10: Chapter 10 One Finger Repels the Enemy, the Phantom of the Human Emperor

"I—will—lead—the—expedition—personally!"

The last four words were roared from Li Zhan's mouth.

The entire Golden Throne Hall fell silent in an instant.

Everyone was frozen in place.

The crowd's expressions stiffened, and they looked at the young Son of Heaven on the Dragon Throne in disbelief.

He was breathing heavily.

"Leading the expedition personally?"

"Did we hear that right?"

"Is this little Emperor so high on killing from yesterday that he's gone mad today?"

After a moment of silence, the court erupted.

"He's mad! He's mad! Your Majesty is mad!"

"Absurd! Simply absurd! The great affairs of the nation are not child's play!"

General Zhang and other pro-war generals looked at each other.

They wanted to fight.

But they certainly didn't want an inexperienced Emperor to run off to a battlefield where blades have no eyes, only to throw his life away.

The reaction of Wei Yong and his faction was completely different.

After the shock came uncontrollable ecstasy.

"Pfft."

Behind Wei Yong, an official who was usually sharp-tongued couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Realizing his lapse in decorum, he quickly covered his mouth with his sleeve.

But his heaving shoulders and eyes narrowed into slits were full of mirth.

This laugh was a signal.

The entire Wei faction could no longer hold it together.

They dared not laugh out loud, but their flushed faces betrayed their thoughts.

"Leading the expedition personally? Hahahaha, this must be the funniest joke of the year."

"A little Emperor who can't even sit steadily through the morning court wants to imitate the Great Ancestor and lead an expedition? Does he think war is child's play?"

"Go, let him go! It's perfect. Let the iron cavalry of the Black Wolf Dynasty teach him what it means to be humbled. Perhaps we won't even need to send a letter of surrender; Your Majesty will just become a prisoner himself, killing two birds with one stone!"

Acrimonious whispers spread among the courtiers.

The voices were not loud, but they were all poisoned thorns, piercing Li Zhan, who had just mustered his courage on the Dragon Throne.

Wei Yong cleared his throat and stepped out amidst the clamor.

This time, the look of heartbreak was gone from his face.

Replaced by a look of pity and contempt, as if looking at a fool.

"Your Majesty, are you certain you want to lead the expedition personally?"

He deliberately drew out his tone, as if confirming whether a three-year-old child was about to touch a red-hot branding iron.

"Indeed!"

Li Zhan bolstered himself with the confidence his Imperial Grandfather had given him and replied coldly.

"Good, very good!"

Wei Yong clapped his hands in "admiration."

"For Your Majesty to have such ambition is truly the fortune of our Great Xia Divine Dynasty! But I wonder, how many troops does Your Majesty intend to bring? Where are the provisions? Who will be the frontline generals? You must know that outside Yanmen Pass, there are fully three hundred thousand Black Wolf iron cavalry waiting for you."

With every question he asked, Li Zhan's face turned a shade paler.

He couldn't answer a single one of these questions.

His Imperial Grandfather only told him to announce the personal expedition, but didn't teach him what to do next.

Seeing Li Zhan stumped, Wei Yong's smile deepened.

He spread his hands and said to the court officials in a helpless and exaggerated tone:

"Everyone has seen it; our Emperor wants to lead the expedition personally. Yet he doesn't even know how to fight a war. This, this is truly..."

He shook his head and let out a long sigh.

The meaning was clear.

You are just a fool who knows nothing.

"Hahahaha!"

This time, the members of the Wei faction could no longer hold back and erupted into boisterous laughter.

The Golden Throne Hall was instantly filled with clamor.

The supporters were filled with worry.

The opposition mocked him wantonly.

Li Zhan stood before the Dragon Throne, feeling like a clown, unable to find a place to hide from the shame before everyone.

The courage he had just mustered was shattered once again.

He was isolated and helpless, embarrassed to the extreme.

"Report—!"

At this moment, a guard from before the hall ran in panic.

"Your Majesty! Something terrible has happened!"

"An envoy from the Black Wolf Dynasty is outside the hall requesting an audience!"

He said the words "requesting an audience" with great reluctance.

That wasn't a request for an audience at all; it was a provocation!

As soon as the guard finished speaking, a rough and arrogant voice came from outside the hall, resounding throughout the hall.

"Where is the little Emperor of Great Xia? Get out here and meet this envoy!"

"I heard you want to lead the expedition personally? Hahahaha! Are you preparing to deliver your head to our Great Chanyu? Perfect, my Black Wolf Dynasty is lacking a stable boy! I see this Emperor of yours is tender-skinned, he'll fit just right!"

The voice was full of vigor and contained a powerful fluctuation of True Qi; it was a Innate Realm expert.

The words were crude, filled with humiliation and contempt, and clearly did not regard the Great Xia Divine Dynasty with any respect.

The mocking laughter in the Golden Throne Hall came to an abrupt halt.

Everyone's expression became extremely unsightly.

This was simply bullying too much!

They had come right to their doorstep to humiliate them!

Wei Yong's brows also furrowed.

He wanted to see Li Zhan make a fool of himself, but such humiliation to the national dignity also made him lose face.

Moreover, this envoy didn't come early or late, but chose this exact moment, disrupting his plans.

Li Zhan's face had turned purple.

"Scoundrel! Seize this beast for Us!"

He pointed outside the hall and roared.

But after he roared, not a single guard before the hall dared to move.

Are you kidding? That is an Innate expert.

With this group of guards, few of whom even reached the Acquired Realm, wouldn't going up there just be serving themselves on a platter?

