Chapter 402: Turmoil
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
This was a long-premeditated a.s.sa.s.sination. The a.s.sa.s.sins must have plotted this for over one year. The target was Yan Yuntian. Zhou Bao just happened to be there at the right time.
As the target was not him but the emperor, the whole thing basically had nothing to do with Zhou Bao. Although he had married the emperor’s daughter, that did not mean he had to fight his a.s.s off to save the emperor.
“Rescue the Emperor! Hurry up! Somebody rescue the Emperor!”
By this time, everyone had fled away from the square before the bedchamber, except for the purple-robed old man and two other people. If Zhou Bao had sharp vision, he would see that these three were exactly the three chiefs of the civilian officers in the imperial court—the Three Ducal Ministers.
The guards of the palace were also in a mess. They had never thought something like this would really happen. Since the palace was heavily guarded, even if someone wanted to a.s.sa.s.sinate a man in the palace, he would adopt a stealthy method. Thus, such a blatant and sensational a.s.sa.s.sination was the first one they had ever come across.
The attack came from the sky. The commander of those guards was an expert at Level Seven, but when he turned on his Gang Qi and tried to locate the source of that white light, he could find nothing at all. With this white light connecting the sky to the earth, n.o.body knew how high it was. It was true that an expert at Level Seven should be able to fly, but the height could be no more than 10,000 feet. What was more, it was impossible to destroy the light column from the inside. Since the source could not be found, this commander of the guards naively raised his saber and hacked right towards the white light. As a result, his saber was broken and his life ended, with him being shattered into dust under the impact of the recoil force issued by the white light.
An expert at Level Seven!
One single attack of the recoil force could smash a person, which was enough to demonstrate the power of this light column.
“It looks like a formation but also resembles a celestial device. Yes, this white light has to be the product of a Pure Yang Celestial Device. Otherwise, its power cannot be so vast or so long lasting!” After taking a few breaths, Zhou Bao noticed something special of this white light column and shouted, “No, no, this is not a Pure Yang Celestial Device. This is the effect of formations. They’ve overlaid two types of formations and have combined each of their sole function together!”
“Then what are you doing there? Hurry up! Rescue the Emperor!”
At this moment, the purple-robed old man and the other two Ducal Ministers also rushed in front of the bedchamber and started motivating their power. Wafts of righteous power rose up, violently pounding on the s.p.a.ce Rampart around the bedchamber.
At Level Eight, all the Three Ducal Ministers had startling strength. Moreover, what they practiced was the Innate Universal Genuine Qi of the Mingyi School. Among them, Grand Tutor Pei Tianming had already successfully refined the Innate Universal Golden Book, which was bombarding the s.p.a.ce Rampart with all its might.
“That won’t work. Your power can’t even break a normal s.p.a.ce, let alone this specially overlaid s.p.a.ce!” advised Zhou Bao, shaking his head.
“Shut up! You are one of the va.s.sals to His Majesty, quickly help us to rescue the Emperor!” The Grand Perceptor snapped and his expression hardened. “Regarding public relations, he is your king. In a private sense, he is your father-in-law… You can’t stand aside and do nothing!”
Right now, he came to the realization that among those people at the scene, only Zhou Bao had a chance to rescue Yan Yuntian. Therefore, while he was harshly scolding Zhou Bao, he was exerting himself to wink at Yan Yunfei, who was still cuddled in Zhou Bao’s arms.
Yan Yunfei finally came back to her senses from this shocking incident. Without a word, she gritted her teeth and charged forward. A light flashed in her sleeve and a bendy sword appeared in her hand. The next second, she stabbed the sword relentlessly at the s.p.a.ce Rampart.
“F*ck!” Zhou Bao cursed quietly and then reluctantly walked towards that s.p.a.ce Rampart, but he didn’t make any strikes. “Enough, you should stop wasting your time. This s.p.a.ce Rampart was formed by piling up layers of ramparts. Even a Genuine Immortal cannot break it, not to mention you guys!”
But everyone chose to ignore him. The Three Ducal Ministers and Yan Yunfei kept attacking the rampart desperately.
Zhou Bao shook his head and was about to come forward to help. Suddenly, a sense of hostility flashed across his face as he bellowed, “You’re asking for death!”
Stretching out his hands, the dark golden Gang Qi soared up again.
With a loud bang, a spurt of blood came out behind Yan Yunfei. Not far away, a noise sounded as if something heavy dropped on the ground, and then a man’s figure gradually came into sight.
It turned out to be a black-clothed man, skinny and small, with every part of his body wrapped in black cloth. Just now, he launched some unknown techniques to conceal his figure as he tried to approach Yan Yunfei. But how could this kind of trick possibly fool the spiritual mind of Zhou Bao?
“Surely somebody is asking for a death!”
At first, Zhou Bao had no intention to meddle in this mess, because this kind of thing would always badger you endlessly once you stepped in. However, that did not mean that he could tolerate somebody targeting him. Yan Yunfei already married him and belonged to him, so targeting Yan Yunfei equated to targeting himself, which was unbearable to him.
Hence, after he threw that man into the air without a blink, Zhou Bao gave a cold snort, and his dark golden Gang Qi transformed into nine dark golden Fire Dragons rising up to the sky. The nine Fire Dragons grew larger and larger at a fast speed. In an instant, each of those Fire Dragons had grown to the length of 1,000 feet, hovering and roaring above the imperial palace.
“Ah!”
“c.r.a.p!”
“Run for it!”
“Hurry!”
“Run away?”
