Chapter 970 Green Ox

“Looks like a nice place for a little rest and recreation, I see. That Schwarzdachen Beast King brought you here didn’t he? That would explain why our meticulous search had failed to yield any results. After having so many people and after so much trouble, who would have thought that you’ll be here, hiding like some mice.”

The old man muttered as he admired the breathtaking beauty of the hidden oasis.

“Another acolyte of the Sons of Lightning?” Li Mu wondered.

He rubbed his forehead.

His Third Eye activated surreptitiously.

He needed to read the old stranger’s strength and power, but to his surprise, he could only read just parts of the full picture. That would place this stranger somewhere at least in the Great Way Realm.

“Truth be told, you’re a natural talent and I have not seen anyone like you for so many years. No wonder you are chosen to wield Godbreaker. You are the sort of talent humankind needs. I would have not wanted to lay a hand on you otherwise. But the master has spoken and he needs you dead,” lamented the elderly stranger. There was not an ounce of rancor or malice in his eyes, but Li Mu detected wisdom. Wisdom gleaned from years of perceiving the world and unraveling its secrets. Wisdom that only one who has seen it all and endured it all would embody. Wisdom that could almost see through Li Mu.

Whoever he was, this stranger was the most powerful person Li Mu’s has encountered since coming here.

“Are you an acolyte of the Sons of Lightning too, old man?”

Li Mu asked.

“I am but merely a caretaker of the Hall of Valor of Mount Thundercrest, young one,” the elderly stranger answered as he eased his mount to a stop more than fifty meters away. “Any last words, Li Mu, before I send you on your way. Say it and I shall see to it that your wish is fulfilled.”

“I guess that your way of saying it is a ‘yes’,” remarked Li Mu, grinning. “And here was l, thinking that you’re just an ordinary senior here to water his goat. You’re here for me too, eh? Too bad. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What for?” the wizened stranger responded with mild incredulity.

“Sorry that I’ll have to kill you too, senior.”

The old man stared at Li Mu, perplexed before he broke into a chuckle.

“Interesting. I’ve lost track of when was the last time I met anyone as young and remarkable as you are. What was the name of that lad who also spoke like this to me, I wonder? Ah, yes. Yue Wushuang, a young prodigy of the Mutant race. He was so full of ambition and confidence, not to mention, haughtiness. So I had to reduce him back to his original form. I tore him to pieces and had his hide made into a pair of foot wraps to keep out the cold. It has helped me through many inclement winters.”

Xiao Jianfei heard that and his visage contorted with horror. “You’re who they call the Judgment! You’re Zhou Wen, the Judgment of Thundercrest!”

“You recognize me, soldier?” Zhou Wen tacitly acknowledged his true identity.

Xiao Jianfei urgently approached Li Mu and whispered grimly to Li Mu, “Beware, Li Mu. He is not the average, garden-variety acolyte whom you’ve encountered before. He singlehandedly defeated Yue Wushuang of Mount Xuankong—the best prodigy the Mutant race has ever seen in centuries—three hundred years ago. It was said that Yue Wushuang had never been defeated by anyone in the Deity Realm before. Yet all Zhou Wen did was fire one lightning blast at him and he was reduced back to his true form. Before Yue Wushuang could even escape, Zhou Wen ripped him to shreds art with his bare hands and skinned him. That sparked a war between Mount Xuankong and Thundercrest and Argus’s Ridge was utterly laid waste. In the end, it was said that the Sons of Lightning conducted an internal tribunal that saw him sentenced to an ostensibly terrible penance, but obviously, he was given leniency back then. If he has survived this long, then he must be incredibly powerful.”

But Li Mu wasn’t daunted or frightened at all to hear about Zhou Wen’s tale. He cracked into a burst of boisterous laughter, “Nice! Exciting story! At long last! Someone from Thundercrest who is worth dealing with! The timing is just right! I was just getting bored when you showed up.”

“Heh, that a young lad like you to have such malice, looks like I really need to put you down here and now,” said Zhou Wen, shaking his head.

“Hmph, sanctimonious old bat. That’s what the lot of you Sons of Lightning goons are; you people demand the monopoly of killing like it’s your right. You could have left my friends and family alone and I might have just let things slide. But no. You’ve killed them all, along with those Trailblazers whose only sin was faithfulness,” hissed Li Mu with unmasked contempt. “If you call yourself my senior, then where’s your decency? Or are you as incapable of basic human decency as a rabid dog?”

“Everything the Sons of Lightning did was for the good of all humankind!” Zhou Wen retorted, “Your very existence brings chaos. That is why everything and everyone tainted by you needs to be eliminated. if you have any love or concern for the future of Man on the Battlefield, then do the honorable thing and kill yourself! Save me and everyone more trouble!”

“Kill myself?” Li Mu uttered before bursting into a sonorous peal of laughter for one second before he glowered, “Kill myself?! I should kill you first!”

The magical eye on his forehead was fully opened by now. An Amaranthine Deathbolt blast shot out of the eye, a beam of destruction and wrath racing straight at the elderly Zhou Wen like a spear.

“Lightning element? Do you not realize that it’s my kind of game, not yours?”

The Judgment of Thundercrest smirked before he lifted a hand and fired a blast of his own—another bolt of lightning.

Not for no reason, since all lightning elemental techniques have roots in Thundercrest.

Lightning element-based might not be the most potent and most powerful of all elements, but Thundercrest did indeed guard the secrets to all lightning elemental techniques, including the most dangerous ones. Therefore, to use lightning elemental attacks on an acolyte of the Sons of Lightning is tantamount to flaunting one’s wealth before a king.

But Zhon Wen’s smirk quickly evaporated.

