The Immortal Emperor Returns

Chapter 379 The Winged Legion

Warriors had risen into prominence since the anomalies first began, elevating their positions over common and ordinary folk.

Even the weakest warrior in the early stages of the Innate Realm viewed the common folk as nothing more than a nuisance.

The common people quickly came to realize this and they avoided all forms of conflict with warriors, including giving them a wide berth even if warriors barged their way into their lives.

Strange and bizarre news peppered the Martial Tao Forum every day but not one of them included anything about common people in direct confrontation with warriors.

Yet, history was made on this day. An instance that redefined the status quo.

Soldiers emptying their rifles at a loud-mouthed member of the Winged race.

Wingers had always been snobbish and proud and yet, with soldiers seizing them by their wings and being fired upon using their rifles, the sight of them squirming and wincing in pain as feathers dropped to the floor was a most surrealistic scene.

In the motley crowd of onlookers, egotistical braggarts saw it their chance to gain some publicity.

They recorded videos of what happened and uploaded them to the Internet.

The cyberspace began to simmer with exciting discussions. “That is not real at all. Soldiers firing their weapons at the Winged race? What is going on in the world now?!”

“Doesn’t look like a Winged to me. Looks more like a hen whose feathers have been fully plucked off.”

“What happened to this Winged? What finally filled the army with a burst of courage? The Martial Tao domain might prohibit aggression against the common folk, but won’t the Winged race turn livid at one of their kind being ill-treated?”

“I can only guess that the army is doing this on purpose and somebody must be supporting them.”

Even as the discussions delved into greater depths, it was all but conjecture. Some wondered aloud if the Devil had returned, but the theory was quickly shot down.

Meanwhile, Jiang Tao emptied a clip’s worth of blank ammunition into the Wingeds before he finally stopped.

“All right, pull them up,” he ordered.

Four soldiers trotted up to two Wingeds buried upside down into the ground and each seized a leg and pulled hard.

It took as much effort as a strenuous tug-of-war to free them until they finally came up, both with their faces soiled and disheveled with signs of dried blood. The blood came from their face when they were slammed face-first into the ground and had been soaked up by the soil when they were underground before the soil hardened and clung to their faces.

Jiang Tao took his rifle and aimed.

Bang! Bang!

With two crisp bangs that sounded like cracks of whips, the blanks blasted away the crust of soil to reveal a pair of faces badly-bruised and lacerated with hints of dried blood.

The onlookers all took in a deep breath apprehensively as if they could feel the pain of the blast.

The two remaining Wingeds still in the air watched quietly and gravely from a distance, visibly afraid any more purplish energy tendrils might pop out from somewhere to ensnare them from the air.

Jiang Tao scoffed as he tossed one last look at them. “Winged race. Hmph,” he thought quietly. “They’re nothing before the Major General. Even real chickens could fight better than them.”

“Take these two back as well,” he motioned to his men.

The four soldiers brusquely dragged the two fainted Wingeds each by one leg like how they would with sacks of filth.

“YOU THERE!” Jiang Tao yelled at the two remaining Wingeds, “Tell your kind that the capital is a no-fly zone from this day onwards! Remember that!”

He had never felt so good before; to be able to be smug towards anyone from the Winged race.

The Winged pair peered at him darkly, their eyes burning with malice and resentment at the invincibility of their kind being challenged and disproved. Without warning, they flapped their wings and fired volleys of steel-like feathers, sending them whistling through the air at the captain.

“You’re slow learner, aren’t you?” yelled Jiang Tao derisively, so immensely pleased at himself that he did not even attempt to evade.

HUM!

A purplish shield of light materialized, its surface rippling with glitters.

The feathers smashed into the shield of light but were all reduced into harmless little sizzling specks of lights before they vanished momentarily.

“Impudent vermin. You will pay for such indignity upon the Winged race.”

Said one of the Winged with a sinister look about him.

His companion produced an arrow – one with shiny-gold fletching. He shook it gently and let go. Once out of his grasp, the arrow shot into the air with a shrill scream and exploded high up overhead, emitting showers of bright golden sparkles like fireworks.

