Night came – sleepless and restless.
Because of Yan Wushuang’s blunder, no one saw what happened during the fight.
But one thing was certain: Angus lost. Lost in the hands of the Devil.
And that was enough to rile up the warriors of the West.
Loius Krieg, High Prelate of the Holy Temple of the Sun, sat on his throne, sulking like a tempestuous thundercloud as his failed plan. It was by his orders that Angus had ventured across the border to that little village to kill Yan Wushuang and the rest of the League.
The Deputy Prelates were the Holy Temple’s pillars of strength and authority. Having already one killed by Chu Xun, he could not have Angus following the same fate.
“But what can he do?”
Peering darkly from his perch, Louis Krieg looked at the remaining Deputy Prelates and wards of the Holy Temple below him.
“Everyone, as a citizen of the domain of the Sun God, we cannot let Angus die in Huaxia. The Holy Temple must never become an object of ridicule and scorn,” he said.
No one gave so much as a reply. Louis was only stating the obvious. But with tens of thousands of li between the headquarters and Huaxia, there was no way they could reach Angus in time.
“High Prelate, I suggest making contact with the Devil. Perhaps we can offer him something to ransom back Angus and consider vengeance after this,” said a Deputy Prelate.
Louis mulled in contemplative silence, knowing full well that this was all they could do. He nodded gravely, giving his assent for them to contact Chu Xun.
It need not be said that this negotiation can never reach public eye, or the Holy Temple would lose what remains of its name and reputation.
Before long, Yan Wushuang received a message sent to him by an anonymous sender. “This looks like the Holy Temple,” he murmured.
“What does it say?” asked Chu Xun.
Yan Wushuang read through the message and he looked up at Chu Xun strangely, “They are willing to offer a hundred magical herbs, a hundred spiritual elixirs, and a hundred magical fruits – all of them Middle-grade – to ransom back Angus.”
Yi Xiaosu’s eyes wandered warily and uncertainly towards Chu Xun. He was afraid that Chu Xun might agree to the offer. Angus needed to die. Only this way, he could pay for the lives he took – Le Dayong’s and a good many members of the League who had perished resisting him.
Yan Wushuang appeared beside him suddenly and placed a hand on his shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he said to Yi Xiaosu, “We all know how sneaky this rascal could be. He’d never agree to the Holy Temple’s terms so easily. Just you watch, Angus will never slip away scot-free.”
After a moment of thought, Chu Xun told Yan Wushuang, “Tell them, I want five hundred for each item they’re offering.”
Yan Wushuang broke into a gleeful grin and replied to the Holy Temple, relaying to them Chu Xun’s demands.
“Greedy bastard,” burst one of the Deputy Prelates when he heard of this.
Louis Krieg however seemed pleased, albeit sneeringly. With a casual tone, he said, “Tell him yes. Now that he is brazen enough to make such rapacious demands, we’d have to be bold enough to play along.”
“They’ve agreed?!” gasped Yan Wushuang, hardly believing himself, “They’ve agreed so such outrageous demands?! Something is wrong here.”
“Of course. It’s a ploy to nab Angus back for free. Even if we demand for a thousand more, they will only say yes,” smirked Chu Xun.
“So, what now?”
“Arrange for the initiation of the trade.”
Yan Wushuang responded and read him the latest reply, “They request that we first release Angus. Then, ‘by the holy name of the Sun God’, they promise they’d deliver the items.”
“The Sun God?” Chu Xun almost snorted, “As if we give a rat’s ass about their phony Sun God. Tell them that they are to bring all that we’ve demanded to the Huaxia border in three days, or all they’ll get is Angus’s dead body.”
Yan Wushuang relayed Chu Xun’s demands and hours passed without any more word from the Holy Temple.
Louis smashed a desk in his rage when he heard Chu Xun’s demands, seething like a bull, “That sniveling, nasty villain.”
“What should we do now, High Prelate,” asked another of his deputies.
Louis’s face turned as gloomy as dusk as he heaved and panted, nearly sprouting steam from his nostrils. Bitterly, he hissed, “Tell them yes.”
