Chu Xun raced like the wind up to the top of Dragon’s Back.
He entered Emperor Ao’s abode, the Purple Mansion, and finding the ancient supreme being leisurely fishing filled Chu Xun with rage.
“What’s that look on your face? I’m not going to fall for whatever tricks you have in mind this time,” said Emperor Ao, who obviously failed to forget the last time Chu Xun had bamboozled Dragon’s Wrath off him by feigning bad mood.
“I’m really angry this time!” bellowed Chu Xun, bending down to pick a stone that he threw as hard as he could into the water, scattering the fishes and causing water to splash up at Emperor Ao.
“All right, what is it this time?” said Emperor Ao placidly.
The supreme being’s disinterested demeanor did little to quell the flames of anger inside Chu Xun. “I’ve been missing for three years, Ao! Aren’t you even worried at all?!”
“I’ve read the signs of your destiny before. You’re not destined for a short life,” he said, pausing for one beat before saying again, “Is it fun at the sealed dimension of the Subterranean Devils Clan?”
“What— you knew?!” gasped Chu Xun with surprise.
“Just a guess,” remarked Emperor Ao dispassionately, turning his focus back to his fishing. Casually, he said, “You went northwest and spent three years there. I could think of no other reason but this.”
Displeased, Chu Xun kicked another stone into the pool, spattering water everywhere, and ripples swept across the surface.
Emperor Ao set aside his fishing rod and waved a hand, lackadaisically conjuring a stone table laid with steaming tea. He poured Chu Xun a cup and bade him to sit.
“Let’s talk about your adventures into the Subterranean Devils dimension. What took you so long there?” asked Emperor Ao.
Chu Xun sat down and recounted what happened there.
The tale managed to leave Emperor Ao faintly astonished. “A highly-curved dimension inside there? I see…”
An annoyed Chu Xun glared at him, “I told you so much and all that interests you is the highly-curved dimension?!”
“What else should I be interested in?” asked Emperor Ao.
“The fact that I nearly died in there!” roared Chu Xun.
“You turned out just fine to me.”
That almost had Chu Xun swinging a fist at him. “I nearly died! A mere hair’s breadth from losing my life!” he hissed.
Emperor Ao looked at him wryly, but his sardonic reticence looked hardly reassuring at all to Chu Xun.
“All right. Why are you here?” said Emperor Ao, peering at Chu Xun like he would do the same to a bug, “Chu Xun, once the greatly feared Immortal Emperor of Blood. Is that all you’re capable of? Or do you mean to say all those mounds of corpses of your enemies are nothing but figments of your imagination and sophistry?”
Chu Xun felt himself going red. “This old thing is getting smarter and my tricks aren’t going to work long with him! Chu Xun grimaced quietly as he realized he needed to maintain some distance between them both lest this ancient being could easily see through his thoughts in the future.
“I want control of the Silver and Golden Dragon Guards,” said Chu Xun without beating the bush.
Emperor Ao stared at him for seconds before saying, “The Chief Official brat had told you, did he not?”
“As if you’re the only one. My guess can be as good as yours too,” said Chu Xun, shaking his head.
“Very well. They are yours to command then.”
Huh?!
Chu Xun could not believe it. Everything was going smoothly. Too smoothly, in fact, that he began to feel something was wrong. Emperor Ao was anything but never a pushover. Chu Xun had expected on his way here that a trade of barbed words was definitely on the menu.
“Wait a minute. Just like that?! You’re agreeing just like that?!” Chu Xun suspected something was wrong.
But Emperor Ao gave him an emotionless stare, “I’m a person who detests trouble.”
Chu Xun looked at him, bewildered for seconds before he finally caught the gist. “The old senile thinks I’m trouble, eh”
“Person?” jeered Chu Xun, “You’re not a person. You’re a dragon. Keep that in mind.”
The ancient dragon gave Chu Xun a dangerous look with his fists clenched.
Chu Xun immediately realized the danger he was in and said hastily, “I’m telling you, gentlemen negotiate, not exchange fists like animals!”
“Puny,” hissed Emperor Ao, calming down.
“Just you wait,” thought Chu Xun, puffing with exasperation, “When I regain my powers, the first thing I’ll do is give you big walloping.”
“So where are the Silver and Golden Dragon Guard stationed at?” asked Chu Xun.
