Chapter 51 - Reborn

"Move out of the way! Move!" the royal guards shouted as Lance quickly exited the old cemetery and arrived at the inner city districts. As the crowd hurriedly moved, one of the palace guards used a water element art to spray water all over them.

Lance cursed as the water revealed glass over his body, reflecting sunlight, and hastily bound the bracelet to change his appearance. The palace guards had never seen his appearance up close. Right now, he looked like a black-haired man with a small beard growing under his chin.

"That must be him!" one of the two palace guards roared as the third stayed behind to look after the corpse and the fourth had already left for reinforcements.

"Moon Slicer Art," Lance roared, sending crescent moon blades soaring at the two palace guards, each six feet in diameter. Lance followed up with an earth practitioner art: Pulse Rock Wave Art. As the two palace guards blocked the moon blades, a tidal wave of earth and stone roared toward them as Lance stomped his right foot onto the ground before rushing into a nearby inn.

"City Guards, he killed the crown prince! Get him!" one of the palace guards ordered as the two combined forces to block the rock wave with their fire and water element arts. The nearby guards nodded and rushed into the inn. Lance had already ascended the stairs to the sleeping rooms and used his Viper's Dominance Art, blasting open all the doors with his spirit energy. He used his Mirror Mirage Art, turning invisible as he broke his disguise back to Lance Wang. The palace guards and pedestrians all saw the 'face' of the man who killed the crown prince.

As the guards rushed upstairs, Lance entered one of the rooms and closed the door. He stopped his practitioner art and turned back, stunned as he saw a bathing woman in a hot tub staring back at him. His eyes narrowed as two people appeared by the door, their blades held upside down as they positioned themselves before the woman.

"Turn invisible. Quickly," the bathing woman said, the three surprised as they heard the city guards.

"Open the doors and search! He entered one of the rooms!" the voices said, Lance quickly harnessing his spiritual energy and turning invisible as one guard entered the room, his face stunned by the beautiful young woman before him.

"How dare you enter My Lady's room while she bathes?" one of the woman's bodyguards roared, the city guard's face reddening as her words brought back his senses.

"Apologies. Did you see a man about five foot six with black hair and a black beard beneath his chin?" the city guard asked, his composure restored.

"No. As you can see, I am bathing, and my bodyguards are women," the woman in the bathtub answered. "What did the man do?"

"Apologies for the interruption. You might hear this on the street later, but the man committed high treason for killing the crown prince. At least, I heard the palace guards say so. There is no official announcement of His Highness's death," the city guard said, bowing low and quickly shutting the door behind him as he left.

"Why did you not sell me out? You could have gotten a reward," Lance said, stopping his Mirror Mirage Art.

"I have no loyalty to my mother's homeland. They made her a slave after her noble family fell from grace. Besides, I figured you to be the man in V.I.P. Box 7. The same man who mocked the crown prince for buying the Libido Statue. You do realize that a statue making you impotent means your... manhood will not... glorify itself and grow with your perverted desires?" the woman asked.

"I know. The Libido Statue, the real one, makes a man impotent. Sterile. That way, the woman does not give birth. The crown prince must have wanted it for its absolute protection, you know, no sexual disease or whatnot. Like I told him before: he wasn't much of a man to buy such a thing," Lance shrugged. "I mean, the statue makes a woman below the Meteor Vessel Stage attracted to you, but your mating part will not enlarge. I never did mate, but having a woman without properly mating with her seems... disappointing."

"So you will give it to me," the woman said. "Such a thing must be destroyed."

"Magical treasures can be altered. I can substitute impotency with sterility. All it takes is a good amount of spirit energy control," Lance said. "Three women at the Element Adept Stage. If you're not loyal to the Song Dynasty, why come here?"

"To carry out the mission you completed," the woman answered.

"You were going to kill the crown prince? At your cultivation level?" Lance asked, incredulous. His heart relaxed as he sensed the spirit energies of the palace and city guards heading off in different directions from the inn.

"We had our methods. He is a perverted man. An illusion would suffice once he had me alone with him in his chambers," the woman said.

"Why kill that perverted fat ass? For a rival nation or empire, such an incompetent living to assume the throne would have been the better option. Killing him would not be good business," Lance assessed.

"One of the women he enslaved into his harem was my mother's sister. His death is personal," the woman answered. "You killed him, so consider us even. It would have been difficult—not impossible—for me and my bodyguards to escape after the assassination."

"Then I'll take my leave," Lance said, but the woman held up her hand.

"Join me. You said you could alter the Libido Statue. Prove it. My bodyguards will now return to their rooms," the woman said, Lance stunned.

"....Yes, My Lady," the two bodyguards said, also stunned as they left the two alone. As Lance grinned and took out the Libido Statue, quickly bonding with it to learn how he could use it to alter it, changes were happening in the palace.

"WHAT! What happened to Shen Bu?" a man in a golden tiger fur robe roared as his fist banged onto his white wood and gold throne. "What happened to my firstborn son! My first child! He was a lousy, perverted fat ass, but he was my son! MY, Shen Wukong's, SON! The son of the Emperor of the Song Dynasty!"

"Your, Your Majesty. You must calm yourself," the head eunuch said. "Your actions and how you react to this will be assessed by Your Majesty's enemies. Future acts might happen in the future. The killer might have been employed by the enemy. An investigation must be made in secret."

"No! Someone killed my son! My son! I want him found! If the killer is not brought to me by sundown, I will have the families of my son's bodyguards executed for their incompetence! Find him! A reward of one billion, no, one hundred billion demon spirit coins will be given! Even those foreigners will assist after they realize the reward's price when they calculate the currency exchange rate for their homelands! In fact, my son's harem will be given to whoever brings me his head! Find him! Now!" the emperor roared. "Go!"

"Yes, Gong-gong understands," the eunuch said, stating his title in the palace before leaving. When the head eunuch broke the news, the ministers and generals were shocked. None of them liked the crown prince, not even those who were on his side, but someone had actually killed the crown prince. A hundred billion bounty and the harem of the most beautiful women in the palace that dwarfed the beauties of the emperor's harem himself; this was proof of how much the emperor loved and tolerated his eldest son.

There was no doubt that the emperor would indeed have made the crown prince his successor. Some silently offered sacrifices to their ancestors, thanking them for allowing the perverted prince to be brought to justice. Many parents and wives silently celebrated the death of the most notorious rapist and some believed the empire was entering a new era. None of them realized that the man in question was actually a reincarnated world serpent in the body of a teenager who was having sex with a woman he had met while bathing in a hot tub.