Without any doubt, the Wingeds were calling for help, although the method seemed a tad too archaic, especially when they could have easily made a phone call and just spare everyone the histrionics.

“What’s that?! Awfully outdated, don’t you think, you birdbrains!?” Jiang Tao caterwauled with suppressed fits of laughter.

“A flare,” observed Chu Xun dryly, murmuring to himself, “Is that to call for help or to call for girls?” The words came before he had even known it and he chuckled. “Spending too much time with Jiu You must have influenced me enough with the bad habits she picked up from the Internet.”

Jiu You had been surfing the Internet so much that she picked up many a great number of odd and weird mantras that she repeated so incessantly until Chu Xun could recite them too.

Jiang Tao stared at Chu Xun, hardly believing his ears. He did not expect the Devil to be well-informed in modern and trendy pop culture idiosyncrasies. The Chu Xun they knew only spent his hours in combat and nothing else.

After all, everything they heard about Chu Xun confined only to his swashbuckling derring-do. He could either be slaying a dragon or he could be knocking down doors of evil-doers and scums.

Not long after the flare was fired, the horizon was speckled with countless dots that slowly converged into a huge mass. Something was coming fast and finally, when it drew near, it was a company of Wingeds.

Many among the bystanders staggered backward involuntarily as they feared the worst. “The Winged race has come! They must be angry! At first glance, the host of Wingeds looked like it numbered up to a hundred.”

At its forefront was an elderly Winged with flowing white hair and chalk-white beard although his rosy cheeks and his taut and smooth skin hardly screamed frail.

Powerful and vast was the aura that he radiated as multiple white glowing rings cascaded from his head down to his feet and all that beheld his imposing stature found themselves at a loss for breath.

A Ninth-grade Winged King.

The rest of the Wingeds looked nowhere near as old as him, but as highly-disciplined soldiers, they hovered in orderly rows despite being afloat in mid-air.

The Winged Legion.

Jiang Tao beheld the horde of Winged legionnaires in the air and what confidence and fervor he had fizzled into nothing as he wondered with dread, “Heavens, so many of them... One feather from every single one of them and I’d be as perforated as a sieve!”

He jerked his head around, hoping to seek comfort and solace. There he was, the Devil, looking hardly perturbed and strangely, that managed to calm the captain down.

The elderly Winged coldly surveyed the surroundings with eyes as keen as a hawk’s. The creases of his wrinkled face deepened into a bitter glare.

“Soldiers of the common world. The Winged race has never sought offense with you. Why such savagery upon our kind?”

The elderly Winged’s question came like thunder rolling towards Jiang Tao.

The sonorous voice came with a shock wave that stupefied everyone. Jiang Tao and his men felt their insides churning and their blood boiling so strongly that they nearly collapsed.

Spurts of purplish energies shot into their bodies before they lost control, calming their senses and assuaged their discomfort.

“Go!”

Chu Xun barked at the Wingeds, his voice reverberating like the thunderous growls of dragons, billowing forth in powerful waves of its own.

The elderly Winged’s face twisted with shock when he realized what was coming. But it was too late; the sound wave struck him like a sledgehammer in the chest and he quickly summoned his powers to suppress the waves of discomfort that could cause internal damage.

But the same could not be said for his subordinates behind him. The entire Winged host was tossed into disarray; the Winged legionnaires wobbled like a bunch of drunks that some nearly plunged headfirst from the air.

Their elderly leader hastily flung out an arm and conjured several white rings that descended like a protective barrier around his men, restoring them to fullness.

Jiang Tao and his men, with the bystanding warriors among the crowds of onlookers, stared at Chu Xun with renewed admiration. “That’s awesome!”

Such were troubled times where warriors won respect and adoration through their heroics.

“So that was you!?” cried the Winged who had fired the flare earlier, thrusting a finger incredulously at Chu Xun.

“Silence!” admonished the elderly Winged sharply.

