungeons only to have his body planted with magical charges that Li Mu employed to masterful efficacy, using the detonations as a diversion to kill both Divine-Realm Servants of Lightning. The Lord Governor of Lauffeuer could say with absolute certainty that he had never seen such shrewdness and ruthlessness before in a man so young. That he was able to devise such a plot even in such times of peril easily unnerved Jiang Buping more than the strength and power he exhibited.
“Have you, sir, considered the possibility that this really might be a setup and Li Mu really is being framed?” said Liao Zhi suddenly.
Jiang Buping exhaled a long, deep breath. “Which I would have gladly believed if not for the auguries of the Oracle Disk. Look at that Li Mu. He really is one hundred times better than that Lei Cang.”
Liao Zhi said nothing, preferring to first finish his snack before he finally provided his opinion. He chewed on the last haw, crunching loudly as he uttered, “And the auguries of the Oracle Disk, did you see it with your own eyes, sir?”
Jiang Buping stared at his trusted advisor for seconds in wordless perplexity before he finally broke his silence, “What are you trying to say, Liao?”
The crafty Liao Zhi merely chuckled and turned to leave. “My haws are finished, so I’d need to get more… Winter is supposed to be ten days away, Jiang, but it seems to have arrived early, my friend. Winter is already upon us, I say.”
Jiang Buping stood there, motionless.
As ludicrous as it might sound, he really was beginning to feel that Li Mu really was being framed.
But what else could he—or should he—do? Dig deeper?
He lifted his chin and raised his head to look at the moon veiled behind plumes of clouds, falling into deep contemplation.
But his train of thought was quickly interrupted by the arrival of the captain of his guard, “Sir, it’s Ye Ying of House Ye asking to see you.”
“Huh?
“What brings her here at this hour?”
