Chapter 99 : Chapter 99

Chapter 99: The Mountain Ghoul Breaks Free!

The moment the others saw that blood-colored jade bottle, their hearts jolted violently!

【Dragon Vein Baleful Shadow】!

That was a taboo object capable of lifting the suppression of Great Zhou’s dragon veins and releasing those great demons and fiends that had been sealed away for hundreds or even thousands of years.

The moment this thing appeared, it meant that the grand plan they had spent a century preparing was about to officially begin!

When Ye Feng and the others saw the confidence on Su Wenyuan’s face, they all revealed excited expressions.

A hundred years of preparation, a hundred years of waiting—at last, that day had finally come.

“Yes!”

Ye Feng stepped forward at once and, without the slightest hesitation, took the jade bottle radiating sealing power from Su Wenyuan’s hand.

...

Clop... clop... clop...

The horses’ hooves struck the official road, producing a crisp, rhythmic sound.

The last rays of the setting sun stretched the shadows of the two riders long across the road, staining the clouds at the horizon red, and staining the withered grass by the roadside red as well.

Seated atop his horse, Chen Guan glanced at Luo Li beside him.

This stretch of the journey had been strangely calm, without the slightest disturbance.

Only, that girl Luo Li seemed to have suddenly contracted some kind of muteness. Aside from calling out a few times when she was hungry or thirsty, she had not spoken a single extra word along the way.

That left Chen Guan feeling rather unaccustomed.

It was not that he liked listening to the girl chatter endlessly. It was simply that he feared her spirits might keep sinking until she suddenly decided to turn around and go home.

If that happened, then this entire escort would be utterly ruined.

And once the escort was ruined, it would mean that his more than five hundred thousand would become a dead account.

More importantly, the Escort Points that ought to feed him for ten years would go straight down the drain.

At that thought, he finally could not help opening his mouth.

“So what, you’ve finally realized that rebellion isn’t quite so simple?”

Luo Li, seated on horseback, turned her head slightly to look at him, then quickly withdrew her gaze and looked toward the distant horizon beneath the setting sun. A hard-to-describe dejection filled her voice.

“Brother Chen, I’ve realized... it seems I’ve been walking the wrong road all this way.”

Chen Guan’s heart gave a jolt.

Damn it, had her mental state really collapsed?

Still, he kept his tone even and said, “Why do you say that?”

Luo Li gripped the reins tightly, her knuckles turning pale from the force, as though she wanted to vent all the turmoil in her heart through that handful of leather.

She remained silent for a long while before finally speaking.

“At the age of three, I began my education and was already able to fluently read the writings of the Hundred Schools. By the time I was ten, I had already more or less grasped the arts by which past emperors controlled those beneath them.”

“It was also at that time that Grandfather finally told me my origins and made me understand that I carried the mission of reviving the Violet Firmament Empire.”

“From that day on, the only two words in my heart were ‘restore the dynasty.’”

“I began studying everything about the past of the Violet Firmament Empire. I began interacting with my uncle, learning every arrangement he had laid within Great Zhou, and day and night I prepared for the road of restoration.”

“And yet... it was only after setting out last month and walking this road myself that I discovered that everything I had learned and everything I had mastered was only suited to making me a ruler of a peaceful and prosperous age.”

“It was utterly unsuited to walking this road of restoration... a road covered in thorns and blood.”

Hearing that, Chen Guan cast the girl a rather surprised look.

Not bad.

She had actually managed to identify the crucial flaw in herself. It seemed her brain had finally started functioning.

Chen Guan followed up, “Go on. Why is it that you aren’t suited to this road of restoring the dynasty?”

Luo Li drew in a deep breath, as though she wanted to exhale all the gloom jammed inside her chest in one go. Her voice carried a chill that cut to the bone.

“Because this road is entirely controlled by my uncle.”

“From the moment we crossed into Great Zhou and encountered that first strange tale, Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat, I knew that it was the first blood-soaked cornerstone my uncle had laid for me.”

“Though I do not know the complete shape of his plan, I do know one thing: if I keep walking the route he arranged for me, I will ultimately become a female sovereign with the blood of innocents all over my hands.”