“Master Mo! It was him! It was his unknown devilry which had ensnared Mo Lin and the others!” the Winged cried anxiously as if he had not heard the warning.

“I said ‘Silence’!” snarled the elderly Winged again.

The younger Winged jumped as if he had been hit by a lightning bolt and fell silent at once, although that did not stop him from casting a venomous glare at Chu Xun.

“Hail, human champion. I apologize for the insolence on his behalf. Please understand that any slight is not intentional,” said the elderly Winged with his arms crossed before his midriff and he bent in what appeared to be an obvious bow.

Chu Xun peered at him dubiously. But not far away, the Winged legionnaires could not believe what they were seeing: it was the gesture of highest respect that a Winged could convey.

But if anyone fully knew what fully happened earlier, that could only be Chu Xun and the elderly Winged leader.

As a powerful champion of the Winged race and a maven in the skills of combat himself, he immediately realized that the young man’s mundane appearance and outlook belied insurmountable and indomitable might that not even he could flippantly claim to best.

But none of the Winged legionnaires understood why. What compelled their most powerful champion to show such respect and honor to a mere human, they could hardly guess. If anything, the Wingeds all saw it as an insult.

What was more infuriating was how the human whelp remained magnanimous seated without any intention of returning the salute!

“Humans, worthless vermin that understand nothing about manners and decorum!”

But the displeased glares from the Winged legionnaires did not go unnoticed; a sharp-eyed Chu Xun caught them grimacing with disgust and smirked, “You seem resentful.”

“Lowly humans like you do not deserve our race’s highest gesture of salute,” said someone from the midst of the Winged Legion.

“Birdbrains. Take a good look at your friends whom we arrested. They look nothing more than featherless chickens after being defeated. You dare to speak of respect?” scowled Jiang Tao loudly, displeased that the Wingeds disrespected Chu Xun.

“Human scum! There’s no way they’d be defeated by the likes of you without some unknown devilry! You’ll pay for this indignity towards the Winged race.”

Jiang Tao scoffed emphatically. He strode to the captured Wingeds and kicked at them to humiliate them further before saying aloud, “Who’s paying the price now, I wonder? What a bunch of birdbrains. The earth belongs to us humans, not you avian-folk! Learn some respect if you wish to survive here and not strut about as if you own this place!”

Legionnaires of the Winged host stirred unsteadily. Glaring hatefully at Jiang Tao, they would have given anything to strike him down here and now.

“Angry, eh? Glare at me again and I’ll fire some lead into your friend here,” said Jiang Tao, putting the muzzle of his rifle at the temples of a captured Winged.

“Wait!” cried the elderly Winged. One look at Chu Xun was enough to know that he was in charge here. “Esteemed human champion,” he said to Chu Xun, “You belong to the domain of Martial Tao, the realm of warriors. I fail to understand why you are defending these lowly insects.”

Chu Xun’s eyes squinted, masking the cold fury budding in his gaze.

“You despise humans, don’t you? So why are you living in the human territory?”

“This is where you’re mistaken. Life is always about the survival of the fittest. The strong survive and the weak perish. With the rise of warriors since the anomalies began ravaging Earth and the emergence of various races, the existence of these lowly miscreants only adds to the burden of Earth to sustain and keep them. Once subservient to the other races before their withdrawal into obscurity, they are to reassume the mantle of their forebears now that we’ve returned. They are no more than slaves to us; slaves whose life and death are ours to say.”

Unperturbed, Chu Xun chuckled. He stared at the elderly Winged, “So am I, a human too. Would you dictate how I live?”

“Nay. Singular beings like you are gods in the comprehension of such wretched lowlifes. You’ve transcended beyond the limits of the mundane humanity,” said the elderly Winged earnestly.

“Well, at any rate, I have something to say,” said Chu Xun to him.

“I’m all ears.”

Chu Xun transfixed him in a derisive stare, “I never liked using expletives and I don’t like unnecessary blather. But to you, I’d make an exception – go f*ck yourself!”