Chapter Ninety-Three: Ambushed, and Driven to Madness

Hu Mo had never imagined that anyone would dare to attack. Just as that faint warning in his heart rose, he suddenly saw several luminous arrows of different colors streaking toward Zhu Xinyue. Without a second thought, he hurled himself forward.

In the blink of an eye, Hu Mo could not block those arrows; all he could do was shove her aside. As a result, the arrows struck the common people directly. In an instant, several were killed or wounded.

Hu Mo was enraged. His soul force surged outward at once, searching for the attacker’s position. At that very moment, several powerful auras shot in from all directions.

Hu Mo let out a cold snort and swept out his hand, summoning a blazing golden fire dragon. It was the Hu family’s Fire Dragon Slash, a battle skill he had trained in only to conceal his true identity.

“Brother Hu, don’t! They were sent by my father to protect me!” Zhu Xinyue cried urgently, throwing her arms around him and stopping him from rushing out to fight to the death.

Up in the sky, the three figures that had been descending were tangled by the golden fire dragon. Hu Mo’s sudden strike had caught them off guard; only when all three attacked together did they finally shatter the dragon.

“Your Highness, are you all right?” The first to rush over was a middle-aged man in black, his expression tense. As the princess’s guard, allowing her to fall into danger was a grave dereliction of duty.

His cultivation was roughly at the fourth rank of the Battle King realm. Thick, turbulent earth power rolled through him in waves, giving him an unstable feeling. Hu Mo could not help furrowing his brow. Inwardly, he thought, Strong enough, perhaps, but far too unstable. I have no idea what that emperor was thinking.

While Hu Mo was thinking, the other two also landed from the air. Compared with the middle-aged man, they looked much younger: one man and one woman, one of gold and one of water, both at only the first rank of the Battle King realm. Their auras were even more unstable. At the same time, they glared at Hu Mo as if they wanted to tear him apart with their eyes.

“I’m fine. You don’t need to be so alarmed,” Zhu Xinyue said, trying to comfort them. Looking at the devastation around her, her mind was in chaos, but in a situation like this, she would not allow herself to panic.

“That fire dragon just now was your doing? You dared strike at us. Are you trying to die?” the first-rank Battle King male said viciously. The fire dragon had disrupted his aura and nearly driven him into demonic deviation.

That was the strange nature of Battle King power: sometimes strong, sometimes weak, sometimes steady, sometimes wild, impossible to pin down. Thus Hu Mo, with the strength of a fifth-rank Battle King, had already caused them no small amount of trouble.

Hu Mo’s face turned cold, and his aura instantly became far sharper. He had suddenly realized that Lin Nan had already chased after the attackers, and that made it hard for him to remain calm.

“Xinyue, I’m going after Lin Nan. With them protecting you, you should be fine.” Hu Mo did not even bother with the man. He turned at once to give chase.

At that moment, a razor-sharp sword light suddenly flew toward him, aiming straight for his throat. The man had suddenly exploded with fury; the violent battle energy of the Battle King realm was not so easy to control.

The middle-aged man’s expression changed drastically. The other two did not know Hu Mo, but he did. He had once served under Hu Yihu, and this Fire Dragon Slash had long been etched into his memory. The moment he saw it, he was stunned.

“Stop!” the middle-aged man bellowed, and earth-element power began to gather in front of Hu Mo. But it was far too slow to catch up with the speed of the sword light.

Zhu Xinyue’s heart turned to ice. She cried out and immediately tried to shield Hu Mo from the blow. But then a soft stream of water power suddenly wrapped around her and pulled her back.

When Zhu Xinyue turned her head, she saw that the water-element Battle King had a cold, stern face. From her expression, she seemed to be determined to see Hu Mo dead.

“You’re courting death!” Hu Mo gave a cold snort. The originally brilliant golden fire power in his body instantly turned pure black. Before the sword light even reached him, it was turned to nothing by the terrifying black flames.

Hu Mo did not stop. Treading his Wave-Riding Cloud Steps, he appeared beside the man in a single breath and clamped one hand directly around his throat.

His fury surged higher, and with it his temper became wild and violent. The moment his hand seized the man’s neck, he felt it again.

He sensed the man’s gold-element power pouring into his body at astonishing speed, then, through the transformation of the three treasures, becoming the purest water and fire power, nourishing the meridians within him. His cultivation speed surged once more. In just a few breaths, even the bottleneck at the fifth rank of Battle King began to loosen.

The man’s eyes went wide, his face contorting into something monstrous. The suffocating pressure and the rapid loss of power made his aura grow weaker and weaker. It was as though he could hear death calling to him, as though he was stepping inch by inch into the abyss.