Chen Guan heard that and did not seem particularly moved. “Have you ever seen an emperor who sat upon that throne without blood on his hands?”

Luo Li turned her head and let her cool gaze fall upon him.

She understood that Chen Guan was not rejecting her thoughts. He was asking her why the imperial road beneath her feet was the wrong one.

“All the ancestors of my Violet Firmament Imperial Dynasty did indeed have blood on their hands.”

She spoke each word slowly and clearly. “But every single drop of blood they spilled had a reason. Every single drop had meaning!”

“But in Ten Thousand Deaths, No Retreat, the road my uncle built for me was one of establishing order through slaughter, of turning the butcher’s blade... toward defenseless commoners, toward the soldiers guarding the borders for the state, toward those who were truly loyal and good!”

At those words, Chen Guan grinned.

“Now that really does make you look a bit like a future Empress!”

Luo Li froze for a moment, caught off guard by that sudden praise.

This was the first time Chen Guan had praised her in such a certain tone. For no reason she could name, a warm current slipped through her heart.

But immediately afterward, that warmth was replaced by an even deeper confusion.

Her voice dropped, carrying a trace of uncertainty. “Brother Chen, I feel that the road of restoring the dynasty itself is flawed... I just don’t know whether that’s only my illusion.”

One of Chen Guan’s brows lifted, and he asked in puzzlement, “What flaw? How come I haven’t noticed anything?”

Luo Li looked at him.

As though you hadn’t noticed anything. Ever since she had told him her purpose in restoring the dynasty, this journey Chen Guan had led her through had not been merely a road of escort.

He had also been leading her along the true imperial road beneath her feet.

If not for Chen Guan, then her own uncle would already have stained her hands with blood.

After thinking for a moment, Luo Li spoke again.

“At first I didn’t feel anything strange. But judging from Zhang Wen’s attitude, and then those people yesterday... my uncle is forcing me onto a cruel and bloody road.”

“This... may not be the kind of restoration I originally imagined at all!”

“Otherwise, they would not all have ignored me so completely, nor would they have made every decision without ever asking for my opinion, acting on their own as though I were merely a piece on the board!”

Her voice turned colder and colder. “The reason they act this way is obvious—they fear that I, this piece on the board, would not be able to accept their so-called ‘way of restoring the dynasty.’”

“They only want me to walk step by step along the blood-road they laid out all the way to Shangjing, to become an important chess piece, and to complete the so-called ‘restoration ceremony’ they envision.”

Chen Guan stroked his chin and looked ahead, but did not respond.

He was only an Escort Master. The most he could do was walk his own road of escort well, and lead Luo Li along this escort road in a straight and proper line.

If he did that, then he had done right by his own conscience, and his heart would remain without shame.

As for Luo Li, she ultimately had to walk her own road.

That road depended on the human heart, on jianghu, on vision, and even more on those endless struggles for power that had long since been written into the world.

Now that they had come this far, what happened next depended on her own fate.

So long as her mental state did not collapse, that was enough!

Suddenly!

Chen Guan’s gaze toward the road ahead abruptly sharpened. Like lightning, he shot out a hand and yanked Luo Li straight off her own horse and onto his!

Luo Li did not cry out. She did not even struggle in the slightest. She merely locked her eyes on the official road ahead.

She knew that a great battle was about to begin!

Almost at the same instant, a shrill ripping sound tore through the air from ahead!

Whoosh!

A dark shape, crowned by the blood-red afterglow of the setting sun, suddenly leapt out from above the distant treetops and crashed down onto the center of the official road!

It was a creature nine chi tall, covered from head to toe in crimson fur, neither fully human nor fully ape, with a blood-red vertical eye growing from the exact center of its forehead.

“The moment it saw the two horses on the road and Chen Guan’s pair, that vertical eye suddenly lit up. Throwing back its head, it let out a savage laugh that made the scalp crawl.”

“Hahahaha! I only just broke free, and already such fresh brains are delivered to my door?”

“It’s a Mountain Ghoul!” Luo Li cried out. “A Mountain Ghoul that feeds on human brains!”

