The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

  With a faint smile, Duwu Sili turned around and headed back into his tent.

  ……

  Gallop!

  As Duwu Sili was returning to his tent, no one noticed that in the complete opposite direction from Dalun Ruozan, a fully-armored Tang horseman riding a Turkic steed was also keeping watch on the Turkic camp. After giving one last glance at the Turkic army and the roiling clouds overhead, he turned around and galloped off.

  “I must report this to Lord Marquis as quickly as possible!”

  In the blink of an eye, the horseman had vanished without a trace.

  ……

  Now that Zhang Shouzhi and his nearly eight thousand craftsmen had finished their repair and reinforcing work, the lofty and imposing Talas was now free of the scars of battle. The city walls and the Myriad Rakshasa Earthen Stronghold Formation underground had fused together, making it even more bold, grandiose, and invincible.

  In this field, Huang Botian and the Earth element warriors from Wushang Village had played an important role. They had used their Earth element abilities to guide the surrounding Origin Energy of the world into the formation, refilling its energy reserves and making it even hardier.

  Outside Talas, after several days of nonstop work, the two steel defense lines had also been renewed. In addition, taking in the lessons of the first battle, Zhang Shouzhi had added many sharp spikes outside the walls to make them even more difficult to attack.

  In addition, Zhang Shouzhi had assembled a team of craftsmen to pour large amounts of molten iron onto the bases of the walls. Once the iron cooled, the steel walls became even more sturdy and unshakable. Meanwhile, the Tang army continued to drill and practice within the two steel defense lines, prepared for an imminent battle.

  But at this moment, Wang Chong was not within the steel walls.

  In a distance place, Wang Chong was seated alone on a large boulder.

  Wang Chong looked ahead and muttered to himself, “It seems like this is the end!”

  Whoosh!

  The plains were quiet, with the only sound being a loud and ragged panting. Across from Wang Chong, an enormous being was splayed out on the ground. If one were not there to see it with their own eyes, they would find it very difficult to believe that this was the fierce, despotic, and invincible giant ape.

  The giant ape’s eyelids were drooping, and the cruelty and brutality in its scarlet eyes had been replaced with listlessness. Its huge body seemed to have been drained of strength, and it exuded an air of fatigue as it lay on the ground.

  More importantly, the giant ape’s once-boundless vitality had greatly dimmed. It was like a candle flickering in the wind, to be extinguished at any moment.

  Around five days had passed since the end of the battle. The giant ape had lived much longer than Wang Chong had expected. It was a powerful intimidating force. Every day the giant ape survived was another day the Tang could use to prepare for battle, another day that the Tibetans, Western Turks, and Arabs would have to tread lightly.

  Wang Chong had used every method at his disposal to extend the giant ape’s life. He had placed the giant ape in this plain far away from Talas and withdrawn his Psychic Energy, returning control to the giant ape. In this way, the giant ape would not continue to suffer damage from Psychic Energy and also would not harm the Tang army in Talas by acting on its nature.

  But even so, the withering and decay of the giant ape’s brain could not be stopped.

  At the start, when the giant ape had regained its consciousness, it had pounded its chest and roared into the heavens, but now, even when not under the control of Wang Chong’s Psychic Energy, the giant ape just quietly lay on the ground. It had lost all of its vim and vigor.

  Wang Chong knew that the giant ape was about to die.

  Whoosh!

  The giant ape gasped, and as its scarlet eyes fell upon Wang Chong, they seemed to contain a hint of emotion. Wang Chong could not help but feel a ripple of emotion himself. Even though the giant ape was just a beast and did not have the intelligence of a human, after he had fought alongside this giant ape for so long, it was impossible for Wang Chong to not feel some affection for it.

  Time slowly passed, and after some time, the unmoving giant ape looked at Wang Chong and gave one last growl before falling eternally silent. Wang Chong sighed and walked forward, his right hand reaching out to close the Behemoth’s eyes.

  “Goodbye.”

