855 Months of Planning

"This… IMPOSSIBLE!!! How could months of planning have been thwarted so easily?!" Banned Emperor Elder Wang Ba Tan couldn't believe the reality of the situation as he controlled the Loopa Ooofpa's hand tentacles to intercept the incoming attacks.

He was not hiding in the mountains nor in some other remote location. No, he was actually inside the monster, offering up his blood, sweat and chi to the best of his ability to keep the colossal monstrosity alive.

His only hope was that his brother, Wang Ji Tan in Dongguan was faring better than him right now. After having been locked up in the Royal Tigers' special security prison for a long time, they had been freed by their companions and the brothers were finally able to exact revenge on the public.

Initially, things had gone smoothly with the destruction of several smaller cities around the world as part of their experiment and diversion. Confident about their odds, they had returned to China so they could unleash one of the largest Monster Hordes in China to put the Royal Zodiacs to shame.

All according to the will of their Emperor!

They could not tolerate seeing those traitors dominate the current world. The Elders wanted them out of society's equation and start a new regime with the Banned Emperor returning and rightfully reclaiming his rule over China.

Although Ba Tan knew that his age was getting up there, he believed that he still had it in him to lead this Monster Horde which would serve as the perfect opening declaration of war against the traitors.

However, things didn't go as expected. The resistance turned out to be far stronger than they had scouted, and the cultivators on-site were seemingly aware of the weakness of the Loopa Ooofpa.

He couldn't understand how this was possible. The archive reports should have been adjusted by an 'expert' in monsterology about five years ago. The army was meant to attack the target 'Sundew' with a variety of attacks all of them as mighty as possible.

By absorbing the attacks, the Unceasing Hunger would have grown in strength and become unstoppable. The army would have contributed to it evolving and becoming capable of throwing out even more dangerous moves that could hopefully decimate cities in a matter of minutes.

The Elders had made preparations to counter various famous cultivators from the Royal Zodiac Clans and those affiliated with them, including Grandma Yuan, the last surviving Demon Exorcists from the first appearance of the Loopa Ooofpa.

And yet, there he was, stuck fighting a bunch of unnamed cultivators he had never heard of or seen before.

Meanwhile, his brother was faring no better. It appeared as if he had sorely underestimated the powers of Grandma Yuan, despite all the simulations and projections from their best analysts. Then again, how could anyone of those have taken into account that Grandma Yuan was getting access to the System and its copious amounts of chi?

Given her advanced age, she should have been straining herself to maintain the enormous chi consumption the Golden Griffin needed to retain its physical form unless she relied on blood sacrifices. Yet, they were sure that was something she would never do to avoid repeating the fate of her fallen companions.

To merely call it months of planning was too humble of their grand plans. The Banned Emperor faction had long since infiltrated all corners of the government while keeping a low profile. While this Monster Horde was one of the first major attacks in years, one shouldn't ignore the decades of misinformation and misdirection that preceded this incident.

The main reason why Chancellor Ma He did not send out a bigger force of Demon Exorcists in the first place was that the report did not reach him. It was actually the Vice Chancellor who reviewed it based on a quick summary by his aides. Even Grandma Yuan's recommendation had been toned down by his aides. But whether the aides were part of the Banned Emperor faction or someone who had forwarded the report, that would be entirely another issue by itself.

Although the Banned Emperor had many plans in mind, the Monster Horde was undoubtedly one that had used up a considerable amount of their resources. Elder Wang was naturally aware of all of it, making him so distraught that the defenders were able to cope so well.

Their Loopa Ooofpa manifestation had been damaged to the point that it would be hard to make any groundbreaking changes in the current situation.

Not long ago, one of his charms broke, indicating that a foreign person had entered their secret hideout in the mountain. A quick localised scan via his chi found informed him that they had all been slaughtered mercilessly. Body parts all around the place and their solidified Dantian cores had been extracted with precision, ignoring all the charms, trap formations and competency of his comrades which should have been able to contend with even State Agents.

Everything had changed once that "Panda Man" and his teammates came in. At first, they had not seemed any different from the two Dragon cultivators or the annoying private contractors who had been disturbing his horde expansion for months.

He had even looked forward to the short girl charging up her energy which she was about to unleash on the Loopa Ooofpa. With that kind of energy, his Loopa Ooofpa could have been invincible... Until a man in a trenchcoat had appeared, making the girl actually divided up the energy and imbued it into birds the Panda Man had summoned after growing wings…

It became worse when the Royal Rooster Air Force, infamous for their bright red planes swooped in and used the same tactic with their missiles as seen as the newly arrived trio. This indicated to Wang Ba Tan that those people might actually be affiliated to the military, especially to the Royal Zodiac… And that made Ba Tan's blood boil.

"I cannot let myself be beaten by these lowly beings that are despised by our mighty Emperor! If they think they are so clever, then I shall show them a world of pain even if part of this monster has to be sacrificed for it! From the looks of it, they are of high cultivation and eliminating them will prove to be beneficial for the faction's future!" Ba Tan thought as he suffered another blow from Ryuli's energy blast from her war umbrella.

"Show me how you will survive the trials of our punishment...Hahahaha!!! FOR THE EMPEROR!!!" Ba Tan said as he pulled his hand out of Loopa Ooofpa's flesh and started to beat his chest and chant.

Immediately, Jin and the others felt that something was seriously off even when the Loopa Ooofpa was evidently wounded from their barrage of attack. The colossal manifestation did not stop and actually started to rampage further, forcing Jin to take out a new card from his deck and transformed once more.

"Card Activated, Dark Templar Form." The System stated as the armour lost its wings and turned into a cape instead. Jin' suit had transformed into a standard Dark Templar armour in appearance.

As for the strength and durability of the armour, it was definitely tougher than the ones the demon worshippers used. However, the only thing Jin really cared about at that moment was the ability to call upon Demons.

Jin and the System figured that if Loopa Ooofpa was from the Hell Plane, it should be possible to banish it back to Hell once more. Of course, Kraft and Peppers would be aiding in the procedure since there was no way a single cultivator would be able to banish such a colossal manifestation like Loopa Ooofpa.

However, things took a drastic turn when the monster howled loudly as if it was in pain and it's hand tentacles started to vibrate.

"This does not look good! Zieg, can't you do it faster? Surely there should be something like an emergency banish in your repertoire?!" Jin questioned the Dark Templar Commander on his magical ritual which had already been accelerated by Jin's Maqi.

"This is already as fast as I can do without breaking the integrity of the ritual, Master! Banishing a named hell creature even though it's just a manifestation of it, is equally hard because of the rules involved in it! If I do a poor job, it will either not work or worse cause serious backlash to your body!" Zieg warned as he slammed the rider's gloves deep into the ground.

Now it was a race to see who would be first to kill the other.