“As if you could.”
Li Mu surveyed his foe. The son of the Lion was almost as young as he was. Handsome even, and brimming with confidence. The emanation of Mana denoted a powerful rank. He could very well be the most powerful person Li Mu has ever encountered in Molderad thus far.
“Of course, I could,” said the son of the Lion.” I’ve been busy with the affairs of the True God and that allowed you the chance to make a name for yourself. But all that glory is frivolous in my eyes. It’s nothing but a joke to me.”
“You’re one to talk,” smirked Li Mu, “And because of this True God, you’re willing to sacrifice the Priory of the Four Seas?”
“The Priory’s just a pastime to me. Something of a side project. But you, Li Zhiyuan. You’re interesting. I thought I was done with you one year ago. Your resurgence to power really is surprising,” said the son of the Lion dryly.
Little did he realize that the Li Zhiyuan whom he met a year ago was the real Li Zhiyuan, not now.
On the other hand, the son of the Lion has undergone huge changes since the last time Li Zhiyuan met him last year. Li Mu could see from Li Zhiyuan’s memories that his presence had transformed and even his physique was no longer the same. That was why he almost failed to recognize him.
Yet somehow, Li Mu felt an uncontrollable disgust and rage the moment he laid eyes on this person as if Li Zhiyuan once harbored these sentiments about the son of the Lion prior to his death and Li Mu had inherited them.
“Past time, eh? So is Xiao Zhan the Lion a pastime too?” Countered Li Mu.
Visit Free(web)ovel.com, for the best novel reading experience.
The son of the Lion snorted. “That old senile is nothing but baggage to me. Just because he’s old, he thinks he could give me orders. That’s why I allowed you to take care of him. I’ll just have to kill you and place your head at his grave. That way, he’ll have nothing to blame me for, Heaven rest his soul.”
What a cruel and evil person.
“What about Shen Xiaoyue? Were you the one behind her abduction?”
The son of the Lion broke into guffaws. “Of course! That woman’s blood is needed for the nourishment of the True God. I left here in Rose’s Allure because I thought I could keep her penned up there like a farmer with his sow. She was to serve her purpose when the moment arrives. But you. Your meddling nearly ruined it. That was why I needed to do something to get her back.”
Li Mu felt his heart taking a light skip. “Where is she now?”
“Oh? So you’re here to rescue her? What gallantry! For a woman you barely knew, you dare to invade Arcusstone alone!” The son of the Lion said smugly, overflowing with such confidence as a cat toying with a vole. He peered at Li Mu. “Thirty meters beneath the center of this dungeon is where the True God roosts. If you could defeat me in a half-hour’s time and make it down there in time, perhaps she’ll still be alive. But I don’t that’s even possible, heh heh heh…”
“Well, it sounds simple enough,” remarked Li Mu facetiously.
“Hahahahaha! What did you say? Simple?” The son of the Lion erupted as he had just heard the world’s funniest joke that he nearly doubled over in laughter. “Hahahaha?! Li Zhiyuan, do you even know why are we meeting here?”
“Maybe it’s because you’re rushing off to meet your maker.”
“Hmph, such insolence,” The son of the Lion’s stare turned into a piercing glare. “I know that you’re Class X right now. You’ve managed to defy the odds stacked against you and have risen to such heights in just a half year. Admirable. But do you know in what rank I am now?”
He took one menacing step forward to assert his point.
An aura both as archaic and massive as the eruption of an ancient volcano burst forth. The suffocatingly enormous presence swept the seemingly spacious stone chamber like the advent of a god that for one moment, his manservant could hold back no longer. His knees buckled and he fell to a kneel on the ground.
“Class XI!
“This is the might of Class XI!
“The Class of legends!”
The son of the Lion roared in gloating guffaws, basking in his own conceited arrogance and hubris, tremendously certain that victory was at hand.
The manservant forced himself to crane his neck and look up. In his eyes were fear, respect, and reverence. “Is this what he’s capable of?! Terrifying. Beautiful. Divine. Who else could ever hope to stand against such an overwhelming presence if not the True God himself?”
His gaze panned towards Li Mu.
“Surely even a prodigy like Li Zhiyuan should find himself daunted by such an impressive and transcendent presence?”
But when he finally had a proper look at Li Mu, his expression froze.
For Li Zhiyuan looked utterly unfazed.
He was not on his knees at all. No. In fact, he looked completely cool and composed. Even his hair was unruffled.
So was the boy behind him! Straight and upright in the face of such crushing presence!
“What in Heaven’s name?!
“How is this possible?! How could he resist such glorious powers and pressure!?
“Unless?! No, that’s impossible!”
A terrible notion, a crippling dread conceived in the manservant’s mind.
Even the son of the Lion himself was horror-struck with disbelief. “Y-You!? Y-You’re Class XI too?!”
“Class XI? That’s funny,” Li Mu smiled, “How about another try?”
Li Mu’s hand rose as he spoke. Then he groped into the air. An invisible force surged forward and constricted around the son of the Lion’s throat like an unseen hand. Inch by inch, the son of the Lion rose from the ground, lifted by the invisible force. He kicked and flailed, yet nothing he did could free him.
“What?!”
Gripped by disbelief and panic, the manservant felt so nauseous and dizzy that he could barely move.