  A hint of gloom flitted through his eyes. The giant ape was truly dead.

  The plains were silent, and nothing could be seen other than a rock eagle spiraling in the air, vigilantly watching his surroundings. But Wang Chong didn’t need to turn his head to know that several thousand zhang away, several pairs of eyes were silently watching this place. Those were the Arab, Tibetan, and Turkic scouts.

  Ever since the end of the battle, the three sides had been constantly dispatching scouts to watch the giant ape and await its death.

  Wang Chong knew that as long as the giant ape maintained this unmoving posture, the three sides would need some time to realize what had happened, time that the Great Tang could use.

  Gallop!

  As he was thinking, the rock eagle in the sky suddenly called out. The three scouts in three different directions suddenly turned around without warning, galloping back the way they had come.

  “Mm?”

  Wang Chong immediately sensed something and soon turned his head in the direction of Talas. A cloud of dust was approaching from that direction, the cavalry of the Qixi Protectorate army. As they galloped forward, they divided into four groups. Three of these groups went after the Turkic, Tibetan, and Arab scouts, while the remaining group galloped toward him.

  “General Cheng, what’s wrong? Has something happened with the Western Turks?”

  Wang Chong faintly smiled as he spotted the figures of Cheng Qianli and Xi Yuanqing riding with the soldiers of the Qixi Protectorate army.

  “How did you know?”

  Cheng Qianli was stunned, not having expected Wang Chong to guess at the reason for his visit before he had even said anything.

  “Haha, it’s not hard to guess. Abu Muslim is fresh from defeat, and he certainly hasn’t given up and is mobilizing soldiers from the rear. But he suffered such large losses that even Arabia in all its power will not be able to do much in just four or five days. As for Dalun Ruozan… he even dragged out the guards of the royal capital, the Mutri Great Cavalry. The Ü-Tsang Empire doesn’t have any more soldiers to spare. The only one left is the Western Turks. Milord, speak. What has happened with Duwu Sili?”

  Wang Chong faintly smiled.

  In his mouth, the complicated sounded exceedingly simple.

  After a few moments of silence, Cheng Qianli quickly explained his reason for coming. “The scouts have reported that after Duwu Sili obtained the formation phenomena, the Turks began to practice it night and day. Crucially, following the method described on those papers, they really did succeed in cultivating formation phenomena, and all of the soldiers have received significant boosts in strength.”

  The deal with Duwu Sili had been decided entirely by Wang Chong. Neither Cheng Qianli nor Gao Xianzhi knew the details. Cheng Qianli did not doubt Wang Chong’s abilities, but the scouts’ reports over the last few days had made him rather uneasy.

  “Wang Chong, you are sure that the contents of the letter were false?”

  In the end, Cheng Qianli could not suppress this question.

  The Great Tang and the Western Turks were in the middle of a war. Duwu Sili and Dalun Ruozan might have retreated, but this was not a true retreat, and they were even barricading the roads to the east. Their intentions were plain and obvious. For the Western Turks to have gotten stronger from cultivating Wang Chong’s ‘fake’ formation phenomena was definitely not a good sign.

  “Is that so? The Western Turks have already started to get stronger?”

  To Cheng Qianli’s surprise, Wang Chong’s eyes brightened in delight at
these words, as if he had just heard some good news.

  “This…”

  Cheng Qianli had wanted to ask a few more questions, but Wang Chong’s reaction had left him speechless.

  “Haha, Lord Cheng, be at ease. It’s not as easy as Duwu Sili thinks to cultivate true formation phenomena. In truth, he won’t even be able to extract a few secrets of formation phenomena from cultivating that method. That road is simply not the road leading to the true formation phenomena,” Wang Chong softly said, his expression confident and assured. This attitude of everything being planned out far ahead of time carried a convincing and persuasive power.

  Cheng Qianli was dumbstruck. He had only come over in such a rush because he believed that there had been a major flaw in the plan. Cheng Qianli was also an extremely experienced general. Moreover, he was also a somewhat outstanding strategist, not simply a pure fighting general. But in front of Wang Chong, Cheng Qianli was forced to admit that his own schemes were completely inferior.