“No one here can possibly defeat the Devil, High Prelate, save you. Does that mean you’ll be meeting him yourself?”
“A worthless vermin that’s not worthy to receive judgment from me,” Louis scowled with brimming contempt. “Take the Beacon with you.”
The mere mention of “Beacon” made everyone drew their breaths with fear and respect.
The Beacon of the Sun God. Legend had it that the Sun God deposited a sliver of his flames, the True Flame of the Sun, into the Beacon and bestowed it upon the Holy Temple. It was a powerful magical relic with untold destructiveness.
“High Prelate,” said a man called Orlov, “I would like to volunteer myself into this expedition to recover Deputy Prelate Angus.”
Louis nodded his assent and sent with him another ten wards of the Holy Temple to accompany him.
Beyond the borders of Huaxia, Yan Wushuang jumped with shock. “Chu Xun, they’ve agreed! Gods, I can’t believe it. They’re on their way now.”
Chu Xun’s brows piqued with interest, finding it odd.
“That’s definitely fishy,” commented Yi Xiaosu.
“So many warriors of the West had died by Chu Xun’s hands and still the Holy Temple has no qualms sending more men here? Aren’t they afraid that Chu Xun might hold them all captive?”
“Damn, what could these scums be plotting, I wonder?” mumbled Yan Wushuang, “Gods, could the High Prelate finally be appearing himself?”
Chu Xun’s eyes flashed with anticipation at that. What Yan Wushuang said sounded hardly ludicrous at all. Louis Krieg commanded just as much prestige and respect as the Pope of the Sacred Diocese in Country V. He might need to flee if the High Prelate was indeed coming himself.
“What gives them such confidence?” Chu Xun murmured to himself. There had to be something, or else the Holy Temple would never dare come as far as the Huaxia borders.
“I say we kill him, Big Brother, and leave this place,” said Tang Rou suddenly.
Upon experiencing the horrors of watching Le Dayong and the others being killed right before her eye, Tang Rou, unlike her usual compassionate and demure self, shocked everyone by insisting Angus should die.
Chu Xun went silent as he pondered their options.
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“What is the source of the Holy Temple’s confidence? Could Louis be really on the way here himself? Powerful Sacred Relics perhaps? Or is Angus really so valuable to the Holy Temple that they had no choice but to risk an expedition just to retrieve him?”
Chu Xun’s gaze traveled to Angus.
“Tell me about the Holy Temple,” ordered Chu Xun.
The Deputy Prelate raised his chin proudly and said, “You can humiliate me, after all, it is by my own weakness that you’ve taken me. But I’d never betray my order.”
“Perhaps you might have not known, your people are on the way here. They’re willing to offer a huge amount of magical shrubs and elixirs to ransom you back,” said Chu Xun.
That seemed to restore hope into Angus as his spirit lifted. Anxiously, he gasped, “Really?!”
Chu Xun nodded. “They’ll arrive in three days. So think carefully. Work with me if you want to live, or I’ll just toss to them your dead body for all I care.”
“You promise! How could you!” Angus blurted.
Bang!
A kick by Chu Xun sent Angus flying before the former caught up to him and placed a foot on the latter’s chest. Chu Xun applied more force to his foot, causing Angus’s chest to crackle due to the crushing force, and his face contorted with pain and agony.
“Your life is in my hand, remember that. Don’t ever go seeking death yourself,” warned Chu Xun, lifting his foot away.
Angus’s lungs welcomed the fresh supply of oxygen, relieved to be panting for dear life as he peered fearfully up at Chu Xun towering menacingly over him.
“Now,” Chu Xun said flatly, “Speak.”
But Angus hesitated, his mind frantically weighing his decision.
Woosh!
Blood sprayed everywhere as Angus let loose a painful howl – Chu Xun fired a purplish ray of energy through his shoulder.
Woosh!
Another purplish True Energy ray perforated his arm with blood bursting like a broken dam.
Woosh! Woosh!
Angus’s hysterical cries resounded again and again. Whenever Chu Xun raised a finger, another True Energy ray would blast right through Angus, leaving another bloody hole gaping and pouring with blood.
