Chapter 32: The Regicide, Lu of the Taoist School
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“Surprised? Didn’t see that coming?”
Lu Ge looked at Lord Pingyuan with a mischievous grin.
Lord Pingyuan staggered backward, pulling the Imperial Guards in front of him.
“You—you didn’t die?”
“I clearly saw dozens of arrows pierce you just now.”
Lord Pingyuan simply could not comprehend what he was seeing.
Lu Ge blinked, then casually picked up an arrow from the ground and drove it into his own chest.
“You mean like this?”
The arrow sank into his chest, and Lu Ge even twisted it around twice.
Yet Lu Ge’s body seemed not to exist at all, allowing the arrow to move freely within it.
Lord Pingyuan stared in utter bewilderment, but he soon realized what was happening.
“This is… a supernatural art?”
“Impossible. Absolutely impossible.”
“How could anyone master two supernatural arts?”
This was hardly something for which Lord Pingyuan could be blamed.
In the present age, every master of the Hundred Schools devoted an entire lifetime to comprehending a single supernatural art.
That was common knowledge throughout the world.
Lu Ge casually tossed the arrow aside.
“Why is it impossible?”
“Just because you’ve never seen it, does that mean it cannot exist?”
Lu Ge could not be bothered to say more. He merely extended a finger toward the void.
It was the dead of night. Starlight gathered and descended, forming a single line between heaven and earth.
In the blink of an eye, that thread of starlit sword energy swept once around the courtyard.
The Imperial Guards became beads, and the sword energy became the string, threading them together in an instant.
Lord Pingyuan was the brightest bead of them all.
Lu Ge had always considered himself a fair man.
Whatever you did to him, he would do to you in return.
You had come to kill him. Surely it was not excessive for him to kill you as well.
Old Li had said it himself: those who kill others will in turn be killed.
“You all stay here. I’m going out for a little stroll.”
Lu Ge left those words behind, and his voice echoed in the ears of Shen Dao, Zi Chu, and the others.
Then, dragging the human necklace strung together by sword energy, he rose into the air and headed toward the Zhao royal palace.
Inside the Zhao royal palace.
Although it was already deep into the night, the palace remained brightly lit.
King Zhao sat within the great hall, his face alternating between light and shadow beneath the candlelight.
“I wonder whether Lord Pingyuan has succeeded.”
King Zhao muttered to himself.
As far as he was concerned, it did not truly matter whether Zi Chu’s family lived or died.
But Master Lu absolutely had to die.
That ability to summon wind and rain would become a catastrophe if used on the battlefield.
And now Master Lu had grown close to Qin.
If Qin and Zhao went to war again in the future, King Zhao dared not imagine what it would mean if his own army were shrouded in wind and rain during the battle.
How could they possibly fight then?
Therefore, Master Lu had to die.
Clatter, clatter, clatter…
A string of strange noises came from outside the hall.
King Zhao furrowed his brow.
“What is happening?”
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The moment he finished speaking, an attendant came rushing into the hall, his face pale with terror.
He fell three or four times over the few steps leading inside.
“M-My king, this is terrible!”
King Zhao snapped, “You’re the one who’s terrible.”
The attendant pointed frantically outside.
“Outside—outside, corpses are falling from the sky!”
“They are all bodies of the Imperial Guards!”
King Zhao’s heart lurched, and a terrible premonition rose within him.
Before he could ask anything more, another attendant came running in.
“My king…”
The attendant’s voice was thick with tears.
“Lord Pingyuan… Lord Pingyuan…”
King Zhao’s vision went black.
There was no need to ask further. He already knew.
This time, they had lost.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…
Wind swept in from every direction, making the windows rattle violently.
At the entrance to the great hall, a figure had appeared at some unknown point and was leisurely strolling inside.
The moment King Zhao saw that figure, his heart died completely.
“Master Lu…”
The two words were forced from his throat.
Lu Ge looked at King Zhao with a beaming smile.
“It has only been a year since we last met, yet you look so much older, my king.”
