Immortal Paladin

462 Kidnapping Scandal

“Just what is this place?” I asked as we drifted farther from the debris field, ensuring the Void Beast had truly lost interest.

Horse-Face glanced back once before answering. “A graveyard of worlds. Among the Six Supremes, the one ruling this realm has a particularly ill reputation for destroying worlds. This is where they end up.”

A graveyard of worlds.

Fragments of civilizations floated endlessly behind us, silent testaments to annihilation. I could imagine reasons for destroying a world as a display of power, to instill fear, or to eliminate a threat before it matured. Yet those were tactical motives. They did not explain scale. They did not justify repetition.

Why?

I had come to understand that each of the Supreme Beings had once been like me and Ru Qiu, transmigrators cast into this vast universe. That meant they had once been human, or at least carried the sensibilities of one. Should there not remain a trace of that origin?

Ru Qiu had killed in his time. I had seen enough of his memories to know that. Yet he had also been loved, admired, and followed. Even I was not free from bloodstains. The Civil War of the Grand Ascension Empire had forced my hand. I had punished traitors without mercy. I had sundered the Summit of the Four Powers. The Hollowed World War had reshaped various swathes of civilizations in my ideal. Even if I had restored those who died, that did not erase the suffering inflicted in the process.

Perhaps something of that turmoil showed on my face. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Horse-Face continued, his tone lowering. “I believe the motivation was hatred against the Shén. Revenge, if anything.”

The word struck me.

Shén.

It was the same term recorded in the journal Dave and Joan had recovered in the Hollowed World. The coincidence was too sharp to ignore. Finding Horse-Face might have been more fortuitous than I initially believed.

Alice glanced around, her instincts sharper than most. “We should leave. We are attracting the wrong kind of attention.”

I nodded without argument.

We withdrew carefully, laying false traces and scattering misleading fluctuations of qi and divine signatures along divergent paths. Only after putting significant distance between us and the graveyard did we slow.

We eventually arrived at a small world shaped like a colossal mushroom, its cap forming continents and its stalk descending into a glowing mantle. We landed atop a mountain ridge.

From that vantage point, I observed primitive mushroom-like beings hunting a large quadrupedal creature in coordinated groups. Their society appeared rudimentary yet structured.

I had not expected something so quaint amidst the desolation.

“I will prepare the planar spell in conjunction with Egress,” Alice said.

She dismissed the bicorn and began carving intricate mana lines into the stone. The mount vanished in a flicker of infernal light.

Horse-Face watched the disappearance with poorly concealed disappointment. He had already returned to a more human scale, though the equine features remained. Despite his current form, he was still very much a horse at heart. He had been eyeing that bicorn for quite some time.

If only he understood its temperament.

On second thought, they might have suited each other perfectly.

“Let me ask you something,” I said casually. “How many Supreme Beings are there?”

Horse-Face scratched his chin. “Counting you, I suppose there are eight now.”

That meant he was unaware of Ru Qiu’s status. The realization unsettled me. If Horse-Face did not know, perhaps Meng Po had not known either.

“The Supreme Void is sealed in the Hollowed World,” I continued. “So that leaves six active here. However, when I looked into the memory of the universe earlier, I saw seven silhouettes. I assumed they were Supreme Beings. Can you tell me more about that?”

Horse-Face blinked, then whistled softly. “That is impressive. You can already peer into the memory of the universe, and you are not even a Ruler of Laws yet. I truly despise talented people.”

Talent.

If only it were that simple.

“It was not talent,” I replied dryly. “You could likely achieve something similar if you encountered your counterpart, who happens to be a very edgy and darker version of yourself, merged with him, and somehow emerged as the dominant personality.”

Horse-Face stared at me in silence.

“I do not like the implications of that sentence,” he finally said.

Horse-Face faked a cough, clearly buying time, before finally answering.

“I do not know,” he admitted. “There are rumors of a hidden Supreme Being, a seventh if you will, but I cannot confirm it. In the end, I am just a grunt. If anyone truly knows, it would have been Lady Meng Po. However, as you have seen, she is no longer with us because she broke the treaty.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Treaty?”

He shifted his grip on his spear and began explaining.

“There was a treaty between the Six Supremes, the Supreme Void, and the Lost Gods. Before that, it was essentially a three-way war. The Six Supremes were overwhelming the other two factions. At the last moment, the Supreme Void and the Lost Gods formed an alliance because they were losing badly.”

His brow furrowed as if he were pushing through fog.

“I do not remember everything clearly. I am bound by various pacts made after the war ended. Certain matters are… restricted. But the core of the treaty was this: the Six Supremes would not leave their respective domains. It was a non-interference agreement. The Lost Gods forfeited their status. The Shén lost their divinity. The transcendents of that era were sealed alongside the Supreme Void.”

He glanced at me.

“That is how they were reduced to what you likely know as Ancient Souls. As for the Supreme Void, he was betrayed by his allies and sealed as well.”