The commotion attracted both Yan Wushuang and Yi Xiaosu.
“You should leave dirty work like this to us,” said Yan Wushuang, leading Chu Xun by an arm away before propping him on a rock, allowing him to sit there.
“Keep him alive,” muttered Chu Xun.
He knew Yi Xiaosu and Yan Wushuang had only the deepest loathing for Angus, but they need him alive for now, hence the warning.
“Don’t you worry about it,” replied Yan Wushuang curtly before trotting back.
More of Angus’s painful screams howled through the night.
Eventually, Yi Xiaosu and Yan Wushuang were joined by the rest of the League. But with obedience to Chu Xun’s instruction that Angus was to be kept alive, the men mobbed and beat him for as long as he took until their anger and anguish were finally vented.
Chu Xun stood up and surveyed the surroundings. Things could have been very much worse if he had not arrived in time to thwart Angus’s night assault of this border village. Killing only Angus would do little to quell the resentment now boiling inside him.
He has hardly any interest in the magical herbs or elixirs, be they five hundred or even thousands of them. The vast and bountiful lands of Huaxia suffered no shortage of such resources. What he wanted above all else, was the utter defeat of the Holy Temple of the Sun. A defeat so great and painful that it would leave scars they’d never forget.
Chu Xun began skirting along the borders, pacing strangely in peculiar footwork while continuously weaving hand seals as he never stopped planting jade pebbles etched with weird, unfamiliar glyphs into the ground.
For more than two hours he labored until he finally finished.
He paused to think, then he backtracked his way back to the middle spot of the long stretch of the border he left his preparations and once again began stepping around in another strange set of footwork while shooting spurts of True Energy into the ground.
When his work was done, Chu Xun returned back to the village to stop Yan Wushuang and the League in their still-ongoing torture of Angus. The latter no longer retained his former smart and suave outlook, having lost almost every bit of his golden hair and his face now utterly littered with bruises, swellings, and lacerations, if one were to overlook the many footprints on his face. All in all, he looked just as beggarly as a tramp, if not worse.
With one powerful kick, Chu Xun launched him into the air and he crashed right at the center of the long stretch of the border. Chu Xun raced after him and made more hand seals before flicking forth another spurt of True Energy and the air began to shimmer and resonate.
Buzz!
Purple sheets of light rose around all four sides of Angus, keeping him encased inside a purple cube of shimmering lights.
Boom!
Thunders rolled and crackled inside the box and dark cumulonimbi clustered over Angus’s head with flashes of lightning dancing amongst the darkened plumes.
“LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!” cried Angus with horror as he saw the thunder clouds clustering overhead.
Swoosh!
A bolt of lightning sprang out of the dark clouds and slammed into Angus’s back.
Crack!
Sickening sizzles of burning flesh accompanied Angus’s agonizing shrieks of pain as blood oozed out of the blackened wound now exposed by the broken and charred skin with numbing sensation electrifying every limb of his.
Swoosh!
Another bolt came down swiftly, piercing through the dark clouds like a fiery whip from the heavens and cracked hard on Angus’s back.
With another snapping thunderclap that hit him like a whip, came another scream from Angus. Rolling and wincing in pain, burnt flesh was dangling off the part where the lightning blast struck him, threatening to dislodge and free itself from a fate far worse than death.
“Let me go! Let me go! I’ll tell you anything! ANYTHING!” Angus bellowed with terror. He was smoldering – his entire person now emitting fumes like a piece of newly-wrought steel thrust into cold water – with spasms of numbness coursing through his shivering body.
Chu Xun approached the barrier of the enchantment and peered inside frostily, “I’m afraid my interest has waned. How about tomorrow?”
“No, no no... I’ll tell you now... Please... I’ll tell you what you need to know...”
“For your information, Master Angus, the lightning blasts carries on for a half-hour. Then it will stop for an hour before starting again. The cycle of this enchantment will go on and on. Let’s pray that you’ll use that one-hour respite well to recover, or you’ll most likely be incinerated into dust in the next half-hour.”
With that, Chu Xun trotted back to the village and bade everyone goodnight. He would come back the next morning to check on Angus again.