Chapter 1514: Died Unclear
Huo Laoban naturally sensed the intense killing intent radiating from the Great Night Empire's top brass. Even the eight great Demon Saints he gazed upon returned his stare with similar murderous intent, yet he pretended not to notice.
"Heh heh, I presume you eight are the eight Demon Saints of the sea demon race. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance; I know you are not. . ."
With a smile on his face, Huo Laoban spoke confidently and eloquently. Both his expression and tone brimmed with self-assurance; it was clear he had prepared a mountain of persuasive arguments in his mind and was confident he could incite the eight great Demon Saints to defect. However, before he could even finish his sentence, he was cut off by just two simple words.
"Attack!"
The one who suddenly spoke was none other than Old Master Wu, standing at the very forefront of the Great Night Empire army. His two short words were crisp, decisive, and filled with lethal intent.
As Old Master Wu uttered those two words, the Great Night Empire's top brass, already poised for action, launched their attacks simultaneously. Without exception, their targets were all Huo Laoban. Bai Xue, in particular, held nothing back; it was her most powerful strike in human form, unleashed without resorting to any Demon Arts!
Bai Xue acted this way because her hatred for Huo Laoban was exceedingly intense. Although she owed her survival initially to Huo Laoban, she had also nearly lost her life and been used to threaten Yang Haoran, all due to Huo Laoban. Naturally, she wouldn't thank Huo Laoban just because he had temporarily saved her life before the Tongzhou Great Emperor; on the contrary, her hatred for him was bone-deep, which was why her strike now was so utterly ruthless.
When the Tongzhou Great Emperor had prepared to execute her back then, Huo Laoban had objected, informing the Tongzhou Great Emperor that she would be more useful alive. Huo Laoban himself didn't understand why he had spoken up for her, but Bai Xue knew perfectly well: it was because Huo Laoban had fallen under her Enchantment Art. Otherwise, Huo Laoban would never have interceded for her, much less dared to oppose the Tongzhou Great Emperor's decision.
All of this had originated because of Huo Laoban, so she naturally attributed all this enmity to him. Coupled with the existing animosity between Huo Laoban and Yang Haoran, even though Huo Laoban had fallen under her Enchantment Art, she had not the slightest intention of sparing him!
Why did the top brass launch a unanimous attack on Huo Laoban the moment Old Master Wu gave the order? It was because Yang Haoran had already issued commands to them in advance.
Before the Underworld Office arrived, Yang Haoran had already received intel. He knew roughly how many Underworld Officials had been dispatched, how many Guardians were on this expedition, specifically which Guardians, and how many Emperors were present, and who each of them was. Therefore, he naturally knew that Huo Laoban, the newly appointed Tongzhou Great Emperor, had also arrived, and similarly, that Xu Meijing was also here.
Therefore, after some consideration, Yang Haoran issued a command to his top brass: if the Underworld Office didn't initiate an attack first, their side would temporarily hold back. It would be a good thing if they could intimidate the Underworld Office with the Great Night Empire's formidable strength and scare them away without losing a single soldier. After all, once war broke out, the Great Night Empire wouldn't be able to avoid casualties, a problem that wouldn't exist if the Underworld Office retreated. So, if they could scare them off, nothing could be better.
To achieve this goal, Yang Haoran deployed almost all of the Great Night Empire's combat power. The stronger the force the Great Night Empire displayed, vastly exceeding the strength the Underworld Office had deployed on this occasion, the greater the likelihood of intimidating the Underworld Office and the higher the chance they would be scared away.
If, however, the Underworld Office couldn't be scared off, and despite facing the Great Night Empire's vastly superior strength, still decided to act, then they were to launch a unified attack and first annihilate Huo Laoban, the newly appointed Tongzhou Great Emperor.
The reason Yang Haoran issued such a command to his top brass was partly because Huo Laoban was the weakest of the three Emperors, but this was not the primary reason. The main reason was the irreconcilable enmity between the two of them.
Furthermore, eliminating Huo Laoban would significantly improve Xu Meijing's safety, allowing Yang Haoran to feel much more at ease. It was precisely for these various reasons that Yang Haoran issued such a command to his top brass.
As for why Yang Haoran himself did not appear, a large part of the reason was Xu Meijing. He truly did not wish to come to blows with Xu Meijing, and he had even issued specific orders to the Great Night Empire's top brass concerning Xu Meijing, commanding them to protect her.