She had once read of such creatures in ancient texts. They were hybrid horrors born from the combination of a Demonic Being and a Fiendish Being, and they stood on the same tier as Painted Skin Fiends.

Not only were they hideous in appearance, but they also possessed intelligence and speech not inferior to that of humans. They were savage in the extreme and delighted most in devouring fresh human brains raw.

Yet just as the Mountain Ghoul greedily stared at Chen Guan and Luo Li and was about to pounce—

another sudden change occurred!

A gray-robed figure, wrapped in a streak of sharp violet light, flashed out of the forest on the left like a phantom!

Bang!

A dull, heavy impact rang out!

That gray-robed man’s fist struck the Mountain Ghoul squarely in the chest.

That monstrous creature, which had looked as though nothing in the world could threaten it, immediately let out a pained howl. Its enormous body was blasted backward on the spot.

“You wicked beast! Unless you want your bones ground to dust and your ashes scattered, return with this old man to the Demon-Suppressing Tower!”

The gray-robed elder held a green-edged longsword in hand, its point slanted toward the ground, while his eyes locked tightly onto the Mountain Ghoul that had been driven a full ten zhang away by that punch.

“Hehehe... just you?”

The Mountain Ghoul let out a string of ear-piercing, eerie laughter. Extending its scarlet tongue, it licked across the two tusks jutting from its mouth, and then its massive body flickered and vanished from where it stood.

The old man, however, did not panic in the least. With a turn of his wrist, he directly brought the longsword across before him in guard.

Boom!

After a dull thunderous crash, the old man’s body was sent flying like a kite with its string cut, smashed by a terrifying force straight into the forest beside the road!

He crashed through several great trees thick enough to require an embrace before he barely managed to steady himself. Then he coughed up several mouthfuls of blood and shouted in disbelief as he stared at the Mountain Ghoul that had revealed itself once again.

“H-how can this be?!”

“You... you’ve been suppressed for more than two hundred years! How could your strength not only fail to diminish, but actually increase?!”

The corner of Chen Guan’s mouth twitched.

Damn it, he had thought the old man was some extraordinary expert, but this was all he had amounted to?

He had been crushed by that monster in a single move.

Luo Li, meanwhile, heard something far deeper in the old man’s words—suppressed for more than two hundred years, yet its power had not diminished and had even grown stronger?

That could only mean one thing!

During all those years of suppression, someone had secretly been “feeding” it the whole time!

“Since you old ghost refuse to appreciate kindness, then let me first have a taste of your brain!”

The Mountain Ghoul let out another sneer. With a single leap, it fell before the gray-robed elder like a meteor crashing to earth.

Luo Li instinctively looked toward Chen Guan.

Yet Chen Guan showed not the slightest intention of intervening. He merely pressed his legs gently to the horse’s flanks.

“Come on. Let’s go. That monster isn’t here for us.”

Luo Li very much wanted to explain.

Because even if the Mountain Ghoul was not here for them, it was certainly connected to her uncle.

But she understood Chen Guan’s temperament even better—if there was no money, he would not move; if it was not his responsibility, he would not touch it.

After thinking it over, she finally kept silent.

Yet just as the two of them began to move away, another earthshaking crash suddenly erupted from the distant forest.

Luo Li turned her head, only to see a large group of black-armored soldiers in regulation gear surging out from the woods, already locked in battle with the Mountain Ghoul!

One tree after another was blasted apart by violent demonic power, while one fearless black-armored soldier after another was slapped into bloody paste by the Mountain Ghoul!

Fortunately, the gray-robed elder had only been gravely wounded and had not died. At this moment, he was still risking everything to hold the Mountain Ghoul’s main attention, creating openings for those black-armored troops to support one another.

But even that was no more than a drop in the bucket.

That Mountain Ghoul, standing nine chi tall like a small mountain, was slaughtering with growing excitement, almost killing one man with every slap.

The gray-robed elder took another direct blow and coughed out two more mouthfuls of blood. He shouted himself hoarse at an officer before him, “General Zhang! Take the brothers and withdraw first! Send for aid from Shangjing immediately!”