Returning from the Immortal World

Tang Ahlang got up with glistening eyes. He looked at Tang Xiu’s indifferent expression and then respectfully said, “Master, I’d like to have another chance to fight.”

“How many methods have you come up with from the last fight?” Tang Xiu asked.

“11!” Tang Ahlang replied respectfully.

Tang Xiu’s brows raised and he nodded with satisfaction. “You finally didn’t disappoint me. You want another chance, so I’m going to give it to you. Let’s go!”

“Where to?” Tang Ahlang asked.

“To the place I’m going to give you this chance.” Tang Xiu smiled.

2 days later.

Tang Xiu took Tang Ahlang to South Korea, the pair of master and disciple rushing towards their destination as two cars sped up to the airport.

“Has the investigation been carried out?” Sitting in the car, Tang Xiu asked while gazing at the scenery passing by.

The Great Tang Empire’s intel operatives gave a few documents to Tang Xiu and replied with a respectful expression, “Your Majesty, Ximen Wandai Clan has built a secret base in the Southern part of South Korea, where he has been training assassins since. Each of these assassins is an elite among elites, and there’s a total of 23 instructors as well as supervisors in charge of training them, all of whom are practitioners. Five of them are comparable to a Golden Core Stage expert. Aside from the two experts of this clan who drift from place to place often, they can be regarded as the top experts in the country.”

“This Ximen Wandai name doesn’t seem to originate from South Korea, no?” Tang Xiu said.

The intel operative shook his head and said, “This clan is indeed not a native of South Korea. Their origins are Chinese. Like the Joyous Palace in Japan, they were unable to stay in China in the past and then migrated here. The centuries of development led to the separation of nationality from their origins and eventually made them form an independent force that can sway this country. It can be said that the Ximen Wandai Clan is the one that holds the true power in South Korea. Further, we found from our investigation that the ancestors of the Ximen Wandai Clan should be from China’s Sichuan Province in the past. Also, their most known expertise is… face-shifting.”

Face-shifting?

Tang Xiu recalled a particular art spread out among the folks in China’s Sichuan Province, then another thought flashed in his mind as he smilingly said, “Ah, it seems that the plastic surgery service in South Korea didn’t come out of nowhere. Face-shifting, huh? That sounds interesting!”

The intel operative couldn’t help but chuckle at his comment and immediately said with a smile, “What you said does make sense, Your Majesty. This subordinate is really dull and was unable to make such a conjecture previously.”

****

The Southern region.

The secret assassin base of the Ximen Wandai clan was located in a forested hill along the coast. The hilly area itself was not high, but the forest here was dense and covered a large area.

When the car stopped at a fork in the road at the foot of a mountain, the agent got out of the car and opened the rear door for Tang Xiu. Then, he said respectfully, “Your Majesty, given our investigations, this is the most suitable entry point to successfully enter the area, though we’d need to cross six lines of defense to get there. Would you like this subordinate to lead a team and clear all the enemies at those lines of defense?”

“No need.” Tang Xiu shook his hand and said, “You’re to wait for us here.”

Having said that, he grabbed Tang Ahlang and quickly disappeared into the woods.

The winding river had a clear and transparent freshwater, and a few colorful fishes swam freely in the creek water. Several snow-white hares could be seen running on the river bank scaring several birds away.

Tang Ahlang halted his pace when he spotted two military tents across the river and several big men in black uniforms around them.

“I won’t move, everyone there will be your enemy.” Tang Xiu said, “Go! I want you to hone yourself in the fight and become stronger.”

“Understood!”

Tang Ahlang nodded in response and his eyes flickered. His figure turning into a flying arrow, he suddenly appeared outside the tent on the opposite side of the river with a sharp dagger in his hand. As a flickering blade light flashed, the throats of two big men in black uniforms were easily ripped open.

“Who are you?!”

An angry roar came from the surroundings, shouting in Korean, which neither Tang Xiu nor Tang Ahlang understood.

Tang Ahlang didn’t even bother to pay attention to the other party’s shouts. His figure flickered once again and another black-uniformed man fell to the ground. When several big men were killed, Tang Xiu appeared in front of Tang Ahlang and faintly said, “You’re a cultivator, not some assassin.”

Tang Ahlang stared blankly for a moment. He immediately understood Tang Xiu’s meaning and nodded. “I understand what you mean, Master. I’ll use cultivators’ custom to kill the enemies, then.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Tang Xiu shook his head and said, “You have to use anything you’re good at to kill your enemies, and you must keep your vigilance and stay on guard all the time. If the other party hides their strength and you only resort to using such sneak attacks with a dagger, you are be bound to suffer a great deal later.”