Finally, as Old Master Wu and the other high-ranking officials prepared to adjourn and depart, Yang Haoran added one more instruction: if the Underworld Office did not proactively launch an attack on the Great Night Empire, but instead sent Huo Laoban out to incite discord and utter words detrimental to the unity of my Great Night Empire, then there would be no need to wait for the Underworld Office to make the first move. They were to directly initiate battle, and even if there was only the slightest hint of such a tendency, they must immediately "send him off"!
Yang Haoran's command was not only etched into Old Master Wu's heart but also deeply imprinted in the minds of the Great Night Empire's top brass, thus leading to the scene unfolding before them.
Huo Laoban, his face still radiating confidence, was utterly dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events. His confident smile froze in place, and the bellyful of arguments he had prepared was forcibly stifled within him.
In truth, he wasn't worried that Old Master Wu would interrupt him. He had already devised a perfect countermeasure for such a scenario. If Old Master Wu hadn't interrupted him, that would have been fine; but if he did, Old Master Wu would have fallen right into his trap. For then, his rhetoric to incite the defection of the eight great Demon Saints and the entire sea demon race would have become even more potent, and his chances of achieving his objective would have dramatically increased.
Yet, he never imagined in his wildest dreams that he had only just opened his mouth, and hadn't even had time to utter his prepared lines, when Old Master Wu forcibly interrupted him — and Old Master Wu's interruption wasn't merely a cut-off; it was an order to launch an attack.
These two points alone had disrupted Huo Laoban's plans and exceeded his expectations. However, to Huo Laoban, while these two points were unexpected, they were still somewhat acceptable; the situation hadn't entirely spiraled out of his control. He believed he still had a way to turn the tide and make events unfold according to his desires.
But what he never would have thought was that, with Old Master Wu's order, the attack launched by the Great Night Empire's top brass was, in unison, entirely directed at him, as if they wouldn't stop until he was dead.
This scene not only froze Huo Laoban in his tracks but also left the other members of the Underworld Office utterly dumbfounded with shock.
In an instant, Huo Laoban, who had been brimming with confident smiles, was utterly engulfed by the Great Night Empire's top brass's attack. He didn't even have time to let out a scream; his physical body instantly turned to ashes, and not only his physical body, but his soul too underwent Soul Transformation under the combined strike of the Great Night Empire's top brass!
For Huo Laoban to have ascended to the throne of Tongzhou Great Emperor, he certainly possessed strength. Regardless of how he achieved that position, one thing was certain: he had definitely entered the Life Soul realm, as this was the minimum cultivation required to become an Emperor; otherwise, he wouldn't even have the qualifications for the position.
How Huo Laoban managed to raise his strength to the Life Soul realm in such a short time remained unknown, but since he had ascended to that position, he must indeed have reached that realm. Upon reaching the Life Soul realm, one's strength was absolutely incomparable to that of the Earth Soul realm.
However, while the Life Soul realm was indeed formidable, its exact power depended on the stage one had reached within it. Regardless of how Huo Laoban had managed to elevate his cultivation to the Life Soul realm, he could at most be in the early stage of the Life Soul realm. It was impossible for him to be any higher; if the Life Soul realm were so easy to reach, there wouldn't be so few Life Soul realm experts within the Underworld Office.
Moreover, the intelligence Yang Haoran had obtained indeed confirmed this: Huo Laoban's cultivation was truly in the early stage of the Life Soul realm, making him the weakest of the three Emperors involved in this operation. While the early Life Soul realm was already quite powerful, it simply couldn't withstand the unified assault of the Great Night Empire's top brass. One must remember that many of the Great Night Empire's high-ranking officials were far stronger than Huo Laoban. For Huo Laoban, with his current strength, to not be utterly destroyed and suffer Soul Transformation after taking a combined, poised-for-action strike from so many high-level experts in unison would have been truly baffling.
Let alone Huo Laoban, who was only at the early stage of the Life Soul realm; even if he had reached the mid-stage of the Life Soul realm, facing a combined strike from the Great Night Empire's top brass, he would still have perished on the spot. Perhaps his soul might have been preserved, but his physical body would certainly have turned to ashes.
As for why Huo Laoban didn't flee when faced with the Great Night Empire's top brass's combined strike, it wasn't that he didn't want to escape, but that he simply couldn't. Everything happened too suddenly; the poised-for-action strike from the Great Night Empire's top brass was as fast as lightning, giving him no time to react at all before he was completely engulfed by their assault.
Until his very last moment before Soul Transformation, Huo Laoban still couldn't understand why the Great Night Empire's top brass would be so shameless, so utterly unscrupulous, daring to disregard their status to pull such a stunt. . .
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