After the Immortal Disappeared

Madam Ying, who had been listening the whole time, blurted out, "Then that should be plenty useful in a war."

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she had misspoken.

The others fell silent. Assistant Liu lowered his head, not daring to respond.

Hee Yue changed the subject. "Since General Ke went to plead their case, will the Fu Family be able to escape this ordeal?"

Ke Jihai had first pacified the rebels at Woling Pass, and then battled Dongg Haoming in the west. He was the General the Royal Court depended on most right now. He had personally rushed back to plead for the Fu Family; with the Monarch still counting on him to defeat Dongg Haoming, he had to be shown some deference, right?

"We’ll find out soon enough."

Feeling a bit stifled, Madam Ying lifted the curtain to check the road. Their carriage was descending a winding mountain path, and the snow was falling so heavily that it was impossible to see more than thirty feet ahead.

No matter how wide and smooth the mountain road was, they had to be extra careful in these conditions.

Only one lantern in the front and one in the back could be seen, answering each other across the gloom.

’Hmm? Front and back?’

She glanced back. "There’s another carriage following us. I wonder whose it is." General Ke’s carriage in front was quite close, within twenty feet. This was the unspoken rule for traveling on a mountain on a snowy day: everyone stayed within sight of each other to provide help if needed.

’Which other family left the banquet midway?’

Hee Lingchuan also poked his head out to look, then pulled back, closed his eyes for a moment, and said, "What a coincidence. It’s that common carriage that was following us on our way up the mountain. I’m guessing the passenger is the young man who handed the booklet to General Ke during the feast. He looks neither wealthy nor like an official." He paused. "Hmm, that carriage has stopped."

Madam Ying asked in surprise, "The snow is so heavy, how can you tell?" She could only make out a bit of warm light from the lantern and the vague silhouette of the carriage. Identifying it any further was impossible.

It was actually simple. The lantern on that carriage was covered with green-husk paper, making its light yellowish-green. Other carriages had normal yellowish-white light. ’He’d been watching it the whole way up; how could he not remember?’

But he looked at Hee Chunhua across from him, grinned, and said, "I guessed."

’Was it just my imagination, or did Dad not want me to accept Ke Jihai’s Hundred Defying Blade?’

With his last glance, he had seen the carriage stop and its driver jump down into the snow to check the wheels, though he didn’t know what was wrong.

Madam Ying rolled her eyes.

However, her words did remind Hee Lingchuan of something. Since he was just sitting here with nothing better to do, he decided to put what he had just learned into practice and tried to expand his Divine Thought again.

To the others, it just looked like he was resting with his eyes closed.

He found that it worked much better at night than during the day; the strain was actually less. He wondered if it was because his Divine Soul was relatively weak.

The sensation was extraordinary. He could clearly "see" the shape of each individual snowflake.

Although they were all hexagonal, there were still subtle differences from one flake to the next, from one edge to another.

There were thousands upon thousands of snowflakes dancing around the carriage. Even the naked eye couldn’t take them all in, but his Divine Thought could, missing not a single detail.

It was only with this direct comparison that he truly understood the benefit of perceiving things with his Divine Thought.

Needless to say, this was also one of the essential Divine Skills for home, travel, and murder.

Hee Lingchuan became engrossed in expanding his Divine Thought but discovered he could only extend it about twenty feet. Any further was impossible. This was likely a limitation of his weak Divine Soul.

The snow on the road, the rocks below the cliff, the white vapor of the groom’s breath, and the strange shadow on the cliff face.

’Hmm?’

Hee Lingchuan’s eyes flew open. He poked his head out and, with a voice like thunder, shouted, "Stop the carriage! Ambush!"

He was separated from the driver in the front seat only by a thick cloth screen. He had infused his shout with True Power, making it boom like a winter thunderclap that left the driver’s ears ringing and caused him to instinctively pull on the reins.

The carriage was already moving slowly on such a snowy night, so it stopped the instant he pulled the reins.

Caught off guard, everyone lurched forward. Ying Hongchan complained, "What’s—"

The rest of her words died in her throat as a massive boulder CRASHED down right in front of the carriage, shattering over a dozen of the black paving stones on the road.

That wasn’t all. It continued to roll forward a few more times before plunging straight off the side of the road.

A few moments later, a dull, heavy crash echoed up from the base of the mountain.

Madam Ying’s face was as white as a sheet.

This irregularly shaped boulder was bigger than a Door Panel from an inn and weighed at least six or seven hundred pounds. If her eldest son hadn’t shouted for the carriage to stop, their whole family would have been the ones smashed off the cliff by that boulder!

’This is the Royal Villa’s grounds. Would a weathered boulder on the mountain really just fall like that?’

She’d forgotten that Hee Lingchuan had also cried out, "Ambush!"

A dark shadow flashed across the sky.

Everyone looked up to see a massive figure descend from the sky, CRASHING onto Ke Jihai’s carriage up ahead!

The high-quality rosewood carriage exploded on impact as if it were made of paper.

Splinters of wood flew more than twenty feet, striking the horses that pulled the Hee Family’s carriage.

One of the horses was struck in the shoulder. It reared up in terror, threatening to pull the carriage sideways.

"General Ke!"

The members of the Hee Family were aghast.

’The Commander-in-Chief of over a hundred thousand troops, crushed to death in his carriage just like that?’

By the light of the carriage lanterns, everyone saw that the massive figure that had just crashed down was not another boulder, but a brown Giant Ape!

This creature stood ten feet tall, its bulging muscles threatening to burst from its skin. It had to weigh over two thousand pounds. It was covered in scars and wore a thorny collar. Hee Lingchuan had only seen such spiked collars on fierce hounds, where they were used to protect the neck from tiger and wolf bites. He never thought he’d see one on a Giant Ape.