The blast he fired vanished into nothing at first contact with Li Mu’s attack. It did not even manage to last long enough to hold up any form of resistance. Meanwhile, Li Mu’s Deathbolt blew straight through, maintaining its pace and intensity. By the time Zhou Wen realized his error, it was too late. There was no ducking anymore; he would need to take the blow and hope that he would pull through.

“Baa…”

The goat Zhou Wen was riding on gave off a braying groan of pain.

Li Mu’s magical eye, as if emboldened by the first success, went into a frenzy. Shot after shot of Amaranthine Deathbolts Li Mu rained down at Zhou Wen with extreme prejudice, engulfing Zhou Wen in a tumultuous, deadly, yet dazzling spectacle of lights display.

Rumble!

A sudden wave of energy dispelled everything in just one instant.

“Insolent mongrel pup!”

Zhou Wen’s enraged roar slashed through the din and the chaos.

The frame of the Judgment of Thundercrest stalked out of the swirling smog, his hair and beard singed and disheveled like a sea urchin while his nose and mouth flared with residual electricity. A luminary in the crafts of lightning elemental magic, being reduced to such an ignoble state by the lightning elemental attack was an utter humiliation. He would be the laughingstock of Thundercrest if Li Mu were to walk free from this.

“I am going to flay you myself, you impudent half-breed. Your skin will furnish my drum just nicely…”

Fuming with indescribable wrath, Zhou Wen drew the patterns of a glyph in the air. Vast power in the form of electricity crackled furiously around the hovering glyph pattern like a leaking hatch. From it, Zhou Wen drew out more power, condensing all that he gathered into a ball of lightning right in front of his chest. Beyond any doubt, this must be a very destructive technique that needed preparation. Ever before it was ready, Li Mu could feel the radiation of its pulsing deadliness. A force that could deal out both death and destruction with tremendous alacrity.

Li Mu quietly channeled his power and injected it into the Heaven and Earth Rings.

The Emperor-class weapons were the only pair of aces he could rely on at the moment.

He could not allow the Moon Manach and his Moon Sentinels out—not in this bright and broad daylight.

But just before Zhou Wen finished channeling his technique, and just before Li Mu flung out his Heaven and Earth Rings in retaliation, a voice—one of power and mystery—bounced off the ring of cliffs hanging around them without warning. Zhou Wen’s magic dissolved into thin air before he ever knew what was going on.

“What is this? An old goat several centuries old bullying a young brat?”

The voice descended from overhead them this time.

Shocked, Zhou Wen tore his gaze upwards.

Standing at the edge of a precipice that was overlooking the glen was this rangy man clad in green. His thick brows and wide face screamed nothing about strength and power. If Li Mu did not know better, he would have mistaken him as just an ordinary peasant.

“You! Why?! Why on earth are you here?!” shrieked Zhou Wen. In his disbelief, he had retreated almost a hundred meters away.

Whoever this stranger must be, Zhou Wen appeared to be absolutely terrified to see him.

“Heaven forfend that you’ll have your way with my young friend to your heart’s content if I had not come,” the stranger snorted with undisguised disgust. He panned his gaze to Li Mu and beamed at the latter, saying, “Do you still remember me, my friend?”

Li Mu was still very much in a state of surprise.

Something about this green-clad stranger reminded him of a friendliness and warmth that he once knew. Ever his voice Li Mu could have sworn that he heard it before, although he could not yet recall where.

“Hahaha, do you not remember? At the Five-finger Mountain inside the Tomb of the God of Sin where you and I met. It was a sliver of my consciousness that used your body and we managed to defeat the Fairy Emperor of Light together. I told you that time that I would thank and reward you if and when we meet. What a joy it is that finally, we’re able to meet in person.”

The stranger in green grinned at him broadly.

“Y-You’re Green Ox?!”

Li Mu articulated his answer with great bewilderment.

He never felt so glad before.

“Of all people!”

Li Mu and his companions were faced with one of the greatest perils in their life when they unwittingly freed the ent Fairy Emperor of Light from his incarceration. That was when they stumbled upon a sliver of Green Ox’s consciousness who possessed Li Mu and help him to overturn the odds. Li Mu did not expect to see him again here and meet Green Ox up close and in the flesh.

“It seems that Fate has decided to let our paths cross once again,” Green Ox beamed with kindness and joy. “But to my surprise, you’ve become the wielder of Godbreaker. That is so good!”

“It fills me with glad to meet you here, sir.”

“Guess that means I’m at least safe for now.”

For what it’s worth, Zhou Wen appeared to be genuinely wary and apprehensive of Green Ox. What power and strength the latter—or the ones he served—wield, they must be great enough that even the Sons of Lightning would not take lightly.

“Rest easy, you’re safe now,” said Green Ox.

“The Grand Master shall have a word with the Master of Lightning about this,” Green Ox said to Zhou Wen. “As for you, leave the goat and go… Consider this a courtesy out of respect for your master the Thunder Sage…”

“But this goat is a Sacred Beast of my master’s…”

Green Ox’s honest and gentle demeanor vanished instantly, giving way to such rage that swept forth with the overwhelming tide of a breaking dam. “If you value the goat more than your own life, you’re welcome to leave your life here,” hissed Green Ox with frost.

Sweat drenched Zhou Wen’s back as if he had just walked out of a rainstorm. He must have sampled Green Ox’s wrath at some point in the past, for he immediately wheeled around and left without looking back.

The one-horned goat—a Sacred Beast that has gained sentience and awareness—was rooted to where it was standing by fear. Like a deflated balloon, it did not ever dare to emit a bleat, the shivering animal casting pitiful glances at Li Mu and Green Ox, imploring for mercy…