Baihu Hankai gritted his teeth in anger as his Prime Minister worked on directing his people outside the secret realm.
If it was any other time and the foe wasn’t someone of significance, he would have personally taken charge and never allowed anyone to tamper with their tradition where they sent their promising young cultivators into the secret realm for training.
Unfortunately, he did not have such a choice this time around.
“How long is it going to take?”
“it depends on how far into the realm your target has traveled. If he has gone too deep, then our transmission might take a day or two to reach him due to the density of the Pure Qi disrupting our artifacts.”
“Just how primitive are your artifacts if they can’t even filter out the interference from ambient Pure Qi? As expected of a backwater Empire like yours, Baihu Hankai.”
Once again, Baihu Hankai could only gnash his teeth in rage at those words from the man on the other side of the communication jade token.
Just two days ago, a massive force of thirty Core Formation realm experts, twenty Nascent Soul realm experts, and a single Soul Formation realm expert had arrived at his capital in five Airships that were armed to the teeth.
Such a show of force and the very conspicuous way they arrived had completely ruined the festive atmosphere of the capital, making the mortals and most nobles think that they were under attack from the Yin Long Empire.
Unfortunately for the Emperor and Prime Minister of the Baihu Empire, the truth of the matter was somehow even worse.
For the airship and the forces on it belonged to the Autumn Fang Holy Land. One of the four Holy Lands of the continent, and was being led by none other than Bai Jianhong, one of the Grand Elders of the Holy Land and the eldest son of the Master of the Holy Land, Bai Tianfang.
Worse yet was the fact that Bai Jianhong and Baihu Hankai were bitter rivals thanks to both their personalities and their lineage.
“Whatever. I can’t depend on your uselessness to find my target, especially since Father will kill me if I fail to bring back this Huxing Xiang back to the Hidden Heaven Holy Land. Luo! Come to me!”
The moment the Grand Elder of the Autumn Fang Holy Land called out, the Soul Transformation Realm master appeared out of thin air and directly kneeled before the projection of the artifact.
“This servant is here, Grand Elder.”
“I want you to send a small team into the secret realm to track down Young Master Huxing Xiang. Once your men find him, they are to immediately bring him back to our Holy Land. If the team fails, I want you to encircle the entrance to the realm and take him the moment he comes out.”
Then, he thought for a few seconds before he continued issuing orders again.
“Also, if he refuses to come with you, tell him that we will continue hounding him until he agrees to our request. Based on what we learned from our scouts who managed to make those fools in the Yin Long Empire talk, he is an extremely stubborn but carefree person who does not want to get involved with anything, he is bound to take up our offer if we promise to pester him for the rest of eternity until he agrees.”
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“And, if even that fails, then simply threaten the lives of his loved ones, even make an attempt to attack that little Empress of his if you have to. Nothing lethal, of course, but just to get our point across.”
“I understand, Grand Elder.”
“Good. With you there, I won’t have to worry about the thieves of the Baihu family stealing from us again.”
With that jab that made the Emperor explode in fury and unleashed his full cultivation as a Soul Formation initial stage cultivator, the image disappeared, making the captain of the Autumn Fang Holy Land immediately move to complete his task, not questioning the words of his master because it was an open secret at this point between their two forces.
It was no secret that the founder of the Baihu Empire, Baihu Jinlie, the powerhouse of the Dao Integration realm, was once an Elder of the Autumn Fang Holy Land and later left on his own accord to help his sworn brother, Yin Tianlong, establish the Yin Long Empire.
However, what many people outside of the members of the Holy Lands and the Baihu Empire’s upper echelons knew was the fact that the Autumn Fang Holy Land hated the Baihu Empire, specifically, its royal family, because they believed that Baihu Jinlie had stolen their techniques, modified them to make them easier to understand, and then passed them down as inheritance for the Baihu Empire.
In fact, their hatred is so strong that there have been countless attempts to eliminate the Baihu Royal Family throughout the eight centuries that the empire has stood by the Holy Land, through both direct and indirect means.
Thankfully, the Baihu family has always been cautious and has managed to stave off these attacks thanks to their preparedness and the fact that the holy land can’t really go all out to attack them in fear of the retaliation they would face from the rest of the holy lands and the Barbarian Clans that are always looking for a way to break into the human territories.
As Captain Luo moved toward his forces to organize a team, Baihu Hankai called for his own forces with a voice transmission technique.
‘We hear you, your majesty.’
‘Send our own people into the secret realm before these Holy Land forces. I want the strongest of the Night Guards to go in. Once they find this Huxing Xiang and the Empress of Yin Long, either capture them or kill them both if they prove too dangerous. Another squad will find my son and escort him out in secret. Let's see how long these bastards of the Holy Land will stay smug when they return empty-handed.’
‘Your majesty, you are making another rash decision because of your emotions-‘
‘Ling Tianze, I am not asking your opinion. I am giving you an order as your emperor.’
‘…very well. But don’t ask me for a solution when this blows up in our faces.’
‘It will not. The girl is only in the Core Formation realm late stage from what our spies told us and the boy should not be any higher than the Nascent Soul given his age.’
‘I hope you are right, Your Majesty.’
With that, the emperor cut off the communications as he grinned viciously at the forces of the Holy Land with glowing yellow eyes that had slits in the pupils like a cat. His technique fueling and enhancing his emotions with that of the beast from which the technique was originally derived.
‘That’s right, act superior to us all you want, call us thieves as much as your heart desires. But, when all is said and done, you will have to answer to your father why you failed to retrieve the person you were looking for, Bai Jianhong. I would love to see what that ruthless man you call a father would do to you for this failure.’
With those thoughts making his emotions swell in glee, Baihu Hankai walked away from the secret realm’s entrance, waiting to hear the good news from his teams of Night Guards, the greatest of assassination forces directly under the command of the Royal Family.
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