Tang Ahlang thought for a moment and felt that Tang Xiu’s was right. He immediately unleashed his immortal sword and controlled it to hover around him before traversing deeper.

At the second line of defense.

Tang Ahlang directly manipulated his immortal sword to kill several big men in black uniforms in a flash.

At the third line of defense.

…

At the sixth line of defense.

After Tang Ahlang shook the blood off the immortal sword and stored it in his body. Tang Xiu, who followed him, looked at the bodies on the ground and shook his head. “They’re all just some ants. They only practiced some kind of Qigong art and are at most at the level of a martial arts grandmaster. However, they have a thick murderous aura. They’ve obviously killed many people.”

Tang Ahlang took out the map given by the intel agent previously, carefully observed it for a while, then found the location of the secret base. He didn’t talk much and flew directly there.

Two minutes later, he appeared midair above the base. Tens of figures scrambled out lightning-fast and a group of people surrounded him in a flash. At the same time, hundreds of assassins under training shouted and came one after another. They quickly joined them and created three layers of encirclement inside and outside the area.

“Who are you daring to break into my training base?”

An overwhelmingly loud voice came from the deepest part of the base. Immediately after, three figures flickered in a flash and instantly appeared in mid-air above Tang Ahlang. They looked down at Tang Ahlang with a threatening stance and boiling killing intent, though they didn’t attack him immediately.

Tang Ahlang frowned. Although he had already been briefed on the road to this base, he didn’t expect to see so many people here. To his surprise, many of them were cultivators, and some of the assassins under training even emitted True Qi fluctuations, obviously indicating their recognizable strength even though they were only martial artists.

Still, there should still be two powerful experts in this place according to the intel.

Tang Ahlang took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, “Exterminating demons is a must to defend traditional values and to rectify and help justice to prevail. This one came here to challenge you. Which one of you dares to come up and fight with me?”

“What?”

Everyone in the training camp wore bizarre expressions. They never thought that such a dumb kid would trespass the base and state something stupid like “exterminating evils and defending justice”.

He… he speaks Chinese, doesn’t he?

Suddenly, some sharp-minded people immediately caught the gist of the situation.

Of the three men standing high in the air glaring fiercely, the curly-haired burly man in a black robe wore a contemptuous look and observed Tang Ahlang from head to toe. He couldn’t sense any force fluctuation from the kid at all, making him wonder and become suspicious. How can this kid come to this guarded area? How did he get through? Is he a blind cat that went through some dead rats to get here?

“Are you a Chinese, Brat?!” The burly man squinted and asked in Mandarin with a grim face.

“I’m from China, indeed.” Tang Ahlang nodded.

“Did you get here by chance, or do you have some other purpose?” the burly man asked again. “Or, did you come here before and now want to make trouble?”

“My Master shut me out for having no actual combat experience, so he sent me here to challenge some halls. Your place is a training camp for assassins, so none of you are good people. I already stated previously that I’m going to exterminate evils and defend justice. I’ll kill you all so you can be a good person in your next life.”

“BWAHAHA…”

The instructors and hitmen who understood Mandarin all laughed and looked at Tang Ahlang as though he was an idiot.

The burly man standing in the air shook his head with a wry smile. Then, he waved his hand and shouted, “Which one of you who wants to send him to Western Paradise?”

“Let me do it!”

A man with a naked upper body wickedly grinned and instantly dashed towards Tang Ahlang, slashing at Tang Ahlang’s neck with the dagger in his hand without pausing.

Stab…

A faint sound was heard. But it wasn’t Tang Ahlang’s neck that was torn by the man. It was the sound of the immortal sword he unleashed directly impaling the man’s body, crushing his heart and killing him in a single strike.

The sudden change caused the smiles on everyone’s faces to freeze and their eyes to bulge out as if they couldn’t believe what they just witnessed.

He died… just like that? A famous trainee was so easily killed by this kid? What the hell was that damn sword and how could it fly in the air?

In mid-air, the three burly men exchanged dismayed glances, but their faces now looked solemn. The one in the middle shouted fiercely, “Your sword is a magical weapon, isn’t it, Brat? I can sense a powerful aura coming from you. Are you a cultivator from China?”

“That’s right,” said Tang Ahlang calmly.

The burly men said in a deep voice, “We have neither feud nor grudge with any Chinese cultivators. Why did you break into our site and kill our people? Are you not afraid to cause a war between the two countries?”