That aligned disturbingly well with what I had witnessed during the Ascension Games. The Supreme Void’s cruelty toward the Ancient Souls in the False Earth had not been random sadism. It had been desperation and hatred of them combined. He had been clawing at the bars of his prison.

The Yellow Emperor truly had audacity.

To betray an ally at the decisive moment of war required either supreme confidence or supreme arrogance. Neither quality inspired trust. Given the choice, I would place my faith in Jue Bu or Nongmin any day over someone like the Yellow Emperor.

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Horse-Face continued, “In exchange for those sacrifices, the Six Supremes swore to the Heavenly Dao that they would never lay a hand on the Hollowed World directly and would remain within their domains. It is not an absolute pact, but as long as it serves their interests, they abide by it.”

I suppressed the frown that threatened to surface.

If that were true, how had the Supreme Heart traversed the Hollowed World so freely? I had spoken with him personally while fighting Aixin. He had manifested in the Great Desert during my clash with my counterpart. That was not indirect interference.

The treaty clearly had loopholes.

It had not prevented the Six Supremes from dispatching armies into the Hollowed World either. Non-interference, it seemed, was a matter of interpretation.

Alice’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. “It is done.”

I turned.

An intricate magic circle pulsed beneath her feet, layered with spatial runes and reinforced by Egress anchors. The formation was stable and precise.

I stepped into it without hesitation. Horse-Face followed, though he glanced around warily.

“We will teleport directly onto the Spirit Wheel Wave-Breaking Boat,” Alice said. “David, are we clear?”

There were still questions I wanted answered. Ox-Head’s fate lingered in my mind. The possibility of a hidden seventh Supreme gnawed at me. However, remaining here any longer increased the risk of unwanted attention.

I opened the Ophanim one final time.

The immediate branches of fate showed no catastrophic deviation. The transfer would succeed.

“We are clear,” I confirmed.

Alice activated the planar spell.

Space folded inward.

I blinked.

Space finished folding, and the oppressive vastness of the Underworld gave way to the familiar creak of wood and the faint hum of formation arrays. We stood on the deck of the Mighty Duck.

Ru Qiu dropped from the crow’s nest with ease and landed in front of us.

“There is a problem,” he said.

I swept my gaze across our surroundings.

The Mighty Duck was parked in what appeared to be the center of an abandoned city. Cracked stone streets stretched outward between ruined buildings. However, the place was not empty. Ghosts drifted everywhere, some translucent, others more solidified, hauling beams, bricks, and strange underworld materials. They were repairing structures under the direction of Fan Shi and Jiang Zhen.

It was unexpectedly industrious.

I had assumed they would simply find a defensible base. Instead, they were rebuilding one.

I glanced back at Ru Qiu. “I do not see a problem.”

He handed me a sheet of paper.

A bounty poster.

I froze for half a second as I recognized the face.

Dark robes. Red scarf. Cold eyes.

Hei Mao.

His bounty was larger than mine.

Horse-Face let out a low whistle. “The boy is making impressive strides in spreading his name.”

Alice folded her arms. “He takes after his master.”

It was mildly unsettling how quickly those two were getting along after basically trying to kill each other.

Horse-Face grinned broadly. “I can see that. Makes me wonder what he did to earn such a reward. I am curious about the circumstances, but the boy is not here.”

Alice answered calmly, “David’s disciples were separated from him after the Hollowed World War.”

Ru Qiu gestured toward another paper in his hand. “Here. You should see this as well.”

I took it. “Is this a newspaper?”

“Likely influenced by one of the Supreme Beings,” Ru Qiu replied. “This one seems to originate from whoever governs the human territories. I have been raiding Celestial Circle outposts and other factions while disguised as a ghost. I acquired the bounty and this paper in the process.”

Acquired was a polite term.

The abundance of construction materials around us suggested he had “acquired” quite a bit more.

I unfolded the newspaper and read the headline aloud.

“Lord of War’s Fiancée ‘Kidnapped’: But Clues Point to a Clandestine Elopement.”

I stared at the image printed beneath it.

Hei Mao was depicted running at full speed, a woman slung over his shoulder like a sack of rice. Behind him loomed a massive tower, and unmistakably at his side was Ox-Head. Soldiers flooded the background in pursuit.

I continued reading.

The writing was excessively dramatic, bloated with speculation and loaded language. It was less journalism and more theatrical gossip disguised as reporting. That said, the raw content hardly needed embellishment.

War.

One of the Four Horsemen.

What exactly had Hei Mao been thinking?

Horse-Face burst into laughter. “Look at Ox-Head! He looks like an idiot!”

I exhaled slowly. “That is a silver lining, I suppose. At least he is alive.”

“No, no,” Horse-Face waved dismissively, still laughing. “Of course he is alive. He is one tough son of a—well, ox. I cannot believe such a serious fellow would get dragged into something this absurd. Look at his face. He looks terrified!”