Seeing no reaction inside the hall, the laughter outside became even more rampant.

"What? Too afraid to move? A bunch of spineless cowards! With you lot like this, you still dare to talk about a personal expedition? Surrender the city early, and you might still keep your bodies intact! Hahahaha!"

The laughter was ear-piercing, ravaging the nerves of everyone in the hall.

The dignity of the Great Xia Divine Dynasty, established for three hundred years, was being wantonly trampled by that arrogant envoy at this moment.

"Useless! You are all useless!"

Li Zhan was so angry he felt dizzy.

Dragon Imperial Hall.

Li Xuan sat cross-legged, his brows slightly furrowed.

He had heard every word of the farce in the Golden Throne Hall.

He also "saw" the Black Wolf envoy who had suddenly appeared clearly.

A barbarian at merely the third level of the Innate Realm, relying on some brute force he had cultivated, dared to clamor at the feet of the Son of Heaven.

Noisy.

Truly noisy.

Li Xuan didn't even have the interest to stand up.

He simply raised his right hand, extended his index and middle fingers, and flicked them lightly toward the Void Realm, casually.

There were no fluctuations of magical power, no strange phenomena in heaven and earth, and not even a breeze was stirred up.

Outside the Golden Throne Hall.

The burly Black Wolf envoy was standing with his hands on his hips, laughing up at the sky.

The few attendants behind him were also throwing their weight around, eyeing the Imperial Guards who dared to be angry but dared not speak.

Just as he was laughing most triumphantly, preparing to say a few more nasty words to humiliate the Emperor of Great Xia.

His laughter cut off without any warning.

As if someone had grabbed him by the throat.

Then.

"Bang!"

A soft sound.

In the eyes of everyone around, that arrogant Innate expert, that insanely clamoring Black Wolf envoy, his body exploded out of thin air!

Yes, exploded!

There was no warning, no trace of any attack.

His head, chest, and limbs suddenly exploded into a mist of blood.

Not even a corpse remained.

He had completely vanished from the world just like that.

The warm mist of blood drifted down with the breeze, sprinkling onto the faces of the stunned attendants behind him, and also onto those Imperial Guards.

The warmth with a hint of a metallic, rusty scent brought them back to their senses.

"Ah—!"

The deathly silence was broken by screams; those Black Wolf attendants were scared Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering, turning and fleeing out of the palace.

And those Great Xia guards, every single one of them, were so scared they collapsed to the ground, their weapons clattering to the floor.

They stared fixedly at that empty space, where only a thin mist of blood remained on the ground, their minds completely blank.

Where did the person go?

Where was the person who was laughing there just now?

How did he just disappear?

Did they see a ghost?

"Report to Your Majesty, the envoy outside... he, he, he exploded!"

A guard commander crawled into the Golden Throne Hall, unable to speak clearly, his face deathly pale.

"Exploded?"

The civil and military officials in the hall were all stunned, looking bewildered.

Wei Yong even sneered, thinking it was his subordinates doing their job, making up an outrageous lie.

But before he could open his mouth to scold.

Boom—!

A majestic pressure suddenly descended from the sky above the imperial palace.

In the face of this pressure, the so-called aura of marquises and ministers, and the so-called might of an Innate expert, were laughably insignificant.

The entire Golden Throne Hall shook violently.

Everyone, at this instant, felt a tremor from the depths of their Soul.

A sense of trembling and submission, stemming from instinct, arose spontaneously.

The civil and military officials looked up in horror, and through the hall doors, they saw the scene before them.

In the sky directly above the imperial palace, a golden phantom, blurry yet unimaginably vast, flashed and vanished.

That phantom wore a flat-topped imperial crown and robes with twelve patterns, its face indistinguishable.

But that might made everyone present lose their composure.

The Human Emperor!

It was the phantom of the ancient Human Emperor!

"Thump!"

"Thump!"

"Thump, thump—!"

In the Golden Throne Hall, everyone knelt down.

From ordinary low-ranking officials to the Ministers of the Six Ministries who held great power, and even the Prime Minister Wei Yong, who had been arrogant just a moment ago.

No one could resist.

No one dared to stand.

Everyone, including the Emperor Li Zhan on the Dragon Throne, felt their knees go weak under that peerless imperial pressure, and they uncontrollably knelt on the ground.

They pressed their heads firmly against the cold golden bricks, their bodies trembling incessantly, unable to even generate a single thought of resistance.

As if before that phantom, their kneeling was only natural!

Between heaven and earth, all was silent.

The previously noisy Golden Throne Hall was now terrifyingly quiet, with only heavy breathing and the "clattering" of teeth chattering left.

Especially Wei Yong.

He lay on the ground, his face twisted in fear, cold sweat soaking through his court robes.

He had actually understood.

Exploded!

That envoy had truly exploded!

It was not an accident, nor was it a coincidence.

It was wiped out by a terrifying power he could not understand or imagine, from an unknown distance away.

And the phantom of the Human Emperor that had just flashed across the sky was the source of that power.

Great Xia Divine Dynasty.

In this dilapidated Dynasty that he thought was already crumbling and ready for him to manipulate, there was actually such a terrifying expert hidden.

Cold.

He only felt a bone-chilling cold.

All his calculations, all his conspiracies, in the face of this absolute power, seemed so ridiculous.

So vulnerable.

He felt like a grasshopper jumping around under the feet of a giant.

And now, that giant seemed, somewhat impatiently, to have opened its eyes.