Chapter 911 His Brutal Majesty
It did not take long for pedestrians to take notice of a deep gaping hole right in the middle of the road with a foul acrid odor wafting out from its depths. Warily, everyone kept a safe distance. The hole and the strange, mysterious fog that had kept everyone trapped inside had unsettled everyone enough to huddle around together to talk and gossip about what happened.
But no one saw Li Mu at all.
Despite standing in the middle of the street, people thronged by him, missing him completely.
“The Apparition’s Flight eh? Impressive technique. So as long as I’m not attacking, I’ll be invisible. So that fool just now was still Cla.s.s IX. That could be why he still needed that gimp-suit-like scale armor to keep himself invisible. Well, fortunately for me, I don’t have to wear that thing. I’d look like a pervert in it.”
Li Mu was quite satisfied with the technique.
In the end, he filled up the big gaping hole with soil and sand without anyone knowing to prevent others from falling inside before he left the place.
“At least I’m certain that this is Arcusstone… That a.s.sa.s.sin carries items that came from them. So much for being the greatest religious and militant sect of the Northern Steppes.”
Li Mu was talking to himself while he scratched the back of his head as he walked.
“By the way, I’ve yet to find out what magic was that—the whole street being made empty all of a sudden and I’m trapped inside a world surrounded by endless horizons on all sides… Could people here know how to employ enchantments too? But I felt nothing at all just now… Not even the slightest presence of any enchantment magic… Perhaps there is more than meets the eye with Arcusstone after all…”
Li Mu was pondering to himself when he realizes that he was already back at Cloud Nine Lodge.
He stepped through the doors just in time to see Mr. Wei leading a few of the Lodge’s other patrons down the stairs. For one fleeting moment, Mr. Wei’s face turned to the color of ash the moment he saw Li Mu.
“M-Mr. Li… Y-You’re back!” Mr. Wei hastily greeted, bowing and sc.r.a.ping before he quickly slipped away.
Puzzled, Li Mu merely nodded without a word. Still occupied by his thoughts, he made nothing of Mr. Wei’s strange behavior and continued in the direction of his suite.
He pushed through the doors and immediately noticed that something was wrong.
“Who the h.e.l.l are you?! Why are you here in my room!? Get out!” A man who appeared to be a merchant in his middle age looked absolutely livid and indignant to see him, yelling at the top of his voice from behind his bushy mustache.
Li Mu could have sworn that he heard what must be a woman who was frantically trying to put on some clothes somewhere deeper inside the suite.
“Your room?”
Li Mu frowned and stepped rearward out of the door and peered at the sign outside.
“Premium Suite One. That’s correct! This is the suite that I paid for!
“But since when and why did it change into someone else’s suite?”
“MEN! MEN! Seize this intruder! I want his eyeb.a.l.l.s on a silver platter!” Roared the middle-aged merchant.
Consisting fully of champions as well, the merchant’s security detail immediately rushed to the suite in flashy whooshes and swishes, but it was too late. Li Mu was gone.
Li Mu went back to the foyer of the Lodge.
He asked the receptionist for Mr. Wei only to realize that he was missing. That plus Mr. Wei’s earlier reactions was enough for Li Mu to put two and two together.
Li Mu looked for the overseer on duty who could barely maintain a lie straight into Li Mu’s face. He admitted everything beginning with Mr. Wei’s eviction of the Shen siblings before the walloping he and his men gave Shen Jia and up until now.
“So it was the owner of the Lodge who insisted to evict the Shen siblings?” A hunch told Li Mu that this whole debacle could be as simple as that. He tapped the wooden surface of the counter as he thought about what to do. Then he said, “Tell him that I’ll be expecting an explanation.”
That was enough to make the overseer’s legs go slack that he nearly collapsed.
Li Mu was nowhere near interested to vent his displeasure on a lowly figure. What mattered now was looking for Shen Jia.
Half an hour later, Li Mu managed to track down a heavily bruised but not quite wounded Shen Jia inside an alley not far away from Cloud Nine Lodge.
“Teacher, you’re back…”
Shen Jia was elated but at the same time guilty to see Li Mu. He immediately recounted what happened without leaving out any details.