  He could not predict even a tiny facet of Wang Chong’s schemes and methods.

  Chapter 1021 - Sassanid Emissary!

  Chapter 1021: Sassanid Emissary!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  “Milord will understand in the future. Duwu Sili is a shrewd schemer and extremely paranoid. Ordinary methods can’t deceive a top-class general like him. Extraordinary methods must be employed to slowly draw him into the trap. If my guess is correct, the aura of his army and the formation phenomena in the sky should have finally cleared up all of Duwu Sili’s doubts, and he’s probably going to be cultivating it himself soon.”

  Wang Chong stood up and hopped off the boulder, his expression extremely relaxed.

  “…If you want to hook the lion, you have the feed the lion meat. As for the hook, you have to bury it in the meat!”

  Cheng Qianli blankly stared at Wang Chong, and then he suddenly understood.

  Six Mysteries Formation Phenomena!

  This was the name of the version that Wang Chong had given to Duwu Sili.

  The era of the calamity was one of great suffering and decline, but it was an unprecedented golden age for the study of martial arts. In the process of constructing formation phenomena from nothing, countless astonishing talents had devoted their intelligence and produced various different versions.

  Amongst all these versions of formation phenomena, one in particular had a thunderous reputation and was known by everyone in that apocalyptic age. This was the version produced from the research of a hermit known as Monk Six Mysteries. From a certain perspective, this version was even more well-known than the true version of formation phenomena.

  This was not because this version was particularly powerful or unique, but because the effects of being misguided by it were the most severe.

  In the early days, research on formation phenomena was extremely challenging, and many problems were encountered. Progress was not going as quickly as desired, and some people even believed that formation phenomena were totally lost and not worth this attention. It was at this time that the Six Mysteries version of formation phenomena was published.

  The obvious boost in strength and grandiose phenomena produced left everyone gasping in wonder. Many other martial art experts researching formation phenomena began to put aside their own work in admiration for this version. Once the formation phenomena of the Six Mysteries version were initially verified, the version was rapidly spread through the army, and Monk Six Mysteries became widely praised.

  The appearance of this version caused all other research on formation phenomena to stop. At that time, everyone believed that formation phenomena had finally reappeared in the world and that the Six Mysteries version was the ultimate form.

  But this version of formation phenomena quickly began to reveal its innate and terrifying flaws. It was like discovering a path leading straight up to the summit of the mountain while wandering about a forest of thorns. Everyone joyfully rushed up this path, little knowing that this path terminated in a high and steep cliff.

  After three months of cultivating formation phenomena, the Six Mysteries version began to reveal the consequences, including disorder of Stellar Energy, twisting of meridians, reversal of blood energy flow, and other such terrible effects. These symptoms rapidly worsened, and by the end, many of the people who had cultivated this version of formation phenomena ended up suffering terrible cultivation defects that left their bodies paralyzed.

  This matter left everyone shocked, and the army rapidly issued an order for everyone to stop cultivating the Six Mysteries version of formation phenomena, but the damage had already been done.

  In the beginning, everyone believed that there was merely something missing from the Six Mysteries version, and everyone invested their intelligence in the hopes of finding and filling in this defect. But the truth was far from what they had imagined. The more they researched the Six Mysteries version, the more they realized that this version of formation phenomena was faulty down to the foundations. It took people on a completely different road that would never take them to the true end. The more one cultivated it, the stronger one would get, but the greater the eventual damage would be. In the end, the damage would accumulate to such great degrees that it would be impossible to turn back.

  More and more people began to realize the flaws of the Six Mysteries version. In the end, even Monk Six Mysteries noticed the problem.

  Monk Six Mysteries was filled with guilt and remorse. Although he had good intentions and had never intended for all this to happen, his technique had inflicted unimaginable harm. Nobody blamed him, but it wasn’t long before Monk Six Mysteries disappeared, no one knowing where he had gone.