The son of the Lion stared at Li Mu, his eyes shot wide and red in complete denial. Hoarsely, he gasped through his asphyxiated windpipe, “T-That’s impossible?! How could you have such power?! This is not Class X! Not even Class XI! Y-You! Y-You’re Class XII!”
“Bingo,” Li Mu answered placidly. “Close enough, but too bad there’s no prize for you.”
“That’s impossible! How?!” The son of the Lion writhed and struggled to break free. He channeled every iota of Class-XI Mana he could muster, yet still, Li Mu’s invisible grip just refused to bulge.
It was with the help of this “True God” that he achieved the powers of Class XI through means both abominable and unconventional. A feat made possible through unspeakable devilry, no doubt, but also a rarity. Only, Li Zhiyuan was even more amazing. At only Class VI barely a year ago, his attainment of Class XII was even more unbelievable.
The son of the Lion could not believe what was happening.
“Well, I’d love to talk, but I’m in a hurry. So, goodbye,” said Li Mu. Without any mercy, he applied force. A crack resounded through the stone chamber and the neck of the son of the Lion twisted at a sickening and grotesque angle, killing him instantly with all life in him extinguished like a small flame.
“That’s what you get for trying to show off. All right, Shen Jia. Off we go.”
Li Mu led an already-stupefied Shen Jia out of the chamber.
The manservant was left there, alone and still kneeling on the ground.
Dazed and petrified with disbelief, he could only watch the disfigured corpse of his former master, his mind completely blank as if he had just had a long but pointless dream. He just couldn’t bring himself to accept what just happened.
“Is it even true?! Class XII?!
“How is it possible that a mortal could reach such heights?!
“Just how scary is that!?”
Like a crumbling sandstone wall, everything he believed in the pursuit of warriorship collapsed. The belief system that he had clung to all his life evaporated in the wind, as with his will to fight and his spirit as a warrior. He could no longer lift a sword ever again.
…
Li Mu cradled Shen Jia under his arms and leaped off the ledge, plummeting down to the lowest levels of the dungeon.
BOOM!
They smashed through the ground at the center of the dungeons.
That opened up a direct route straight down to the subterranean chamber thirty meters below.
Li Mu’s figure rose up amid the dust and soot that wafted in the air.
Gasps of shock and disbelief arose from all around him.
Li Mu only just stood up when black hooded figures threw themselves at him in droves.
“KILL HIM!”
Li Mu drew his broken saber in a backhand grip. He channeled his Mana into the damaged weapon and performed the same seven-time Dewdrop Strike he saw before. Torrents of searing-white scythe-like blades of energy cut down the black-hooded figures charging at Li Mu, reducing them into morbid confetti of blood and viscera.
Only now could Shen Jia survey the surroundings more clearly.
For one moment, Shen Jia thought that they had just stumbled into an oversized nest for giant ants. Dazzling colored stalactites, many of them red, hung from the jagged ceiling of the cave. If not for the many armored assassins hurling intimidatory glances at them, the place would have looked like a paradise indeed. The assassins, although powerful and dangerous, were daunted by his mentor’s prowess when he easily despatched off the first wave of hooded assailants, prompting the rest of the remaining to stand back and hold their ground.
“There!” Shen Jia found his sister at last. A girl who was tied to a claret-colored stalagmite behind the platoon of armored assassins, unconscious and trussed up in ropes.
“KILL HIM!”
Li Mu charged. At his first step, he vanished. Like a screaming lightning bolt, he lunged at the enemy assassins and flung energy bolts at them, forcing them all to back away. That gave him the chance he wanted to head straight for the strange-looking stalagmite. With a softer blow, he attacked the stalagmite to prevent hurting Shen Xiaoyue.
Then he felt it. Unnatural winds blowing with the force of a cannonball came barreling straight for his head.
The winds might be just air, but they were just as deadly and quick as a lightning bolt.
Even with Li Mu’s might, he could feel the palpable sensation of danger.
He unleashed the same Dewdrop Strike technique again, only this time, the blades of spiritual energies he fired in a defensive maneuver that looked like the dazzling display of a lotus flower blossoming.
Bang!
The blast saw Li Mu crashing backward for six to seven steps before he could finally regain his footing.
With another crack, the blade of his saber shattered into tiny little shards with only the hilt remaining.
“Foolish mortal… How dare you meddle with the affairs of a god… For this transgression, you deserve death…”
A cold and inhuman voice reverberated from behind the enormous blood-red stalagmite.
The ground trembled in pulses.
From inside an abyss, something dark and monstrous emerged.
“What the hell is that?!” Li Mu thought as he watched it rise.
Towering at more than a dozen meters like a miniature hill, Li Mu found himself face to face against an abomination — a twisted, mutilated undead creature comprised of multiple dead limbs and body parts from many different corpses pieced together. With four arms and twice as many legs, with a head almost double the size of a regular human’s with a hideous scar that ran down its length, the monster was a grotesque monstrosity that never stopped oozing and dripping pus from the cracks of its sutures.
More intriguing were the dozen or so currant-red tentacles that waved and swayed with their wobbling motion like whips given life.
It was one of these deadly tentacles that had attacked Li Mu.
“What on earth is this filth?”
For all his years in the Star River, Li Mu had never seen something like this before.
“Is this what the son of the Lion told me? That this is the True God he was talking about?”