“But I don’t know where have they taken Sister… Mr. Wei had turned his back on us and refused us entry into the Lodge and I could not go anywhere near it, so I tried to stay as close as possible so that you might not lose me,” he muttered, hanging his head over his shoulders to avoid Li Mu’s gaze.
“You’ve done well,” Li Mu allowed.
Li Mu meant it. For a boy who has had his sister taken right before his very eyes and himself kicked out into the streets all of a sudden, Shen Jia had managed to remain calm despite the anxiety for his sister’s safety. Waiting as close as he could to the Lodge so that Li Mu did not have to look through nook and cranny for him was as best as could be expected from a boy his age.
“What should we do now, Teacher?” Shen Jia lifted his head at last, his eyes filled with renewed admiration and hope.
“To Rose’s Allure,” said Li Mu after pausing a beat to think.
Rose’s Allure and its parent the Convent of the Pious Rose had been doing all they could to prevent Shen Xiaoyue from leaving their clutches. For what reason, Li Mu did not yet know. But that did not absolve them of the suspicion of being the ones who had taken her.
Mr. Wei must know something. Li Mu at least was sure of that. But the sly fellow had slipped away before Li Mu knew what happened and without being able to use Taoist magic here in this world, he could not locate individuals as easily as he did last time when he could track down anyone with just his Divine Consciousness technique. To save time, his first visit should be to Rose’s Allure.
…
At Rose’s Allure in Pink Alley.”
“What?! Moonbliss’s missing?!” Madam Gao caterwauled the moment she heard about Shen Xiaoyue’s disappearance from Li Mu and Shen Jia with pure astonishment, “How is that even possible?! She’s been with you all the time, Mr. Li! Who could have done something like that?!”
Li Mu could barely detect the hint of any deceit or disguise from her expression of shock.
But he was not in the mood to guess. He did not want to waste time discerning if Madam Gao was telling the truth.
Time was of the essence — and it was ticking down fast for Shen Xiaoyue. Whatever devilry was brewing that needed to involve her, Li Mu could only rely on crude and brutish ways if he wanted to save her in time.
Whether if Rose’s Allure was involved in this plot or not, Li Mu was at least sure that the pleasure house and its parent the Convent has an intelligence network that could gather and provide more information than he could possibly glean alone.
In an imperious and overbearing tone, Li Mu said this, “You have one chance. Hand over Shen Xiaoyue in two hours, or the Convent will exist no more.”
“B-But… But we have nothing to do with this! We don’t even know where is she at the moment, Mr. Li! H-How could you!” Madam Gao exclaimed, her face fraught with shock and frustration.
“Or maybe you can let that Canoness Superior of yours speak to me personally.”
“T-That’s…” Madam Gao could see that Li Mu was not going to take “no” for an answer, which got stuck halfway up her throat.
Li Mu’s singlehanded destruction of the Priory of the Four Seas and the slaughter of its allies and even that mysterious swordsman whom his son had sent, plus his execution of the Lion, Xiao Zhan, had made him the most feared person in Rydorburg. There was no way that Rose’s Allure, one of the city’s prime focal points of intelligence and the Convent’s information a.s.set in the city, wouldn’t know about that.
The Li Zhiyuan today has not only become the deadliest man in Rydorburg. He has become the most dangerous person in the Northern Steppes. In fact, even all of Molderad speak of his name with awe and respect. At the same time, the Convent of the Pious Rose could hardly boast the same power and authority that the Priory once held before its destruction. No matter how reluctant they might be, they did not want to make the same mistake the Priory committed and walk down the same path of doom.
Madam Gao s.h.i.+veringly retreated to relay Li Mu’s demands.
Inside the deepest chambers of the Convent.
The Canoness Superior, whose beauty was yet still unrivaled and unmatched, wore a look of bewilderment and disbelief when news of Li Mu’s demands arrived. It took her several seconds before she finally erupted into a rage that saw a few of her most prized trinkets smashed to the ground during her fit.