’Even stranger, it’s wearing pale gray plate armor covering its vitals. It doesn’t look like metal... more like bone?’

After using its own body as a cannonball, the Giant Ape didn’t let up. It swung its iron fists in a frenzy—POUND! POUND! POUND!—smashing Ke Jihai’s carriage to smithereens.

Madam Ying was about to scream, but when she saw its crimson eyes sweep over them, she quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Out of the carriage!" Hee Chunhua ordered in a low voice. While the carriage body blocked the Giant Ape’s view, he picked up his wife and jumped to the ground.

The Giant Ape was so powerful that the carriage was no longer safe cover; instead, it restricted their movements.

Hee Yue also grabbed the terrified Assistant Liu and the driver and pulled them out of the carriage. While the Giant Ape was furiously smashing Ke Jihai’s carriage, Hee Lingchuan drew his blade with a backhand motion, sliced through the carriage’s harness with a single strike, and led the two horses out, saying, "Get on the horses! Quick!"

There was no one to call for help on this remote mountain road. Their only hope for survival was to run. Safety lay in the surrounding forest.

This was no time for hesitation. Hee Chunhua, holding his wife, jumped onto a horse, turned its head, and headed up the mountain.

Hee Yue also jumped on a horse and reached out to his older brother, but Hee Lingchuan threw Assistant Liu up instead. "You go!"

Hee Yue grew anxious. "Brother!"

But Hee Lingchuan slapped the horse’s rump hard, spurring it to gallop forward after Hee Chunhua.

Of course, he wasn’t going to just sit there and wait for death. He grabbed the driver by the collar and, with a great leap, rushed towards the common carriage behind them.

The carriages were only twenty feet apart, a distance Hee Lingchuan could cross in a flash.

Before his feet even touched the ground, he repeated his trick, likewise freeing the two horses pulling the carriage.

’In my opinion, this Hundred Defying Blade isn’t as sharp as my Broken Blade, but it’s still a rare Treasure Blade. It slices through the tough wood like tofu, saving me time and effort.’

’At a critical moment, a good blade can save your life.’

The driver and passenger of this carriage were already dumbstruck by the Giant Ape and were caught completely off guard by Hee Lingchuan’s actions. Just as they were about to shout, Hee Lingchuan urged them, "Get on the horses and flee! Quickly!"

’No matter how wide the mountain road, a carriage would be hard-pressed to turn around. Fleeing on horseback is much faster and more flexible.’

Hee Lingchuan could also see clearly that the passenger was indeed the young man who had toasted and handed a booklet to Ke Jihai earlier. His driver, as if waking from a dream, jumped on one horse and started to flee back the way they came. The passenger tried to climb on behind him and was nearly thrown off.

Hee Lingchuan reached out to steady the passenger, then he and his own driver mounted the last horse and galloped up the mountain.

’This was my real goal: to borrow their horses.’

Eight people, four horses. In the blink of an eye, they were on the run for their lives.

This series of actions seemed complex, but it all happened in just seven or eight seconds—the time it took for the Giant Ape to swing its arms and smash the carriage six or seven times.

’How could such a massive, ferocious Demon Beast suddenly appear in Shihuan City?’

’My first thought was of the Northern Demon Kingdom. An exiled Crocodile Demon could proclaim itself a god in the Hongchuan River before Woling Pass, stirring up storms and defeating the Yuan Kingdom’s Navy. So, maybe these powerful Demons also come from the Northern Realm?’

The Giant Ape tore Ke Jihai’s carriage to pieces. One of the carriage horses took the opportunity to escape, but the other, unlucky, was still tied to the carriage, neighing in terror.

Next, the Giant Ape casually rummaged through the wreckage, then with a great effort of its arms, it lifted the entire carriage over its head and hurled it off the cliff!

The drop from here was over a hundred feet. Even if Ke Jihai wasn’t already crushed to death, the fall would have killed him.

Hee Lingchuan heard the horse’s mournful neigh trail off into the distance, then stop abruptly. The palms of his hands were slick with sweat.

’This Giant Ape attacked two carriages. Was its target Ke Jihai or the Hee Family?’

’It attacked Ke Jihai head-on, but only threw a boulder at the Hee Family’s carriage. So, Ke Jihai was its primary target?’

’Figuring this out might give the Hee Family a better chance of survival.’

At present, they were heading up the mountain road, hoping to quickly put some distance between themselves and the Giant Ape. The creature seemed to possess Infinite Strength, but it didn’t look built for speed.

At some point, the snow had stopped.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, Hee Lingchuan saw something flash through the dense woods at the side of the road.

Ahead of him, Hee Yue also cried out in alarm, "Watch out, there’s something in the woods!"

But the thing zipped forward in a flash, its speed actually surpassing that of a galloping horse.

Drawing power from his Dantian, Hee Lingchuan bellowed, "Dad, get down!"

Hee Chunhua and his wife were riding at the very front.

He turned his head to look as soon as he heard his son’s shout, but the woods were pitch black. There was nothing there.

Ahead was a massive, solid rock, rising more than ten feet above the road. The path snaked around its edge.

Before Hee Chunhua could look away, a figure appeared atop the rock. It looked down on them, then dove at them headfirst like a raptor swooping down on its prey!

It completely ignored the three riders behind him, going straight for Hee Chunhua.

To catch bandits, first catch their king. Even Demons understood such a principle.

Fortunately, Hee Chunhua’s nerves were already taut. The moment the corner of his eye caught the movement ahead, he yanked on the horse’s reins without a second thought.