Chapter 41 - Bai
The King of Shia's face floated in mid-air looking at Hao Xuan as he killed the envoy and the soldiers. To him, it wasn't too big of a deal to lose a single envoy as there were many to take his place. What he originally found unacceptable was the fact that a 'nobody' wouldn't even give him, a King, enough face in front of other people and let the envoy go.
But after meeting General Li, he was just happy to still leave with his life, even if it meant sacrificing one of his children.
When he saw Hao Xuan, he remembered the stories about the old general when he was young. Once, an enemy Kingdom sent a spy to take the life of his wife, and when the General found out about it, he slaughtered his way into their capital and killed until rivers of blood flowed. Just he alone fought against their armies until they begged him to leave and promised to never pull such a stunt ever again.
After that, no one ever even thought about targeting any of his loved ones. He was known to be very impulsive and with his power, that was a ticking time bomb. But something happened that made him retire from the battlefield that no one knew.
When the king saw the smile on Hao Xuan's face it gave him a terrible feeling, like he was looking at a wolf in sheep's clothing.
"Are all of them like that?" he thought thinking about the other eight. If the newest member was this merciless, what about the others? Were they all monsters?
But little did he know that all of the others were actually very honorable and merciful, and always acted above the board and wouldn't usually take a life for no reason. It just Hao Xuan that was so cruel to his enemies.
The king sighed and then disappeared into the night. He had to prepare to send his Firstborn to serve the Ninth Leader of the Red Legion.
Luke, Mia, Aria, and Mason looked at each other. They thought their new caption would be a greenhorn like them and would be very reserved but this anything but that.
Lt. Kuo stood behind Hao Xuan and waited until he was finished killing all of them.
"Clean this up," he ordered to some of the other legionaries and they walked out of the formation to store the bodies.
"No need. He hasn't been fed in a little while, let him take care of it," Hao Xuan spoke without turning back.
The legionaries stopped in their tracks and looked at Lt. Kuo, who furrowed his brow looking at Hao Xuan's back.
Just as he was about to ask what Hao Xuan meant by that, he turned around and looked at the legionaries and said, "Something to whet your appetite," and started walking towards the villagers.
"....yes?" Aria and co. were stumped and kept looking at each other, until she felt the wind blow right behind her with enough pressure that she got pushed forward several steps. Everyone was surprised by her actions and turned to look towards her only to be left with their mouths open.
There was an absolutely massive black figure right behind the group, looking at them with ice-white eyes. No one knew when it appeared or how long it had been there but all of them felt their hearts almost skip a beat when they saw him.
"Move," said a beastly voice with an unquestionable tone.
A path was cleared to the corpses without a sound. Although the beast's power level wasn't that high, not one of them felt like they would be able to defeat him for some strange reason.
The beast was Hao Xuan's first contracted partner, Bai Long. He moved forward and with a couple of steps covered the distance of several dozen meters and appeared above the corpses. He simply inhaled and all of the bodies turned into blood and went straight into his mouth, leaving the spectators even more surprised.
A beast that could talk and have such strange powers had to be extremely high level and dangerous.
Hao Xuan, on the other hand, didn't even look back and walked up to the villagers. The little boy was holding onto his mother's leg and looking at him with curious eyes. There was still some blood on Hao Xuan's face but not a single drop on his clothes which were spotless.
"Were you scared?" Hao Xuan bent down and asked looking at the boy who completely hidden behind his mother.
"Little Shou, he is our savior, you have to thank him properly," the child's mother said gently and the kid hesitatingly walked out from behind her.
"Y-Yes," he said nervously, still holding onto her skirt.
"Then why didn't you cry?" Hao Xuan asked looking at him curiously. Any other kid would have been bawling on the ground in a similar situation but instead, he picked up a stick and went after the soldiers to save her.
"B-Because if I just cried and did nothing, who would save her?" he said looking at Hao Xuan straight in the eyes as it was obvious. The answer caught Hao Xuan completely off-guard.
"Hahahaha, you're right!" he said breaking out into a peal of loud laughter. Such an answer from a 5-6-year-old child was really unexpected.
"D-Don't laugh!" he said with a reddened face, looking Hao Xuan with an angry little face but it only made him look cuter. Like a tiger cub trying to scare someone with his little roars.
"Haha, I'm sorry I'm sorry. But you're a really interesting kid," Hao Xuan said as he patted his head.
"When you get older and want to help protect your family and loved ones then become strong enough and join the military, and if you're lucky, join the Red Legion and ask for 'Ninth Leader', that's me. I'll help you get even stronger!" he said as he touched the child's forehead with his index finger.
Shou's mother was looking at him with a smiling face. This was definitely a good thing. This person in front of them was extremely valuable to the Great General Li and would have a very high standing in the military, him taking a liking to her only son was great!
In the eyes of the civilians, every single member of the Red Legion was a true hero, let alone one of the leaders.
Hao Xuan talked to some of the other villagers, he took the belongings of the envoy and the soldiers and gave them to the villagers, including his storage ring.. Then he bade them farewell and walked into the forest followed by the Bai and then the legionaries, who all kept some distance from him.