That was the first time in all her life that the influence that she had painstakingly ama.s.sed in all the years of her work, the beauty that she had tirelessly tried to maintain, and Cla.s.s-IX strength that she had always been so proud of, were nothing in the eyes of absolute strength such as Li Mu’s.
“How dare you, Li Zhiyuan… I’ll remember this slight… There will come this day where you will kneel at the hems of my dress and beg for my forgiveness like the rest of what your kind is — a pack of groveling mongrel dogs.”
Never had the Canoness Superior felt so helpless and lost before that her very self trembled at the anger and indignation. But she nevertheless listened to her confidant and aide, Wei Youya, and did not allow her temper to get the better of her. She sat there quietly and contemplated a reply before she sent word back to Rose’s Allure.
Madam Gao fearfully crept back to Li Mu and relayed the message after discovering its contents.
“Arcusstone? Are you sure of that? Arcusstone took Shen Xiaoyue?” Li Mu peered at Madam Gao, the frown on his face fully ill.u.s.trating his skepticism. “You know the price if I discover that you’re trying to send me on a wild goose hunt. You know full well, I a.s.sume.”
“This is information that came straight from the Canoness Superior’s own lips, Mr. Li. I’m sure that the Convent is willing to vouch for its veracity. We will never want to lie to you, sir. We would never dare to try anything like that to your brutal majesty.”
Li Mu nodded in a.s.sent. “Very well. I was thinking of going to pay Arcusstone a visit after all. Might as well. Let’s go, Shen Jia.”
Madam Gao watched them out the door and made sure that they were gone before she could finally breathe easily.
Twice she had seen Li Zhiyuan.
Both encounters had been vastly different.
The first time, Li Zhiyuan displayed his superior powers to not only take Shen Xiaoyue away, he even caused great damage to Rose’s Allure as well as intimidating the Canoness Superior herself enough that the latter had to let him go. He was strong, powerful, and unstoppable, but Madam Gao did not take him as a dangerous person. Yet right now, in the wake of his single-handed annihilation of the Priory of the Four Seas, Li Zhiyuan darkened the doors of Rose’s Allure once more. This time, he arrived with the daunting presence and majesty like a G.o.d that no mortals could dare defy.
Such was his majesty now.
Li Zhiyuan and his brutal majesty.
…
Shen Jia was not feeling well.
Standing in front of the gates of Arcusstone with Li Mu wasn’t doing his jitters any good.
Warriors of the Northern Steppes could confess to not knowing the names of the Convent, the Priory, or even the sun and moon hanging up in the skies. But no one would dare to admit that they did not know Arcusstone.
For Arcusstone’s name symbolizes the ultimate zenith of absolute power and rule in the world of warriors in Molderald. A name and authority that suffered no defiance.
Shen Jia had nothing but complete faith in Li Mu.
But standing before the lofty gates so tall that they looked like they were reaching for the clouds, even Shen Jia was beginning to feel his faith wavering.
“This is Arcusstone,” he mused pensively to himself.
For countless millennia, Arcusstone ruled the Northern Steppes with an iron fist. Not one else could dare to object or spurn its authority. Whatever intrigues and strife had ravaged the lands, no one would dare to reject that Arcusstone was the ultimate force of dominance in the Northern Steppes of Molderad.
The name “Arcusstone” was synonymous with “authority”, “invincibility”, “power” as well as all other descriptions.
“Would that mean that we’ll have to give up if it really is Arcusstone who had taken Sister?” For one since knowing Li Mu, Shen Jia felt the sting of despair.
The boy missed his sister so greatly and dearly that he was willing to do whatever it took to save her. But at the same time, he did not want to put his mentor’s life in jeopardy for their sake. Having bad blood with Arcusstone hardly boded well for anyone.
But just when Shen Jia was going to say something, Li Mu strode up to the gates. He lifted a foot and gave the iron-wrought gates a kick so forceful that it opened as if a battering ram had just smashed through it.
“Li Zhiyuan of the Creed of Divinity, here for a visit!”
Li Mu’s voice rumbled like a thunderclap, sweeping the whole mountainous area including Rydorburg itself.
There was not an ounce of respect nor was there any friendliness in his tone.
After all, it was Arcusstone who started it first.