“It’s too early for the Golden Dragon Guard to appear. Not many of the alien races have appeared yet. You can have the Silver Dragon Guard.”
“What levels are their powers?” asked Chu Xun. The most important question to him.
“I don’t know,” replied Emperor Ao curtly. “Look, I’m a busy man and I can ill-afford spending my time to mollycoddle everything. At the very least, they’re better than those subordinates of yours.”
“Busy? Busy with having fun and slacking off?” teased Chu Xun again.
But the ancient supreme being said with an earnest look, “What can I do? I’m destined to have a long and easy life. Can’t say I’m complaining though.”
“Dammit, stop it, you lousy reptile.”
“And I’m instead cursed to a life of hard work?” muttered Chu Xun.
To which Emperor Ao nodded again stoically.
“That does it. I’m quitting,” said Chu Xun. He felt like a fool with Emperor Ao having enough time to slack off while he had to do all the heavy-lifting around.
“So be it then,” responded Emperor Ao nonchalantly, “That speech of yours was impressive. Rousing, don’t you think? I’d like to think that even the alien races were thrilled to listen to you speak.”
“You tricked me into cleaning up your mess. I’m quitting. For real. I’m going back to the Fire Dragon Palace to bring everyone up to Qianlong Mountain where I’ll retire there.”
“And I’ll teach the alien races the way to break the enchantment that protects Qianlong Mountain,” said Emperor Ao.
“Is that a threat?!” glowered Chu Xun, his eyes wide as eggs.
Emperor Ao stared at him, audaciously nodding his head.
Chu Xun could have sworn he nearly had an aneurysm. “And what makes you think they’d dare come up? Won’t they feel afraid that I might slaughter them off instead?”
“I’ll sever the link between Qianlong Mountain and the Spirit Veins,” muttered Emperor Ao.
“Can he be any nastier!?” Chu Xun’s nostrils flared with disbelief and indignance.
“And I’ll tell the world about an ancient worm that lives atop Dragon’s Back!” retorted Chu Xun defiantly.
“Go on then. I’d love to see you try,” said Emperor Ao with feigned interest in his tea. Coolly, he said, “Anyone can come and try. I’ll repel any invaders from here as easily as sneezing.”
“You toad. You just love to gloat, don’t you?” muttered an irate Chu Xun.
“You’re welcome to try. I bet I can send you back to where you come from with so much as a sneeze.”
“You…” growled Chu Xun, unable to retort.
“And this is why you need to be humble. Because you’re weak. Learn to respect your elders, or you’ll be paying the price,” said the ancient dragon smugly.
Chu Xun threw him a nasty look. “All right, you win, you lousy dragon.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” remarked the ancient dragon dryly.
“All right. Enough prattle. Where is the Silver Dragon Guard stationed at?” growled Chu Xun, only too eager to end this one-sided contest of words quickly.
Emperor Ao stood up and flung his arm, his voluminous sleeve suddenly growing magically huge that it devoured them
Seconds later, they reappeared upon one of the many crests atop a mountain range, surrounded by plumes of white mists drifting lazily around them.
“Where are we?” uttered Chu Xun, jerking his head left and right to find only a boundless expanse of forest that looked very, very old.
“The capital.”
“Since when does the capital have such a place?!” yelped Chu Xun with disbelief.
“You talk too much,” scowled Emperor Ao before tossing him a stone. A stone that Emperor Ao had bewitched it so that it could break down enchantments. “I’ve ferried you all the way here. The rest is up to yourself.”
“You’re not coming in?” asked Chu Xun.
“I hope that doesn’t mean you expect me to spoon-feed you?” Emperor Ao narrowed his eyes at Chu Xun.
“Shouldn’t you introduce me to a guide or someone I can speak to? What if I get thrown out instead?”
“Then it will show how useless you are,” responded the ancient dragon brusquely before disappearing in a flash.
Chu Xun mumbled a few incomprehensible words of complaint before racing downhill, heading towards the glen nestled between the ring of mountains.
An enchantment that Emperor Ao had left to guard the entrance into the vale. With his hands held behind his back, Chu Xun strode in easily.
He could enter effortlessly only because of the stone that Emperor Ao gave him. Without the stone, anyone forcing entry through the enchantment could potentially be ripped into shreds. Up until now, there had yet been anyone in the world who could resist the might of any enchantment conjured by Emperor Ao.
