A Dish Best Served Cold (The Man In Rage)

Chapter 1977

Ye Fan sneered coldly.

However, King Folo and the others remained unconvinced, as they still harbored misplaced hopes toward their ancestor and ancient master.

“In that case, allow me to cement your disappointment completely!” declared Ye Fan with mirthless eyes.

Following that, he drew out his sword and brought it crashing down with fury.

An expanse of sword energy that stretched over a thousand meters wide cleaved toward the fore in the direction of Folo Mountain.

Rumble!

The earth ripped, and the mountains trembled.

Slicing and dicing as though he was chopping up vegetables, Ye Fan delivered countless slashes in a row that leveled the sacred ground of the Indian martial arts world.

“Y-You...”

“B*stard!” “How dare you scourge India's ancestral grounds!”

The eyes of King Folo and the others with him reddened upon witnessing those mountains that had been the vessels for legacies spanning centuries all laid to waste in the hands of Ye Fan.

Thousands of meters of majestic peaks in every direction were reduced to a pile of rubble, lickety- split.

Oh, how the hearts of King Folo and company bled!

In the face of the destruction wrought upon their most revered site, they bore witness to their ancient master's continued failure to appear.

That was when King Folo realized that Ye Fan was correct in his assertion that their nation's ancestor and ancient master might never surface again.

Havingtheirfinal hopes dashed left King Folo, Haibu, and company in utter despair.

Like a man overboard, they had clung to the possibility of Indra showing up like it was their lifebuoy.

However, that lifebuoy had vanished too.

Hence, one could only imagine the extent of their distraught.

In that instant, King Folo felt drained as weariness and weakness overwhelmed him like the rise of the tides.

Toward the end, these Indian Supremes staggered and slumped onto their knees as even the strength to stand had deserted them.

“Hahaha... Hahahaha... The heavens demand India's demise! It's the very gods themselves who want to see the Indian martial arts world in ruins... I can only curse my own ineptitude for ushering the end of thousands of years of martial arts world history on my watch,” cried King Folo who broke into a sudden guffaw.

Such was the helplessness and desolation audible in King Folo's anguished voice. He had seemingly aged decades in an instant.

Priorto this, never in their wildest dreams had King Folo and the others with him imagined that the mighty Indian martial arts world would be destroyed by one man single-handedly.

Humiliation, indignance, despair, and hatred were amongst the plethora of emotions that surged through King Folo's heart.

Before he knew it, those wizened eyes of King Folo's were already awash with tears.

“You've won, Chu Tianfan... We wholeheartedly accept our defeat and are willing to meet our own deaths. I have one thing to request of you, though. Could I ask that you spare our civilians and the rest of the martial artists of India? Only the handful of us is responsible for the wrong that was wrought.

Everyone else is blameless.”

King Folo looked at Ye Fan and implored the latter, as did Haibu and Bapei.

“We humbly accept our deaths... and only ask that you'd show your mercy and spare the people of India...”

The haggard and saddened trio all tabled their last requests to Ye Fan.

Afterward, they tried hard to force their own battered bodies onto their knees to beg Ye Fan for mercy.

That was a development that came to Ye Fan as some

surprise.

He had not expected these three unscrupulous and deceitful Supremes from Folo Palace to experience such an epiphany when on the verge of death.

Initially, he was under the impression that the trio would similarly beg on their knees but heap all the blame solely upon Fen Tian like those Grandmasters from before.

Now, it would seem that these top leaders of India's martial arts world had some redeeming qualities to them after all.

Ye Fan had no doubt that these three meant every word that they said. Hence, he had a change of heart at the sight of the trio who had sought their own deaths.

“I could accede to your request, but on one condition.” Ye Fan regarded them smilingly with a twinkle in his eyes.

“What would you ask of us?”

King Folo and the other two looked at Ye Fan in confoundment as they simply could not figure out what further value they might be able to offer him.

All of their stakes had been cashed out by Ye Fan, and Ye Fan was already in a position to lay claim to their lives anytime he wanted like they were lambs to the slaughter.

Under these circumstances, they were quite baffled by Ye Fan's attempt to impose further conditions on them.

“What I ask is simple. I demand that the three of you agree to serve me as my slaves. For a period of fifty years, you three Supremes must abide by my orders. You shall strike whenever I want and kill whoever I tell you to! Do you agree to this term?” Ye Fan loomed over them and expressed his real intent.

It turned out that Ye Fan was not going to take their lives.

At times, a living punishment is even harder to endure, given the swiftness and ease of death.

Indeed, Ye Fan's tabling ofthis demand had the trio who had their sights set on dying in a sudden uproar.

“No way! Absolutely out of the question. The three of us would rather die than be enslaved!” King Folo bellowed.

As King Folo had already spoken in their stead, there was little Haibu and Bapei could do apart from nod along in agreement.

Practically speaking, the condition set by Ye Fan was a rather harsh one, as the Supreme Grandmasters were all leading figures in their own rights who lived by their ethos and upheld their dignity.

“Death before surrender,” or so it was said.

What was more, should word go out that they had willingly bound themselves to the services of Ye Fan, it would be received as an incontrovertible stain upon the reputation of India as a whole.

In the face of nationalistic pride, the trio did not fear death. Instead, it was the demand Ye Fan made that they dreaded.

Ye Fan remained unhurried and only responded with a subtle smile. “In that case, I will first kill you. Then, I shall destroy the Indian martial arts world and exterminate your fellow citizens. That way, the three of you will not find yourselves alone on the way to the nether realms, which reminds me. There is another matter that you may not be aware of. I've already slaughtered each and every one of those one hundred fighters whom you brainwashed during Fen

Tian's wedding.” “Y-You...” The color drained from their faces when they heard Ye Fan's words.

“You're insane!”

“You're a monster. An absolute monster...”

The trio were scared witless.

Counting more than a few dozen Grandmasters amongst them, those men were all major pillars of their communities from all over the world. To think that they have all been killed by Ye Fan!

They were never in doubt of the truth of Ye Fan's proclamation, for a keen evaluation of Ye Fan's past track record in battle would reveal what a ruthless character that one was.

Many years ago, he was the one who culled the numerous fighters from the various countries inside the rainforest.

His infamy of being recognized globally as the monster of the martial arts world at present only made him feel even more justified in annihilating these martial artists.

If the former dared to kill the martial artists from distant lands, King Folo felt that Ye Fan would be just as capable of doing the same to his fellow countrymen.

Finally, after a tumultuous internal struggle, the trio was compelled to accept Ye Fan's demands.

“All right! We agree. However, I want your assurances on the establishment of certain boundaries. Without which, we would rather die and let down the several billion of my people!” said King Folo between gritted teeth.

In the end, King Folo proposed three conditions of his own.

Firstly, they would be amendable to servitude, but that matter was to be kept secret, never to be shared with others apart from the four of them.

Secondly, they would agree to serve even at the cost of their lives, but nothing they did was to bring harm to their own countrymen. This belongs to NôvelDrama.Org - ©.

Thirdly, they would only agree to five years at most, as fifty was too long a duration.

Ye Fan readily agreed to the former two terms cited but not to the third.

“Five years is too short. Make it ten.”

“No. We insist on five!”

“Twenty,” Ye Fan replied.

That got King Folo unnerved. “Didn't you say ten?”

“Thirty,” Ye Fan continued.

“That's enough. Our fates are already in your hands, so thirty years it is!” Bereft of options, the trio could only sign off on this degrading pact with Ye Fan in secrecy.

Henceforth, the three martial arts leaders of India had agreed to serve under Ye Fan for a period of thirty years.