DLERB -Chapter 33 My Lord, That Wasn’t a Human—It Was a Monster Sitting on the Dragon Throne!

Thousands of miles away, in Kuaiji Commandery.

Inside the Xiang clan estate’s council hall—

At the seat of honor, the Xiang clan leader, Xiang Liang, was slowly wiping the bronze sword in his hand with a white cloth.

Below him, more than a dozen core members of the Xiang clan sat upright with solemn expressions.

Bang!

The doors of the hall were violently smashed open from outside.

A blood-covered figure with disheveled hair staggered inside.

The discussion came to an abrupt halt.

Every gaze instantly turned toward the entrance.

The newcomer seemed to have exhausted the last of his strength as his knees gave out.

Thud!

He collapsed heavily onto the floor, his body trembling from violent gasps for breath.

The wounds on his body split open again, and crimson blood quickly pooled across the polished floor.

“U-Uncle Zhuang?”

A hot-blooded young member of the Xiang clan recognized the man, his voice full of disbelief.

Xiang Zhuang!

The greatest swordsman of Chu!

The sharpest blade of the Xiang clan!

Yet his current appearance held none of a swordsman’s elegance. He looked more like a stray dog crawling back from hell itself.

Xiang Zhuang ignored everyone.

With bloodshot eyes, he stared fixedly at Xiang Liang seated above.

From his throat came a hoarse roar like a broken bellows.

“My lord!”

“This subordinate was incompetent!”

“The assassination… failed!”

Those seven words struck everyone’s hearts like seven heavy hammers.

Bang!

The young clansman named Xiang Guan slammed his palm onto the table and shot to his feet.

“Impossible!”

“He’s just an eight-year-old brat! How could Uncle Zhuang possibly fail?!”

Xiang Liang stopped wiping his sword.

Slowly, he raised his head.

In those hawk-like eyes, there was not the slightest ripple of emotion.

Looking at the miserable state of his most prized swordsman, his voice was low and hoarse.

“Speak.”

“What exactly… happened?”

Xiang Zhuang’s body trembled violently.

It was as if he had once more returned to that night shrouded in endless terror.

“It… it was a trap.”

“From the very beginning, it was a trap!”

Xiang Guan shouted angrily:

“What kind of trap could stop you, Uncle Zhuang? Xianyang’s city guards are all trash!”

“Trash?”

Xiang Zhuang let out a shrill laugh.

“That’s right—the soldiers patrolling the gate were trash!”

“It only took me a quarter of an hour to find three fatal flaws in their defenses!”

“I killed two of them, and they didn’t even make a sound!”

Xiang Guan became even more confused.

“Then why did you still fail?”

“Because they weren’t Jinyiwei at all!”

Xiang Zhuang’s voice suddenly rose sharply, tinged with madness.

“They were ordinary soldiers dressed in Jinyiwei uniforms! That little demon deliberately placed them there for me to kill!”

“And that Chunyu Yue!”

“What ‘pillar of Confucianism’? He was just bait hanging from a hook! A lantern hung at the city gate!”

“That little brat… that monster!”

“From the very beginning, he was waiting for me atop the city wall!”

“He was waiting for me to walk straight into his net!”

The entire hall fell into dead silence.

A middle-aged military officer sitting nearby frowned.

“Zhuang, even if it was a trap, with your swordsmanship, nobody should have been able to stop you from escaping.”

“Other than Qinglong, who else could possibly stand beside Ying Ziye?”

At the mention of the name “Qinglong,” Xiang Zhuang’s body trembled even more violently.

Slowly, he raised his still-bleeding right hand.

That hand, which had once firmly gripped a sword and severed countless heads, now shook like a leaf in the wind.

“I exchanged one move with him.”

He spoke hoarsely, every word squeezed painfully through clenched teeth.

“Three years ago, in Dong Commandery, I fought him to the death.”

“I suffered six sword wounds. He carried seven injuries.”

“We were evenly matched.”

Hearing this, pride appeared on Xiang Guan’s face.

“Uncle Zhuang is mighty! That Qinglong is nothing special after all!”

“Nothing special?”

Xiang Zhuang suddenly raised his head. His blood-red eyes glared fiercely at Xiang Guan.

With a loud clang, he threw his broken sword onto the ground.

“Take a look!”

“This is what you call ‘nothing special’!”

Everyone gathered closer.

The hundred-times-forged steel sword was covered with countless rice-sized chips along its blade.

But the most fatal damage was at the sword tip.