When Lu Ge had first met King Zhao, the man’s hair had been entirely black.
Now it was streaked with gray and white.
It seemed that the Qin army’s siege of Handan had truly caused him a great deal of worry.
“You killed Lord Pingyuan?”
King Zhao’s body went limp, and he collapsed helplessly onto the couch.
Lu Ge nodded.
“That’s right.”
“He came to kill me. Surely I was allowed to kill him in return.”
“And he wasn’t the only one.”
“After all, haven’t I come looking for you now?”
“Since he attacked me, it must have been at your command.”
King Zhao froze.
“You intend to kill me as well?”
Lu Ge looked puzzled.
“Hm?”
“Why?”
“Is that not allowed?”
King Zhao cried out in shock, “I am the King of Zhao, the ruler of an entire nation! How dare you?”
Lu Ge scratched his ear.
“So what?”
“Are you not human?”
“Do you not have one head, two arms, and two legs?”
“Why are you allowed to send people to kill me, but I am not allowed to seek revenge?”
“Friend, you’ve been king for only a few days. Don’t tell me you really think that makes you special.”
“Have you never heard the saying that when an ordinary man grows angry, blood may be spilled within five paces?”
King Zhao trembled from head to toe, terror taking root in his heart.
As Lu Ge drew closer step by step, King Zhao shook like a sieve.
“No… no…”
“Don’t kill me! Please, don’t kill me!”
“I can give you wealth and honor. I can make you one of the Three Excellencies or Nine Ministers!”
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“I can…”
Lu Ge brought his palm down upon King Zhao’s head.
“Do I need any of that?”
“If you could make me immortal, then perhaps we would have something to discuss.”
King Zhao took the full force of the slap and saw stars burst before his eyes.
“Forget it.”
“You are a king, after all.”
“I’ll show you a little respect.”
Lu Ge considered the matter for a moment.
A glimmer of hope flashed in King Zhao’s eyes.
“I’ll leave your corpse intact.”
The hope that had just risen was extinguished once more.
King Zhao still wanted to speak, but Lu Ge had already grown tired of listening.
He pointed once, his fingertip landing between King Zhao’s brows.
There was no sword energy—only the pure law of the Great Dao.
The Big Dipper’s Death Decree.
King Zhao felt his mind seize up. From that moment onward, it would never turn again.
Lu Ge examined his finger and nodded in satisfaction.
“This supreme art, the Big Dipper’s Death Decree, is finally beginning to show some promise.”
“It is a pity that it requires physical contact.”
“If I want to use it from a distance, I still need sword energy as a medium.”
King Zhao was dead.
Lu Ge turned and left, walking out through the palace gates.
The Imperial Guards of the royal palace surged forward like a tide, surrounding Lu Ge completely.
Lu Ge swept his gaze over them. As though passing through an empty land, he simply continued forward.
The ring of guards automatically retreated as Lu Ge advanced.
Within ten meters of him, not a single person dared to step forward.
There was no helping it. King Zhao had not seen what happened inside the hall, but they had witnessed everything clearly.
That Daoist patriarch had just arrived from the sky, holding a luminous cord in his hand with hundreds of corpses threaded upon it, traversing the heavens beneath the starlight.
His bearing was that of an immortal god, ethereal and towering above the nine heavens.
His aura was that of a great demon, sinister and spectral, as though he had emerged from the depths of hell.
The fact that they could still surround him at all already showed tremendous courage.
Quite a few of their comrades were hiding beneath their blankets, too terrified to show their faces.
Lu Ge continued onward until he reached the gates of the royal palace.
“Are none of you going to attack?”
“If you do not act soon, I’ll be leaving.”
Lu Ge glanced at the assembled Imperial Guards.
The guards muttered inwardly among themselves.
Go on, then.
We simply do not want to lose our jobs, so we are putting on a show.
That way, the next king will know we are not cowards.
What? Do you really expect us to attack?
How much do we earn in a month? Is it worth throwing our lives away?
We are not fools.
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