As soon as he stepped past the enchantment, everything in his view blurred into a dizzying whirl before settling down into a bright blue sky, verdant hills, brooks bubbling softly, and a lush spread of beautiful flowers and verdurous foliage. The inside of the vale looked every bit a Paradise on Earth.
Chu Xun scaled up a mountain and beheld the breathtaking vista before his eyes.
He spied a quiet and little hamlet not far away with smoke rising from the chimneys of the tenements there. Some children were playing outside the mouth of the village.
“What on earth have I stumbled into…” Chu Xun groaned. It was a far cry from what he expected.
A handful of gnarly old men nearing the age of a hundred sitting leisurely and relaxing was hardly the sight Chu Xun expected to find when the name “Silver Dragon Guard” came to mind.
“What on earth is wrong with this peaceful but bizarre little hamlet?!”
“Is this Ao’s brand of a welcome?!”
Chu Xun strode down the hilly path towards the entrance of the village.
From his position atop the hill just now, the village looked very near. But now that he tried to reach the little hamlet on foot, it turned out to be more than fifty kilometers at least.
Suddenly he heard the clangor of battle. He followed the sounds and walked up to the top of another grassy knoll where he found the origin of the noise.
And what he saw left him stupefied once more.
Three little boys barely the age of twelve, all of them clad in roughspun tunics, were locked in a bare-fisted fight against a bull.
At three to four meters tall and five to six times longer, the bull was a sturdy beast with legs as stout as granite columns. Its horns reached at least two meters from point to point like a pair of razor-sharp sabers casting off a deadly glint.
The bull was a Third-grade Beast Lord.
One of the boys leaped so high that he soared more than ten meters in the air. Landing as lightly as a feather on the back of the animal, he raised a fist shining with a bright glow and pummeled the cow on its back.
Chu Xun could not believe it. The child was a full-fledged Grandmaster nearing the Human King stage!
The first punch hurt the bull not one bit, but it managed to rile up the bull enough to begin bucking and galloping wildly around before charging at a huge boulder weighing at least several tonnes.
“Quick! The rope!” cried another boy as he too tossed a lasso made of bark around the bull’s horn.
Hearing his call, the last boy tossed his cordage around the other bull’s horn.
The two boys on the ground mustered their strengths, channeling their Internal Breaths to stop the stampeding bull. But instead, the ferocious animal pulled them off their feet and dragged them to the ground.
Chu Xun almost giggled. The boys might be unbelievably powerful for their age, but they were still no match for the Beast Lord.
The boys had lost right from the beginning when they decided to try defeating a bull at its advantage – a contest of brute strength.
“Get off, Qi! This animal’s too strong! We can’t hold him at all!” screamed the boys rolling on the ground.
The little boy riding on the bull’s back did not let go of his hold of its hair. He timed his jump precisely when the bull was about to hit the boulder and leaped off just in time.
Bang!
Pieces of rock tumbled to the ground. The huge boulder weighing at least several ten tonnes was destroyed by the force of the bull’s collision.
But the bull was in a state itself. Wobbling on its feel, it teetered unsteadily like a drunk.
Mooo!
The bull thundered defiantly.
The bull wheeled around and held one of the boys in a cold stare through its blood-shot eyes. Then it charged, rumbling towards him with the ground shaking.
“Qi, come help!” cried the boy. He tossed one end of the cordage he was holding to the child named Qi who had just leaped off the bull’s back and Qi yanked hard, pulling his companion to safety.
Boom!
The ground trembled. Four to five tall and old trees tumbled with a dull crashing din as the result of another collision with the bull.
“We should give up. We are just no match to the brute,” said one of the boys.
“No! I promised my sister I’ll give her a pair of cowskin boots for her birthday,” insisted the boy called Qi.
Boom!
The bull charged once more, this time towards the last remaining boy like a ferocious battering ram.
“Pi, jump away quickly!” cried Qi.
The little boy called Pi jumped sideways with amazing agility, evading the bull’s charge cleanly. But the bull brushed dangerously past his shoulder when something astonishing happened.
The bull whirled like a cyclone, swinging its tail like a whip. Its end threw off a shiny red glint as it lashed viciously at Pi.