The originally razor-sharp tip had been bizarrely bent to one side, as though snapped apart by an unimaginable force.

“Th-This… what happened?”

Xiang Zhuang gave a miserable laugh and slowly raised his right hand.

“He never drew his blade.”

“He only used two fingers.”

“Clink!”

Xiang Zhuang imitated the sound that still made his soul tremble in fear.

“My sword… was caught between them.”

“Just like that… caught!”

Hiss—

A collective gasp echoed through the hall.

Every military officer felt a chill shoot from the soles of their feet straight to the top of their heads.

Breaking a sword with two fingers!

This was no longer the martial skill of an ordinary human!

Extreme fear and humiliation appeared on Xiang Zhuang’s face.

“I thought that was already the greatest humiliation.”

“But I was wrong!”

“That little brat… that monster… sat atop the city wall less than thirty meters from me!”

“While watching me fight Qinglong to the death, he…”

Xiang Zhuang’s voice began trembling, as though recalling a scene of unimaginable horror.

“He was… eating lotus seed soup!”

“With a white jade bowl and a golden spoon, eating mouthful after mouthful!”

“He even smiled at me!”

Imitating Ying Ziye’s childish tone, Xiang Zhuang spoke in a babyish voice that nevertheless made everyone present feel their scalps go numb.

“‘Uncle, why did your sword stop moving?’”

“‘Do you dislike this Young Master, or are you just out of strength?’”

“He even pointed at Chunyu Yue hanging by the city gate and asked me…”

“‘Uncle, do you think this lantern is bright?’”

The entire hall became so silent that even a pin drop could be heard.

The innocent words of a child intertwined with bloody, cruel reality, forming a scene chilling enough to freeze the soul itself.

That was not a child.

That was a devil sitting upon the dragon throne!

Xiang Zhuang’s breathing became increasingly ragged, his eyes filled with the despair of someone who had narrowly escaped death.

“I ran.”

“I used all my strength to force Qinglong back and leaped from the city wall.”

“I thought I could escape.”

“But…”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

It was as if he could once again hear the sound of arrows slicing through the night sky.

“Below the wall, from the shadows on both sides of the street, hundreds of torches lit up at the same time!”

“The entire city gate became bright as day!”

“Hundreds of loaded heavy crossbows were all aimed at me!”

“That was not an assassination attempt!”

Xiang Zhuang let out a shrill roar.

“That was a hunt! A grand hunt prepared specifically for me alone!”

“If I hadn’t used the ‘Iron Fire Thunder’ bestowed by you, my lord, then right now… I would already be a corpse riddled with arrows!”

Bang!

The young Xiang Guan slammed the table again and jumped to his feet, eyes bloodshot.

“This is going too far!”

“My lord! Give me three thousand troops! I’ll march to Xianyang right now, flatten his Qilin Hall, and twist that little bastard’s head off!”

“Silence!”

Xiang Bo, the calm and steady elder seated beside Xiang Liang who had remained silent until now, suddenly barked out a furious reprimand.

He tightly grabbed hold of the impulsive Xiang Guan, his face pale.

“Haven’t we embarrassed ourselves enough already?!”

“This is obviously the enemy’s open scheme! He wants to provoke us into going there! If you lead troops there now, you’ll just be throwing your life away!”

“I…”

Xiang Guan’s face flushed red, yet he could not utter a single rebuttal.

Arguments once again erupted throughout the hall.

Then—

“Enough.”

Xiang Liang slowly rose to his feet.

Ignoring the arguing crowd, he personally walked down the steps and helped the battered Xiang Zhuang up from the floor.

His fingers lightly brushed over the deep blade wound at Xiang Zhuang’s waist.

Then he picked up the broken sword from the ground and carefully examined the fractured sword tip.

There was no anger on his face.

No humiliation.

Only a gravity unlike anything he had ever shown before.

After a long while—

He walked to the enormous map hanging in the center of the hall.

His gaze settled on the point at the center of the map—

Xianyang.

Looking at that location, he spoke his conclusion to everyone present.

And his voice seemed to lower the temperature of the entire hall to freezing point.

“He is not defending against us.”

“He is… inviting us.”

Xiang Guan and the others were completely confused.

“Inviting us?”

Xiang Guan could not help asking:

“Inviting us to do what?!”

Slowly, Xiang Liang turned around.

He looked at the proud sons of the Xiang clan gathered throughout the hall.

His voice was hoarse and bitter as he spoke each word slowly and clearly.

“Inviting us…”

“To gather all our friends.”

“And then…”

“To go die together.”