“Stop!” The woman who had been holding Zhu Xinyue suddenly shrieked. A pale blue ribbon shot out toward Hu Mo, and the wild power of the Battle King erupted at once, dropping the air’s temperature to freezing.

Hu Mo paid it no heed. The hand wreathed in black fire grabbed directly for the ribbon. With a sharp tug, he pulled the woman over, and with no tenderness whatsoever, he seized her throat.

Just as before, the water power within her body surged madly into Hu Mo, making his expression even more frenzied.

He did not know what he was doing. He only wanted to drain the two people in his grasp dry. The inner delight that rose from the depths of his being made even his smile turn savage, as if he had fallen utterly under a dark spell.

Zhu Xinyue stood rooted to the spot. She had thought Hu Mo was in mortal danger, but the situation had suddenly reversed. Looking at the two Battle Kings being choked until their eyes rolled back, she was utterly flustered.

“Brother Hu, let go! They’re going to die!” Zhu Xinyue cried out, but Hu Mo remained unmoved, still madly devouring the strength of both of them.

“What is that black flame? Could it be...” The middle-aged man was still dazed. He could clearly feel that the black flames gave him an intense sense of threat, as though they could consume all his power. More frightening still was the terrifying suction radiating from Hu Mo; even at a distance of over three meters, he could feel his own battle power leaking out.

“Brother Hu, Sister Lin is in grave danger right now. You can’t do this. You still have to go save her!” Zhu Xinyue shouted. She wanted to rush to Hu Mo’s side, but found that a great deal of her battle power had leaked away, making even running difficult.

Hu Mo’s smile stiffened, and the wild suction abruptly ceased.

“What am I doing? What just happened?” Hu Mo muttered to himself. Only then did he realize that he was gripping a neck with each hand, and he was so startled that he instantly flung both men away.

This time he truly was stunned. To his horror, he discovered that his memory of the past few minutes was a blank.

Fear seized him. That kind of uncontrollable terror left cold sweat soaking through his clothes. To his amazement, his battle power had risen to the sixth rank of Battle King, and this increase had taken less than two minutes.

“Brother Hu, how are you feeling?” Zhu Xinyue walked toward him unsteadily. The massive loss of battle power had left her extremely weak.

Hu Mo caught her in his arms. Feeling how frail she had become, he hurriedly transferred his own battle power into her body. Slowly, Zhu Xinyue’s breathing steadied and her aura recovered.

“Brother Hu, you were so frightening just now. You nearly killed someone,” Zhu Xinyue said softly. A trace of fear appeared on her face as well, frightened and worried all at once.

“I don’t know what happened either... No, Lin Nan is in danger!” Hu Mo’s expression changed drastically. He immediately let go of Zhu Xinyue and shot into the air.

Wolffire came stumbling back as well. When he saw the scene before him, he nearly turned to stone on the spot. This time he was truly finished. The princess and the marshal’s grandson had repeatedly come to harm in the area under his charge, and now so many people had died as well. He suddenly felt a chill at his neck, as though a blade were already pressed there.

“What are you standing there for? Hurry up and bring them here to save the injured!” Zhu Xinyue shouted. Her heart was in turmoil, but as a princess of the royal house, she could not allow herself to be weak.

Seeing Wolffire’s stumbling state, she no longer had the heart to be angry. She was only worried about Hu Mo’s safety. If that earlier situation happened again, how could he cope?

But what could she do? Her own guards had been beaten into this state. Even if she went over, it would not help at all.

She was already upset and frantic, yet she still had to force herself to remain calm. The feeling was truly unbearable.

“That’s right, Sister Cangling must have a way. I’ll go find her!” Zhu Xinyue muttered to herself, then suddenly ran toward the Hu residence. The middle-aged man’s expression changed, and he wanted to chase after her, but then he worried about the two people lying on the ground. In the brief instant he hesitated, Zhu Xinyue had already vanished from sight.

“It looks like this one is really going to be hard to explain. I can only send word back first,” the middle-aged man said with a bitter smile. Releasing a cyan insect, he began treating the two unlucky fellows’ injuries.

Hu Mo flew at full speed the entire way, pushing the power of the three treasures to its limit. This allowed his spiritual force to spread broadly, continually tracking a faint trace of Lin Nan’s aura.

His mind was nearly stuffed full of confusion, but he had to force himself calm. Otherwise, he truly feared he might suddenly fall into deviation as he had just now.

As he accelerated again and again, Lin Nan’s aura became clearer and clearer, drawing nearer and nearer.

When he was less than half a mile from that aura, a thunderous boom suddenly rang out. Immediately after, a familiar figure was blasted backward through the air and crashed directly into Hu Mo’s arms.

Hu Mo’s body was knocked flying by the force of the impact. He glanced at the person in his arms, and his anger surged once more.