1808 A Chance

Long Huan's face was a mixture of shock, horror, and fury. He was simply speechless to say what he wanted to see. All he could do was stare at the place where the man's body had exploded and turned to dust.

How easily had that man died, and that too while he was about to do the right thing?

Long Huan slowly turned his face toward his father, who now stood right in front of him with not a single emotion for the man who had just died. He did not even feel sadness for losing a subordinate or remorse for killing someone who wasn't even fighting anyone.

He stared into the eyes of his callous man and felt his shock subside as the hateful emotions took over slowly.

How long had it been since he had come face to face with this man before him? Long Huan remembered the last time he had been alone with him was when he was asked to return the Ivory sword.

Today, the man had the Ivory sword, so there was nothing that Long Huan had that he could give back to him.

The Dragon Emperor slowly floated toward Long Huan, and Long Huan instinctively started floating back.

"Are you afraid of me?" the Dragon Emperor asked his son.

"Why would I not be?" Long Huan asked. "You just killed an innocent man before me with no thought."

"This is a war. Everyone here is innocent and not at the same time," the Emperor said. "How innocent do you think you yourself are?"

Long Huan didn't answer. This wasn't the time for a conversation. He needed to run away. But he couldn't see an opening at all.

Everyone around him was busy with their own fights. He could see Hannah far away, caught in a fight with half a dozen different people. He could see Zhou Linfan, similarly caught in another fight.

Every single person of any worth was fighting someone already. He wanted to look for a way out, but even that wasn't there.

"Are you scared I'm going to kill you?" the Dragon Emperor asked Long Huan.

Long Huan turned around. "Forgive me if I find your presence threatening to my life. You haven't been exactly safe for me these past many years," Long Huan said.

The Dragon Emperor gave a small smirk. "You would've been dead had I truly tried to kill you," the man said. "But I didn't, that's why you are still alive. Even with your wife, with the army I had that day, I could've killed you easily. You're only alive because I chose not to."

Long Huan's eyes narrowed. "Do you want me to thank you for not killing me?" he asked in a mocking tone. He wasn't sure why he was doing what he was doing, but he couldn't stop himself from taking that tone with his father.

The Dragon Emperor stared at his son for a solid second and shook his head. "I still don't understand why you care so much about the life of someone else over your literal father. Do you care that little of your own blood? Did you care that little about me?"

"You know I didn't," Long Huan said. "But you changed. You are not the father I knew. Or at least, you are not the father you acted yourself to be in our presence before. You led Mother to her death by attacking the Azure Dragon. She would've still been alive had that not happened."

"She was the one who suggested—"

"I don't care," Long Huan cut him off. "We are long past that talk now. Mother made her choice and she died for it. I'm not going to make the same mistake and aid you with your heinous crimes."

"You eradicated entire royal families without any reason. You attacked an entire continent for no real reason. I should have known you were not a good person from the start. I'm just glad to have figured it out before it was too late. I'm not going to let you have your way anymore."

The Dragon Emperor simply closed his eyes and sighed. "Are you the one that leaves…" he said softly. "Or are you the one that is left behind?"

"What?" Long Huan asked. He could hear his father clearly, but the words made no sense to him. Leave? Left behind? What did that have anything to do with what was going on?

"I'm certain now that you are not the one that stays, whatever that means," the Emperor said. "But still, I will give you one last chance."

"I'll let you come to my side. Come back to me and I'll let you and your friends alone. You can have your wife too, I won't do anything to her either. Since I've taken away your brother's right to the throne, you can become the next Emperor."

Long Huan's eyes narrowed. He couldn't believe that his father would actually think he would still come back.

"I don't care about this attack on me either. I have nothing to fear here. All that I will be taking from here is the corpse of that king and that stripeless tiger. No more people need to die beside them."

"So, what do you say? Will you need time, or can you make the decision now?"

Long Huan thought for a moment. He didn't have to think as to what his answer would be. That was something that easily came to him. What he thought of instead was how to run away. He needed time and this seemed the best way to get some of it.

He searched for people who could help him, but even as his senses searched throughout the battlefield, he could see no help coming.

There was no one here that could help him.

And as despair set upon him, he heard his father's voice.

"I thought so," the Dragon Emperor said. That was all the confirmation he needed.

Long Huan tried to move back, but an aura from his father caught onto him. He tried to struggle out of it, but the aura was simply too strong.

"Whichever of the two you are, I do not care anymore," the Emperor said.

His spear appeared by his side and immediately a terrible aura surrounded the man. Lightning crackled all around the spear as the Dragon Emperor poured his Immortal Qi into it.

Long Huan paled as he watched his father prepare the attack. He gulped in fear, but there was nothing else he could do.

He was going to die.

"Goodbye, son," the Dragon Emperor said and launched the attack.

A pillar of bright white streaked toward Long Huan in a split second and in the very next second it exploded into bright fiery light.

The Dragon Emperor protected himself against the bright light and took a moment to see what had just happened.

Right before Long Huan had been hit, someone had appeared and used an Immortal attack to protect him.

The Dragon Emperor saw the figure and gave a rather surprised look when he saw what the figure held.

Long Fangyu stood before his brother, having arrived in time to protect him using none other than the Ebony sword itself.