  With the lessons learned from the matter of the Six Mysteries version, everyone restarted the research. After expending a great deal of time and energy, even the delay caused by the Six Mysteries version, the sum of their strength eventually succeeded in reviving the ancient strength of formation phenomena.

  Duwu Sili was a cunning fox who would never bite down on the hook unless there was sweet bait upon it. More importantly, Wang Chong also knew that even before the calamity, Duwu Sili had dispatched people into the Central Plains in search of those people researching formation phenomena so that he could take them hostage. Afterward, when the Six Mysteries version was published, Duwu Sili was one of those who vigorously cultivated it.

  One could easily imagine what would happen when someone so obsessed with formation phenomena discovered the Six Mysteries version. For Wang Chong to give him the Six Mysteries version now, it would have been very strange if Duwu Sili had been able to restrain himself.

  If all went as expected, once Duwu Sili began to cultivate this version, its flaws would begin to appear in Duwu Sili’s body, and the Celestial Wolf Great General of the Western Turks would find it very hard to maintain his place at the apex of Great Generals! Everything had been decided the moment Duwu Sili had taken Chen Bin hostage. All that was needed was to wait for the final result.

  “So Duwu Sili was already caught in your scheme. Since this is the case, I will report as such to the Protector-General! In the future, we will no longer need to send anyone to observe the Western Turks.”

  Cheng Qianli’s expression relaxed, and he paused a moment before continuing.

  “That’s right! There’s another matter. We’ve received a special guest in Talas. Lord Protector-General invites you to go with him to see this guest.”

  “Oh?”

  Wang Chong’s face froze, his curiosity piqued. Talas was a dangerous war zone at this moment. He really didn’t know what sort of person would pay it a visit at a time like this, and that would even have Gao Xianzhi send Cheng Qianli to invite Wang Chong over.

  “Let’s go.”

  ……

  The air was solemn in the main hall within Talas. Upon stepping in, Wang Chong immediately saw the guest that Cheng Qianli had spoken of. But even though Wang Chong had pr
epared himself, he was still left dazed by the sight of this guest.

  The guest Cheng Qianli spoke of was 1.8 meters tall. His body was tall and slim, his eyes deep and blue. His long hair was wavy and curly, and he wore a thick beard. He stood out like a sore thumb from the rest of the people in the reception hall. In terms of appearance, this person was nothing like the Tang and appeared more similar to their greatest foe, the Arabs.

  But as his eyes flitted over the man’s clothes, Wang Chong had a sudden thought, and his eyes flickered for a brief moment.

  “Lord Protector-General, this is…”

  Wang Chong turned with a questioning look to Gao Xianzhi, who was seated by a table in the hall.

  “Wang Chong, you came at just the right time. Not long ago, this person rushed into the city. We almost mistook him for an Arab and had him killed. This person was constantly shouting and hollering in some strange tongue, so we sought out Yuan Shusong. Yuan Shusong told us that this person was not an Arab, but Khorasani, and he had important information to tell us. But he insisted that you needed to be present before he said anything, refusing to speak otherwise.”

  “Oh?”

  A look of surprise flitted through Wang Chong’s eyes as he turned to this Khorasani.

  “So it really was the case.”

  Wang Chong had wondered if this person was Khorasani when he first saw him, but he hadn’t expected this to be true. But there was one thing that Wang Chong still didn’t understand. Khorasan was to the west of Talas and extremely far away. It could be considered a part of the Arabian Empire’s interior. Even the Tang merchants plying the Silk Road rarely traveled there, much less Wang Chong.

  Wang Chong found it hard to understand why a Khorasani he had never met would know him and insist on meeting him.

  “Lord Marquis, I’ve questioned him thoroughly.” Yuan Shusong, dressed in loose robes and exuding a gentle and cultivated aura, whispered into Wang Chong’s ear. “He truly is a Khorasani. I traveled there in my youth. The Khorasani are different from the Arabs. He might be able to offer us some assistance.”