"He's gonna catch up in less than a minute master," Ensis said looking at the red silhouette closing in on them.

Although Bai was extremely fast, that was only in terrains with some obstructions like mountains, forests, swamps, etc.

When running in a wide-open field such as this with nothing to jump on to boost his speed, a mount like the Dragon Horse which was bred for the sole purpose of running from one place to another in the shortest amount of time possible would, of course, overtake him sooner rather than later.

Hao Xuan looked back and saw the Dragon Horse he hadn't seen in such a long time. Dragon horses were expensive to breed and keep so only the rich and the high-level government officers had them.

He squinted his eyes and focused on the rider. 2 seconds later his eyes adjusted like a camera lens and the rider's face could be seen clearly.

'I don't recognize that guy..."

"30 seconds. I will hold him off, you should get back inside the city walls before they close the gate's for good."

Ensis spoke while diverting all his Qi towards the floating blades. Out of the original 7, only 3 were left. The rest were broken during the earlier fight and he didn't have enough Qi left to summon them once again.

Hao Xuan stared at the Dragon Horse until it was less than a 100 meters behind before patting Bai's shoulder.

"Stop," he murmured. Bai slowed down and came to a halt, much to Rade's surprise who was getting ready to jump off of his Dragon horse and attack them.

Ensis quickly leaned over to Hao Xuan and whispered.

"Master, this is not a good idea. Even with both of us together we can't take him on."

Thick ripples of golden Qi were coming off of Rade's body lighting up his Cleaver like an ornament. Right now he looked completely different from before, an aura of nobility and grandeur circling around him, oppressing his enemies.

He came to a stop about 15 meters away from Hao Xuan. Hao Xuan's face was covered with the mask revealing only his eyes, while Ensis' bottom half was covered with a black energy.

With the giant cleaver in hand, Rade jumped down from the horse. 7 faint palaces were shimmering above his head, each one about 30 meters in size. He had activated his complete power. It was quite obvious he wasn't planning on having just a friendly 'conversation'.

They stared at each other in complete silence. The only sound around them was the pitter-patter of the raindrops hitting the muddy ground.

Hao Xuan was the first to break the silence.

"I-"

"Give up. Surrender. No matter what you say, I can't let you go," Rade rudely interrupted as soon as Hao Xuan started to speak.

Hao Xuan calmly shook his head.

"Not possible."

Rade's brow furrowed, "Then why did you stop?"

"To warn you."

"Warn me about what?"

"What's in there," Hao Xuan pointed at the billowing smoke in the distance.

Rade turned his head sideways, keeping one eye on Hao Xuan and the other on the pillar of smoke.

"And What's that?" he asked amusingly with a half-smile.

"Specters. Tens of thousands of them. Do you know what they are?"

Rade's smile froze and his expression hardened like stone.

"That's not possible. Specters don't just "appear" out of nowhere, especially in a place like this."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not. I just wanted to warn you. If they get out, there's no telling how much damage they will do before you are able to stop them."

"....."

Rade stared at Hao Xuan's eyes but couldn't find a single hint of a lie. Maybe he was just a great liar or maybe he was telling the truth, but Rade couldn't take the chance.

He raised the cleaver, pointing it at Hao Xuan.

"You're under arrest. You will explain your connection to that place when we get back and if the specters are real, I will personally speak to the generals on your behalf. Come with me silently."

Hao Xuan was surprised by the unknown man's offer. Just now when he mentioned the specters, he was also looking at his reaction. He was genuinely surprised to hear about them which was apparent from his faster heartbeat and a slight flush around his ears, which Hao Xuan caught.

With his higher senses, doing this much was pretty easy, especially when the man wasn't trying to hide anything from him.

"You're not one of them..." he murmured.

Rade faltered, "One of who?"

Instead of answering, Hao Xuan decided to make a bet. His gut was telling him that this man in front of him was genuine, and even more in the dark than he was. So he removed his mask.

"Master!" Ensis moved in front of him, "You can't just trust him like that!"

Hao Xuan tilted his head sideways, "Don't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"His Qi, it's too pure. Almost disgustingly so," Hao Xuan looked at the golden energy around Rade. he wasn't lying about that, he could feel it inside of him.

Although he didn't realize this at the moment, what Hao Xuan felt had a far deeper meaning than just a simple feeling.

Certain energies had prior requirements that needed to be met to be able to understand them perfectly, and Rade had cultivated one such energy.

The one he chose was the 'energy' of Rectitude or righteousness. This meant that he had to have a personality that was aligned with this energy. Hao Xuan didn't know the reason behind it, but he 'felt' it because one of his energies was the same.

The very first energy he cultivated, the Emperor's Qi, required him to have a personality of a ruler, an emperor!

Fortunately, there were many types of emperors and its criteria were pretty broad.

Hao Xuan took our his own military badge and threw it towards Rade.

Startled, Rade quickly checked the badge's authorization and his expression turned to one of astonishment. He looked up at Hao Xuan with a dumbfounded expression, only to see him smiling back at him.

"We're on the same side, you and I. Keep the badge, bring it to the military headquarters tomorrow at 9 and I'll explain everything I can, but right now you need to get a move on."

Hao Xuan jumped back up on Bai without waiting for Rade to respond.

"The specters are real, and they should be coming out any minute. Give the warning, tell them to raise the barrier at full power and call everyone back into the city, go!"

His voice came from afar while Bai's silhouette slowly became smaller and smaller in the rainy night.

Rade woke up from his daze and dialed a number on his spirit band while muttering, "The Flying Tigers, the Red Legion, and now ghostly specters? What the hell is going on....?'

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