…
Numerous small and hastened voices sounded as many figures were forced to reveal themselves in the darkness by the strong heat flux.
“Invisible Technique?” As the figures were popping out of blue, Zhou Bao’s eyes s.h.i.+ned more and more brightly. The Invisible Technique was one of the special techniques, but by itself, it was not brilliant at all. It was no secret, either. One just needed to find a special Evil Qi and refine it. After that, by launching it, one could completely make himself invisible as well as hide his breath. Of course, its effect was not as amazing as the Snake-like Breath Holding Skill. Anyone who entered the Expert Realm could detect some traces of a hidden person as long as they attached more importance to observe, not to mention such an expert like Zhou Bao.
The moment Zhou Bao arrived at the bedchamber, he found these guys. However, he took their presence for granted and a.s.sumed that they were the defense forces of the imperial palace. He believed them to be like the guards or maybe some sorts of secret power of the royal family. Thus, he didn’t pay much attention to them. Not until one of these guys attempted to oppress Yan Yunfei a moment ago did he feel that something went wrong, so he straightforwardly launched his power and forced all these guys to show themselves.
In that case, even the Three Ducal Ministers had to s.h.i.+ft their focus and stop their ongoing attack.
“Well, well, well, how great is this! So many a.s.sa.s.sins sneaked into the imperial palace… Gongye Chai! Gongye Chai! Look at what a great job you’ve done! d.a.m.n you, d.a.m.n you!”
Pei Tianming snarled, searching for a guy named Gongye Chai, but n.o.body responded. Precisely at this moment, a guard who looked like a leader came forward and said, “Grand Tutor, Your Excellency, His Excellency Gongye has just died in the line of duty!” While speaking, he also pointed a finger at the sky.
Zhou Bao instantly realized that the guy who had attacked the white light column and had been shattered to death by its recoil force was exactly Gongye Chai that the Grand Tutor was calling.
Hearing the words of the guard, Grand Tutor Pei Tianming took several deep breaths to compose himself. Then, he cast a fierce look at that guard, strode to one of the a.s.sa.s.sins and abruptly trampled on his leg.
The cracking of broken bones spread out, which made Zhou Bao frown. Nevertheless, that a.s.sa.s.sin still clenched his teeth without even letting out a single sound.
“Answer me! Who sent you here? Who is pulling the strings behind this scene? Answer now!”
No one replied.
“Your Excellency, stop wasting your time. They are all dead.”
As if he had figured something out, Zhou Bao spoke out with a gentle sigh.
“Dead? You killed all of them?” Pei Tianming flared up and said, balefully looking over at Zhou Bao.
“Nonsense! They have put poison in their mouths in the first place. Once they were exposed, they all gritted their teeth and committed suicide. This has nothing to do with me!”
Pei Tianming went forward to have a look. The a.s.sa.s.sin before him, though his face was covered with black cloth, indeed showed an expanding bloodstain on the cloth at the corner of his mouth.
“Seems like these a.s.sa.s.sins not only targeted the Emperor but also you guys. I’m afraid the purpose of these guys laying in ambush here is just to take you all down!” Zhou Bao said in a low voice.
There were only a few people still in the square before the bedchamber. More than half of those ministers who were kneeling in the rain at the beginning had run away. Those who stayed were just dozen of people led by the Three Ducal Ministers. Each of them was an important officer or a direct descendant of the Three Ducal Ministers. Although the chiefs of the most crucial department in the court all had great prestige and vast power, their strength was fairly lame. Except for the Three Ducal Ministers, the one with the highest cultivation among the ministers was merely at Level Four, while the weakest of those hidden a.s.sa.s.sins was at Level Four. Some of the a.s.sa.s.sins had even reached Level Seven. Plus, they were hiding in the dark, seeking an opportunity to murder all of the ministers of the court while the Three Ducal Ministers were concerned about the safety of the emperor and were going all out to rescue him. No one would ever notice that these a.s.sa.s.sins, with Invisible Technique, had killed some ministers. In fact, one of them had already cut a minister’s throat.
Although Zhou Bao was reluctant to say it out loud, he had to admit that the a.s.sa.s.sination plan would have already worked if he had not been here today.
The emperor was an expert at the peak of Level Nine. But facing this murder plot, he was trapped in his bedchamber and unable to resist the invasion of a strong formation. He had no chance to stop defending himself or flee. As for the Three Ducal Ministers outside the bedchamber, though they were experts at Level Eight, they had lost their composure at this shocking event, so it was unlikely for them to come up with some good solutions for the moment. When the time came, it was possible that the plotter might deploy another force to kill the Three Ducal Ministers and their direct descendants.
At present, the opponent hadn’t launched more force to deal with the Three Ducal Ministers. But that wasn’t due to a lack of forces. It was just that with Zhou Bao’s unpredictable presence, the opponent had some scruples and dared not carry out the plan for now.
The force that could nail down three experts at Level Eight was not necessarily good enough to nail down Zhou Bao. The goal of that a.s.sa.s.sin trying to approach Yan Yunfei was also pretty straightforward. They wanted to take hold of Yan Yunfei so as to coerce Zhou Bao; making it difficult for him to intervene in this matter. In such a case, it would be safe for them to implement their plan.
Their idea might be smart, but they still overestimated the ability of the Invisible Technique and underestimated Zhou Bao’s strength and spiritual mind.
They didn’t gain the edge to coerce Zhou Bao, instead, they provoked him.
Originally, Zhou Bao was still wavering between interfering in this matter and standing by. But now, he decided that he must step in. No matter what happened, he had to teach them a lesson and vent out his anger, right?