“What is going on here?” a voice boomed out from behind John. He turned around towards the voice, which was one of the many Elders present.
The Elder was a man who appeared to be in his fifties, with graying hair and a thin beard. He was rather frail looking, but it was easy to tell that he was quite powerful. While John was unable to identify what cultivation he was exactly due to the nature of one being in the Dao Transformation Realm or above, he could tell the man was quite powerful.
“Young man, explain what is going on here!” another Elder chimed in, equally perplexed at the situation, and also slightly disgruntled that a youth had dared to make such a scene before them without explaining his actions. They had wanted to ask about what exactly had happened in the realm to cause such a disastrous loss of life, and yet before they could, John had already caused a scene.
John stared calmly at the Elders who demanded an explanation, but before he could, another voice sounded out behind him again. John glanced over his shoulder to see a young man walking towards him, who stopped next to John and faced the Elders.
“Luth! What is the meaning of this?” the lead Elder asked Luth, who had been the one to approach them. At the same time they sighed in relief that their number one genius had survived, as his death would have been too great a loss for the alliance to bear.
Luth had been on the verge of death after his battle with Amber, but had just barely managed to survive thanks to Laia’s timely intervention. As such, he felt a debt not only to Laia, but also to John, who had saved them all.
With his status in the eyes of the Elders as the top genius of the Honorable Alliance, the Elders put quite a bit of weight into Luth’s opinion on matters.
“Why have you rounded up these youths? What exactly happened within the realm?” another Elder asked, wanting to get to the bottom of it all. As the Honorable Alliance was made up of hundreds of different sects, the Elders did not immediately recognize the rounded up youths as belonging to an enemy power.
“Elders, allow me to explain everything that happened within the realm, as it will clear up everything that is happening,” Luth said to the group of Elders, and began to immediately explain everything that had occurred.
He started with the invasion of the enemy youths, to them being hunted down, and eventually finished with the calamitous war that had happened at the very end.
As the Elders heard of the enemy youth invasion, rage flooded through their bodies that this was the work of the enemy powers, and not some danger occurring from within the realm. Their rage turned to shock as they listened to the events that had occurred within, which eventually became disbelief as the events of the final battle were described.
As Luth described the war, both the Elders and the youths that had not participated in the war glanced over at Miko and John, some looking at them with awe and wonder, while others looked at them with skeptical disbelief.
Most of the Elders inspected John and Miko with skepticism, unable to believe what Luth was telling them, as it was completely out of the realm of what was considered possible in the cultivation world. They mostly ignored Miko as he was not part of the Honorable Alliance, and focused most of their attention on John, who stood there calmly as he allowed Luth to describe the events that had unfolded.
With Parker escaping, his identity as Asura was already compromised, and would without a doubt spread through the world before long. As such, he did not care about the details being discussed, as there was nothing he could do to stop it regardless.
As Luth was discussing the events that had unfolded, John received a sound transmission from a voice that he had not heard for quite some time.
“I see you managed to cause quite a disturbance within the realm, as expected. And you’ve even managed to cause another scene as soon as you left the realm,” the voice sounded out with slight exasperation as if his actions were expected, while a wry smile appeared on John’s face as he shrugged his shoulders in response.
“Forget it. Just do what you wish to do, and I’ll clean up the mess you are surely about to create” the voice sighed again.
As Luth continued his explanation, John’s gaze shifted in all directions as if looking for something, and he eventually sighed in relief.
‘I’m sure Asuros has already revealed my identity to his master, so the fact that he is not here right now means that he is unable to do so, otherwise, this would be the best opportunity to capture me. If I had to guess, the battle between the Asura and the Jade Dragon Emperor was one of mutual destruction, as the Jade Dragon Emperor was able to live through the battle. If he were truly weaker than the Asura creature, he would have died in their battle, so I’m sure the Asura isn’t faring much better than the Jade Dragon Emperor right now.
If that’s the case, then I should have some time before the Asura starts to search for me. The only question is how long? I’m sure I’ll have other powers coming after me before long as well, but the only one that is of any true concern is the Asura itself.’
With the protection of the Honorable Alliance and Heavenly Lightning Sect, John wasn’t too concerned about the other powers. While they would surely try to kill him should his identity be revealed, he was much more confident in dealing with them than the Asura at the moment.
“And that Elders, is what happened within the realm,” Luth said as he finished his lengthy explanation, which had taken several minutes. Luth had kept the details of John’s battle relatively sparse as he didn’t want to reveal too much, but just the fact that John was able to fight against and beat Asuros was impossible to believe, as John’s cultivation was still in the Middle Heaven Transformation Realm.
He also didn’t mention the fact that John was ‘Asura’, as he knew that was not his secret to reveal. While the others would most likely leak that information, he refused to be the one to reveal that secret without John’s permission.
Everyone fell silent after hearing Luth describe what had happened, as it had almost been too much to believe. Tens of thousands of eyes locked onto John, inspecting him closely as they discerned whether Luth was telling the truth or not. Even from someone like Luth, the story was too much to believe.
Even the Elder’s fell silent as they processed everything they had heard. The story explained the reasoning for rounding up these youths, which were now revealed to them to belong to the enemy powers, but everything else was just too much to believe.
After a short silence, the lead Elder spoke out once more.
“Luth, these events you have described are troubling. The enemy powers were somehow able to send their youths into this secure realm, and did so with villainous intentions. We must get to the bottom of this,” the Elder replied, before gazing at John and inspecting him closely.
Just by glancing at John he could tell he was incredibly powerful for his cultivation level, but the tales of his final battle were still too much to believe.
“As for the other parts of your story…we’ll get to the bottom of it eventually,” the Elder replied before turning to some of the Elders next to him.
“Round up the enemy youths and bring them back to the Honorable Alliance for questioning,” he instructed. The other Elders nodded their heads in unison and moved forwards towards the youths, but suddenly stopped in their tracks, their gazes narrowing slightly.
“Young man! What is the meaning of this?” the lead Elder asked, as John had stepped in between the Elders and the rounded up enemy youths.
“These murderous fucks are not your concern, but are the concerns of those behind me,” John replied calmly yet firmly, intending on keeping his words from before. He had rounded the enemy youths up to answer to the Honorable Alliance youths behind him who they had wronged, and he would not allow the Elders to deny them that.
The lead Elder’s face turned red as he heard John’s words, infuriated by the fact that he was being questioned and defied in such a manner. His cold gaze locked onto John for a moment and he opened his mouth to speak, but another voice suddenly boomed out from afar, causing all to look over with surprise as several dozen cultivators of various races appeared in the sky several miles away, just outside the range of the defensive formation guarding the realm entrance.
“Hand over our youths!” the booming voice said, coming from a man who stood at the forefront of the several dozen cultivators, who wore foreign yet recognizable clothing. John’s gaze narrowed as he stared at the new arrivals, although he was not surprised by their appearance.
“Humans, Monsters and Barbarians? It seems like the enemy powers have come to collect their youths and not me, so the news hasn’t spread yet it seems,” John mused as he assessed the situation; a situation that he had been expecting.