I studied the image more carefully.

There was indeed panic in Ox-Head’s expression, but it did not strike me as mere embarrassment. That was the territory of War. The implications were far more dangerous than a scandalous headline.

Horse-Face continued mercilessly, “What is that brat Hei Mao thinking? Did you raise him in isolation from women or something? I mean, kidnapped!? A woman? Someone’s woman? Ha ha ha~! The boy’s a riot as usual!”

“He is a ghost,” I replied flatly. “And mentally, he is closer to a boy.”

Horse-Face let out a loud, neighing laugh. “Excuses! If you have a spear, you thrust it!”

I stared at him.

What was wrong with this horse?

Then again, recalling Jue Bu’s questionable streaks in the past, perhaps it was not unique to him. Maybe it was simply an Underworld cultural issue.

I sincerely hoped it was not the norm.

Alice glanced at the newspaper in my hand. “Where is this?”

Ru Qiu shook his head. “I am afraid I do not know. We are new to this realm, practically foreigners with no understanding of what currents run beneath the surface. I would advise against relying on David’s Divine Possession for intelligence gathering. That ability has… complications. We are only at the nascent stage of this operation. Caution would serve us better than haste.”

I studied him carefully.

Was it truly that obvious that Divine Possession was becoming increasingly unstable? I had not fully acknowledged it myself, but there had been moments where the boundary between myself and the vessel blurred more than I liked. If Ru Qiu had noticed, then it was not subtle.

He was rarely wrong about matters of survival.

I looked back down at the newspaper and forced myself to continue reading.

The article escalated quickly.

It stated that Lord of War had personally issued an enormous bounty for the head of the primary perpetrator. The reward was described as “unprecedented in the history of the War Dominion,” including high-grade cultivation resources, territories, and even a personal audience with War himself. The accomplice was to be captured alive if possible, though execution on the spot would still merit significant compensation.

Furthermore, the article detailed generous rewards for any form of actionable information leading to their capture. Informants would be granted protection and material incentives. Anonymous tips were encouraged. Entire factions were being mobilized under the justification of preserving honor and stability within War’s territory.

Then it shifted tone.

Ox-Head was slandered extensively.

He was labeled a traitorous beast of the Underworld, a former subordinate of the now-deceased criminal Meng Po. The article insinuated that he had long harbored rebellious tendencies and that this act of “treachery” was merely the culmination of latent disloyalty. It painted Meng Po as a destabilizing element whose remnants were still festering in hidden corners of the realm.

The narrative was deliberate.

It reframed everything as a purge of corruption rather than a scandal.

I stopped reading.

Any further and I would only sour my mood.

Still, worry gnawed at me.

Hei Mao should have been lying low. Instead, he had somehow antagonized one of the Four Horsemen directly. That was not escalation. That was provocation on a mythic scale.

I reached inward and attempted to pull upon the Ghost Soul I had embedded within the Six Paths bestowed upon him.

There was no clear feedback.

The connection was faint, muted, as though something interfered with the signal. However, I could sense a vague direction.

He was alive.

For now.

“What is next?” Ru Qiu asked.

“I will look for Hei Mao,” I said. “I need to reconnect with him.”

I turned to Alice. “Can you check on Dave and Joan? They may require assistance.”

Then to Ru Qiu. “Continue rebuilding this place. I will leave an Ezekiel to assist. I am taking the Mighty Duck with me.”

Finally, I fixed Horse-Face with a look. “You will stay here and do your best not to become a nuisance.”

Alice frowned slightly. “Would it not be simpler if I accompanied you? With my planar spell, returning would be easier.”

Before I could answer, Gu Jie appeared quietly.

“Mother,” she said gently, “it would be better to allow Father to proceed as he wishes.”

I offered her a subtle nod of gratitude.

There was a reason I wanted to go alone.

Alice’s planar spell was powerful, but it was not flawless. She concealed it well, yet I could perceive the regression in certain aspects of her abilities after losing her vampiric traits. Forcing high-intensity spatial manipulation repeatedly would strain her.

If circumstances permitted, I would have preferred to teleport directly to Hei Mao using a precise combination of Ophanim foresight and the Ghost Soul tether. In our current state, that was not feasible without unacceptable risk.

I stored the Mighty Duck into my pocket dimension.

“I will return as soon as possible,” I told them. “Do not miss me excessively. And please, avoid attracting attention. Ru Qiu, you should consider developing techniques to disguise yourself. I may or may not have brought one of those LLO gimmick items that changes gender.”

“Fuck off,” Ru Qiu replied flatly.

“That was a joke. Do not be so serious. I do have a race-change gimmick item.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

“No. I lied.”

A long pause followed.

I broke into laughter and launched myself away with Zealot’s Stride.

“Ha ha ha ha—”

His murderous aura chased me halfway across the skyline.