All 4 that heard Alex's voice turned their heads toward the south as they too realized that the Dragon Emperor had come. "No…" Long Huan's face paled in fear.
Zhan Luoyang seemed to have frozen in shock as well. Alex was the same as well. He couldn't understand why the Dragon Emperor was there at all. How could he have come there so soon? Had the Crown Prince given up on them?
That couldn't be. There would have been no reason to let them go only to call his father. There were so many guards around him and he had let them sneak away.
Had the Dragon Emperor been somehow alerted that they had made it inside? That made little sense either. No, now was not the time to worry about these things.
Alex turned around toward the group. "Let's run!" His words brought them out of their stupor. "He's affected by the suppression too. We can get there first if we run."
Alex jumped next to Hannah and carried her into his arms and ran away, letting the others follow behind him. He was fast, much faster than most of the others behind him, who could only look at him in surprise.
They ran past the river, and into an incline, going over a sparse hill to run down the other side. With flight seemingly completely impossible under the current suppression, running was their only choice.
The Voidgate was no more than 10 kilometers away from them, while the Dragon Emperor was some 25 kilometers behind. If they did it quickly, they could make it there before him with just enough time to get into the Voidgate. Alex didn't even consider what would happen if the man followed him into the Voidgate. He would think about the problem after when he crossed that bridge first.
"He's catching up," Long Huan said. "We need to go faster or else—"
The moment he said those words, the suppression field in the secret realm disappeared. They all felt a surge of power and speed all of a sudden and were now fast enough to reach Alex.
Only, the same went for the Dragon Emperor as well.
Alex flew as fast as he could now and could see the cave that held the Voidgate. It was right in front of him. Long Huan was next to him, rushing for the cave as well. He needed to open it right away.
Just then Alex sensed something. "Take her!" he shouted at Long Huan, throwing Hannah over to him to carry. As soon as she left his arm, he teleported immediately.
Alex appeared in the sky far above and brought out Midnight as power enveloped him.
Body, Blood, Qi, Spirit, and Sword came together to form a power in the infinitesimal amount of time he had. There was no time at all to use his nameless technique, so he could only use the technique he could in this brief period he had.
Power flowed into Midnight, activating the technique that was carved into the sword.
God Rending Death Blade.
Alex swung and cut at the massive lightning bolt with the thickness of a tree trunk. He had noticed the Dragon Emperor targeting the cave and had to stop it no matter what.
Alex's attack was strong, very strong. But it was nothing in front of the strength of a Peak Saint realm cultivator.
The lightning bolt was only weakened, and not destroyed, and the weakened bolt still rushed forth, hitting him directly.
Alex was flung down from the sky, slamming onto the ground, creating a small crater. He was dazed for a second before slowly getting back up. He was… fine?
His broken body was slowly healing on the inside. It was fortunate that his body was strong enough and didn't instantly vaporize because of the attack.
He quickly climbed out and shouted, "Quickly, to the cave!"
Long Huan did not stop and ran, while Zhan Luoyang followed him. Yao Ning and Liang Shufen, however, came to check on him.
"I'm fine, run," Alex said, but they wouldn't leave without him.
Alex brought out the Immortal puppet and Whisker to control it if need be. At the same time, he flew away as well.
However, before they could all reach the cave, the Dragon Emperor was already there.
"Stop!" His voice sounded like the roar of a thousand beasts, moving across the land and creating shockwaves.
Long Huan froze when he was right at the cave. Now that his father was this close, he knew cutting open the Voidgate would do no good for them.
Alex frowned. "Start opening it," he shouted back, but the young man still seemed dazed. Instead of bringing out a sword, he brought out a talisman. It seemed he thought the teleportation talisman to be a safer option than the Voidgate.
Alex didn't blame him.
The Dragon Emperor floated in the air, his blue hair flowing in the wind above. He gazed down, his look saying that everyone here was beneath him. The Noble Dragon Spear was on his right-hand
"This is not what I expected to see when I came to meet you, King Alex," he said softly. "Someone told me you might be up to something, something bad for the Empire, but this is something entirely different."
His gaze then turned toward Long Huan.
"I wasn't aware you had returned, that too for nearly 20 years," he said softly. "You should have returned to me, my son."
Long Huan's face looked grim and he didn't even focus on the talisman in his hands. "You… you tried to kill us," he said. "Why would I ever return to you?"
"I never tried to kill you," the Dragon Emperor answered calmly. "I only wanted the sword."
"You tried to kill my wife," Long Huan shouted back.
"A girl you married after meeting for only a month?" the Dragon Emperor laughed out loud. "You were never officially married. Your marriage was never officially recognized."
"We exchanged our vows," Long Huan said. "That is all that mattered, and you still tried to kill her. No, you did kill her. You killed your own soldiers to get to my wife."
"She shouldn't have tried to kill me then." The Dragon Emperor sighed. "If you want to run away, I won't stop you. Go, leave, but leave the sword. I will be gone from this world in just a year or two once I get that sword of yours. You can freely return to the Empire at that point."
"No one will have known that you defied me then. You can come back to be by your brother's side as he becomes the next Emperor."
"No," Alex answered. "That won't be happening."
This was what he had been fearing. The Dragon Emperor would use the sword and leave, without giving Alex and the rest any time to get their revenge.
"Stand aside, King Alex. I will be willing to look away from what you've been doing here," the Dragon Emperor said and was about to speak when Alex cut him off.
"What will you be doing with the sword that it is so necessary?" Alex asked. "It doesn't have something to with the Azure Dragon being dead, does it?"
